AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know, I know—again with the short chapter. But we're down to the wire and things are going to get super hairy really fast.

In this chapter, we find out that Sam's not the only one the demons have been screwing with.

The Devil You Know

6 Years Ago

Looking back on things, Fiona Brendon blamed her current situation on the 8th round of shots. She'd just stopped at Stanford to catch up with Sam and had somehow received an invitation to go to a party.

Now she, Sam, and Sam's girlfriend, Jessica, were at a tattoo parlor. Jessica had chosen just a simple rose tattoo on her left shoulder blade and Sam had went with an old protection sign he'd seen in a book some years ago.

And then it had been Fiona's turn. She hadn't wanted another military tat, nor did she want something basic. She wanted something distinctive and after a while, she had the perfect thing.

x

Morning came and while Jess and Sam had been able to write off their new body art as drunken mistakes, their tattoos were of a neutral nature.

Fiona hadn't been so lucky in that respect, but at least her tattoo of Bigwig, Fiver, and Hazel from the movie 'Watership Down' wasn't someplace where it would be constantly visible to her fellow Marines.

Meeting Jess at the local diner, Fiona felt more than a bit uneasy at talking with Sam's girlfriend. "So how long have you and Sam been dating?" Fi asked, curiously.

"8 months now," Jess replied, also feeling a bit awkward. After a while, she said, "Look, Sam's trying to make a new start, okay? And I really don't think it's a good idea for you to just waltz back into his life like this."

Present Day

The demons were getting worried. Every day Sam Winchester was being pulled away from the lure of the dark side by Fiona Brendon and it was getting harder and harder to keep the former Marine down.

Not that they haven't been trying for the past 33 years.

For a while, getting rid of Fiona by encouraging her to join the Marines had been effective. But once she had come back into the Winchester's lives, things had gotten even dicier.

The demon who still called himself Brady had decided long ago that the best way to screw with Sam—to push him towards his destiny—was to mess with those Sam cared about most.

Getting Dean to make the deal had taken almost no effort at all.

Using Ruby to get Sam's addiction to demon blood had taken a little more work, but Ruby had been patient.

But then Fiona entered the picture again.

The woman who should have died at 3 years old was still around and still making trouble.

And once Brady had been kidnapped by Crowley and Dean Winchester, he knew the trouble was just getting started.

"Fi, can I ask you something?" Sam asked as he and Fiona waited in the abandoned house for Dean and Crowley to return.

Taking the bottle of whiskey Sam offered, Fiona shrugged as she sat down on the dilapidated sofa. "Fire away, Sam," she replied after taking a long drink.

"Remember when Lilith possessed you?" Sam asked, thinking back.

"Yeah," Fi said, sarcastically, as she drank another shot of whiskey. "Kinda rings a bell." But after a moment, she fixed Sam with a look. "Why are you asking?"

Sam didn't meet her eyes as he took a long drink from the bottle and asked, "How did you manage to take back the wheel?"

"Why are you asking, Sam?" Fiona asked, suspiciously. But when she caught Sam's eye, she knew exactly why he was asking. "You're thinking of saying 'yes'."

"Say we get the cage open," Sam said, calmly. "Great. But then what? We just lead the devil to the edge and get him to jump in?" When Fiona didn't say anything, he pressed on. "What if we lead him to the edge… and I jump in?"

For the longest time, Fiona was silent. But finally, she took the whiskey bottle from Sam and set it down on the ground before standing up bringing a fist back and socking Sam in the face as hard as she could. "You want to know how it felt to have Lilith in my head?" She said, coldly as she punched Sam again. "What it was like watching her hurt you and Dean while I just watched?" Fi backed off as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I was locked in my head, screaming, and you couldn't hear me! I only managed to get control back because I didn't want Lilith to kill you and Dean!"

The two fell silent, not even looking at one another until they noticed the headlights pull up to the house.

x

Downstairs, Sam and Fi found Crowley blocking their path to what had once been the dining room.

"For the record," Crowley said, "I think this is one of the worst ideas in history. I mean, Sam would be bad enough. But the two of you together…" Gesturing to the room behind him, he said, "But, go on. Go. Ruin our last best hope."

In the room, Dean had just finished tying up the demon who had a bag over his head. Looking at Fiona and Sam, Dean straightened up and fixed the pair with a pointed look.

