Crowley was furious that he had been put in this position by the same girl, twice in one day. She was gone and he was flabbergasted. Had she just…smelled him? She had, and intimately. And he was fairly certain now, had also murdered at least 27 people and, judging by the pattern, was gunning for a 28th. Perhaps more confusing, he wasn't certain if he wanted to help put in a knife in her throat, or just watch her get all bloody killing that last one. Maybe both.

Irately, he straightened his tie and left the library. He was not determined to assist the Brobdingnagian Behemoths in hunting the floral beast. He elected to walk back across town to give himself time to straighten out the particular emotions he was experiencing considering this wretch of a female.

Primarily, and this was the comment that most inclined him to put a knife in her, he was not a boy King. He was nearly four hundred years old. There were, he supposed, demons who were older than he was, but that didn't mean he was some uppity, petulant child playing at being a ruler. He was the King of Hell damnit. He had worked very hard to become the King of Hell and he was doing an excellent job as the King of Hell. Aside from the Abadon business but that wasn't really his fault. If she didn't respect him as a ruler he would have to make her.

As he walked a young man, this was a boy, slammed into his shoulder then shoved him away, clearly unaware of who he was running into. He snickered to his friends and called back, "Watch where you're going," followed by a string of undignified expletives. Crowley, as it turned out, was not in the mood to let this slide passed. The boys, already moving passed him, were hustling themselves down an alley, geared up, jeering at each other. Crowley clicked his fingers.

XXXXX

Twenty minutes later, Crowley, whistling absently to himself, came out of the alley, rolling his sleeve back down over the injection track marks at the crook of his elbow. The boy's blood thrummed in his veins, he could feel it working its way through his body. He shuddered with pleasure as the blood pounded through him, and the first thought that crawled into his mind was that he must see that girl again, discover what she was. He could not get the image of her laughing, dripping with blood out of his mind. What he really needed was to watch her rip someone apart, and he thought that he had that chance. Each city had had seven deaths, this had only had six. There was one left before she moved on. Well regardless of whether or not Moose and Squirrel were going to let him play with them, hunting couldn't be more difficult that being the presiding authority over demons.

His walking route took him back to the incredibly humble, temporary abode of Brothers Buffoon. They sat outside, leaning on the hood of their monstrosity of an automotive, talking in low voices. The car was parked on the gravel parking spot a few feet from the manila and mint wall of the building. The building itself was outdated and nausea inducing. Each wall had alternating stripes of that manila and mint all the way up to the, probably sinking, flat roof, the sort that is set down into itself, with a rather large lip. Now, he normally would not have noticed the roof in so much detail. But it so happened, as he approached, he saw a shock of dark hair disappear below the roof's edge, just out of sight. He knew that dark hair, that dark hair was attached to a jutting jaw, ugly eyes and a girl who was becoming irritatingly good at cropping up where he wanted to be.

Then again, her eavesdropping on the hunters who were hunting her would add a beautiful twist to the affair. He would let her have her secrets for now.

He sidled up the Pals in Plaid, smirking.

"Do you need something, Crowely," Squirrel snarled upon catching sight of him, "Why are you so interested in this case?"

Crowely gave him what he thought was an innocent smile, "I'm just worried about my big hunters, don't want them getting scratched."

Both of them stared at him with deadpanned expressions, "And how are you going to help?"

Crowley allowed his grin to spread, "How would I help? I am the King of Hell. I am the most powerful demon walking the Earth." Did he just hear a snicker? "I am not a force to be trifled with."

Dean gave his signature gruff dismissive laugh, "Are you sure you don't want to put more time into finding that blade, it sounds to me like Abadon is getting to you."

Crowley snarled, "What is that supposed to mean, boy?" He really was sure he could hear laughing from the roof.

Dean smirked, "You just sound like you're trying to convince somebody that you're the King and I don't hear me or Sam questioning it."

Yes, that was snickering. He was going to rip her to pieces. She was lucky she was so interesting. Pragmatically interesting.

"So what will it be, boys? Interested in my help?"

They made eye contact and grimaced at each other, Crowley helped their decision along, "Keep in mind, I'll be looking into this regardless, you are just deciding if you get to keep an eye on me."

Dean sneered at him, "Fine, Crowley, but if you try anything I'm putting you back in the trunk."

He forced a tight smile, uncomfortably aware that that damned girl had heard that, "Lovely. So, what do you know?"

Sam glanced at his brother again before opening the door to the motel room and allowing Crowley to follow him in, once the door was safely shut he opened that manila folder Crowley had perused earlier.

"Well," he started, "There's something here murdering people, and this isn't the first town its hit-"

"Yes, yes, third town, seven bodies in each, six so far here, something odd about the bodies, I know all that, I meant something useful."

Sam furrowed his moose brow, "Alright, well we just got a hold of the security tapes from the last attack. We were hoping to get something off of that." He got up from his perch on the disgusting bed to begin fiddling with the VHS on the 30 year old motel television. Irately, Crowley clicked his fingers and the video began without hassle. Sam jumped, furrowed his bow one more time and sat facing the television, well away from Crowley. Dean was watching from across the room, scowling.

Sam fastforwarded through the mundane and uninformative tape, looking for the attack, "Here." Crowley said abruptly, "Slow down."

Sam pulled a face but slowed the play, "What'd you see?"

What Crowley saw was 'Mary' walking determinately into the convenience store. But she was not wearing her customary floral sundress, but…armor. Old armor. Bronze armor. And in her hand she held a slender, elegant knife. He rather liked the knife.

All three were watching silently, leaning forward slightly. On the video, Mary was barking at the patrons of the convenience store, assumedly to leave, as they were doing, although the tape didn't have audio. She was glancing around determinately, standing light on her feet. Then the video cut out.

Dean swore, Sam pursed his lips, Crowley narrowed his eyes. A few moments later the video returned. She was standing in the middle of the store. Her armor was covered in blood, still clutching that knife. Behind her, they could see the body. But most interesting was her shoulder. No matter where she moved the video wouldn't show it, a crackling glitch in the video followed her in a dark line across her left shoulder. She left the store, moving haltingly, like she was hurt.

Dean snorted, "So we're hunting a girl?"

Sam crinkled his nose, "I'm not so sure