"Dean, what's going on?" Fi asked, looking from her best friend to the demon.

"I need the two of you on mission, okay?" Dean said, calmly. "Focused."

"I don't understand," Sam said, not sure how Fiona came into all this. "What's going on?"

"I'm doing this because I trust you guys," Dean went on. He knew what he was doing was a bad idea. But this wasn't the time to be keeping secrets.

"Sam?" The demon said, voice muffled by the canvas bag over his head. "Sam, is that you?"

When Dean pulled the bag off, Sam stared in disbelief. "Brady?"

The demon smiled at Sam. "Brady hasn't been Brady in years," he said, slyly. "Not since, oh… middle of our sophomore year?"

But Fiona also recognized the demon sitting before her. He'd worn a different face, but the eyes were the same. "You were that recruiter… You son of a bitch!" She slapped him hard in the face. "You're the one who told me I'd be doing everyone—including myself—a favor if I just walked out on my family!"

"Well, you did us a favor," Brady pointed out. "I mean, damn… With you still around, we never would have been able to get our claws in Sam."

"That's why you introduced me to Jess!" Sam snapped, going for his former 'friend'. He was stopped, however, by Dean and Fiona pushing him back out of the room.

But when Fi left Dean to deal with Sam, she went back into the room, pulling over another chair and sitting down on it backwards. "So how else have you screwed with my life? I mean, I can guess about Sam, but I have a feeling my joining the Marines wasn't the first time you sons of bitches started fucking with my life."

"Wow," Brady said, impressed. "Beauty and brains. No wonder Sam dug you so much." Shifting as much as he could, he went on. "You're right, of course. Although Jessica telling you to stay the hell away from Sam? That was all her. Funny how well she knew you after just one meeting, though, huh?"

Fiona said nothing as she studied the demon closely. Before Crowley, Sam, or Dean finished with Brady, she wanted as much information out of him as possible. "So I imagine you were behind Jess's death as well, huh? Maybe even the one who did the deed? Push Sam out of that safe, normal life he had and back into the world of everything scary?"

Brady smirked again and leaned back ever so slightly. The chick was sharp. It would be so much fun to push Fiona to the breaking point. "Sammy wasn't the only one," he said in a teasing tone. When Fiona stiffened, he laughed. "You and the Winchesters were so quick to blame Lilith for your daddy's murder."

Fiona slowly got to her feet and grabbed an old rag from a table nearby. Going behind Brady she gagged him before taking her seat in front of him again. "As much as I would love to kill you, I'm not going to, you bastard. And Sam? Boy, the way he was looking I could imagine him literally ripping you apart."

Brady wasn't sure what Fiona was up to, but he didn't like it. He couldn't hear anyone outside the room and even if he wanted to scream, he was gagged, so he wouldn't be heard anyway. His eyes widened when Fiona withdrew a knife, and held it in front of his face. He recognized the runes. The demon, Ruby, had fashioned a knife just like it centuries ago back when she'd been a witch. A knife to kill demons and a lot of other supernatural baddies.

"Hey, I'm going to check on our old pal, Sam," Fiona said with a sudden grin. Plunging the blade of the knife deep into Brady's upper leg, she smiled as the demon let out a muffled scream of pain. "Just hold onto that for a second, okay? Be right back."

Out in the foyer, Dean looked at Fiona skeptically. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

Fiona shook her head, before grabbing a small table and hurling it across the room where it broke in to a dozen pieces. When she saw Dean's worried look, she said, "Brady is the one who killed Dad. Not Lilith."

Dean rubbed his face with one hand and sighed. He hated the idea of what he was about to ask Fiona to do, but knew that she might actually be able to get the information out of Brady. "Look, I… I don't know how you are about torture, but…"

Fiona's expression was dark, but she nodded. "Give me 15 minutes. I'll have him singing like a friggin' canary." Going back into the room where Brady was being held, she yanked out the knife and wiped it off on Brady's pant leg before pulling the rag from his mouth. After putting the knife away, she went to the door and closed it and wedged another chair under the door knob to insure no one came barging in. When she resumed her seat in front of Brady, she said, "Let me tell you about my experience with being possessed by Lilith." Brady rolled his eyes and looked bored, but Fi pressed on. "I was stuck in my head watching every little thing in super hi-def."

"You think this is news to me?" Brady said, derisively. "Trust me—Brady has been hollering and screaming at me ever since I took him over."

Fi smiled and nodded. "Yeah, but the funny thing is… as much as Lilith was in my head, I got to see into hers as well." Fixing the demon facing her with a look, she added, "As long as you've been in Brady… Wow. I can't imagine the things he knows about you." Getting up so as to turn the chair around, she sat back down again and crossed her arms and legs, leaning back in her chair. "Now… We need the location of Pestilence. And you are going to give it to us."

"And why would I do that?" Brady asked, as though the notion were completely laughable.

Fi uncrossed her legs and arms before leaning forward. "It's called cowardice. You demons are full of it. Lilith didn't want to die before she broke the final seal. Azazel wanted the Colt because it could kill him. And Lucifer… Well, let's just say he's afraid of going back down south. Now, we could do this whole dance and I could do the whole torture thing which I would seriously enjoy given that you murdered my father."

It was the rare human who showed no remorse at the prospect of doing violence. And when Brady looked Fiona in the eye, he knew that she was one of them. "I'm dead either way," Brady argued. "So why should I tell you anything?"

Fiona leaned back with a twisted smile on her face. "What? You don't think you'd get bonus points with your boss for handing me and the Winchesters directly over to him?"

Brady hadn't thought of that.

"You're making me look bad," Crowley said as he and Fiona talked outside while Sam let off some steam by physically torturing Brady. "How'd you get Pestilence's location out of Brady?"

Fiona shrugged. "Between the Marines and watching Gibbs do interrogations, I've learned that sometimes talking works better than violence. Demons shut down when you torture. So I went with conversation."

Crowley seemed to be impressed by that, but if he actually was, he didn't show it. "I think you should know that it wasn't my idea to kill your mother before the deal was up," he said, wanting to keep Fiona from killing him since he could tell from the look in her eyes that she'd considered it. But when Fiona stiffened, getting ready to stab him with her own demon-killing knife, he smiled. "Well, as fun as this has been, I've got another stop to make. Working on tracking down Death, you know."

When Crowley vanished, Fiona wondered what the demon was up to now.

When Crowley appeared in Bobby Singer's house a short while later, he wasn't surprised to find three shotguns loaded with rock salt rounds aimed at him. Looking from Jo to Ellen to Bobby, he smiled. "I see you were expecting me."

"What are you doing here?" Jo asked with more bravado than she felt.

"Looking out for Crowley," the demon replied. "The boys and Miss Brendon are onto ring #3. But we still need ring #4 so I'm here to help."

"You know where Death is?" Ellen asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

Crowley paused for dramatic effect before shrugging carelessly. "No. Haven't the foggiest."

Bobby raised his shotgun another inch and growled, "Then get the hell off my property before I blast you so full of rock salt you crap margaritas!"

"That's a mite unfriendly," Crowley chastised. "Seeing as how I could be getting you Death's location in about the time it'd take you to reload."

"So, what?" Jo asked with a smirk. "You're just going to get chummy with some demons and hope they don't recognize you?"

Crowley smiled as he studied Joanna Beth Harvelle. The kid had spunk. It wasn't often that someone so young had that degree of bravado, but perhaps it was because Jo had grown up around hunters. "God, no," he assured her. "That could get me killed. But there is this little spell that I know. Results are 100% guaranteed."

"Then why are you snake-oiling us?" Bobby asked, suspiciously. He didn't like the way this was setting up and as Crowley explained, Bobby knew he'd been right to trust his gut. "So one of us makes a deal and you use that soul to find Death?" he reiterated.

"What do you say?" Crowley said, sounding optimistic.

"Okay," Ellen said with a smirk. "Here's our counter-offer." With that, she fired a shot at Crowley's chest, blasting him against the under-the-counter cabinets in the kitchen.

But when Crowley was back up, he focused on Bobby as he said, "Look, the facts are simple. I need the loan to get the Devil back in his stock. You need Death's ring. It's win-win and when this is over, I promise all souls have a 90 day return policy."

"Bobby…" Ellen said, warily, looking at him.

Bobby said nothing for the longest time, but finally, he lowered his shotgun.

A/N: Next chapter-Death rolls into town, Sam, Bobby, and Castiel save the day, and Crowley gets a much-needed Gibbs head-slap. (Yes, you heard right!)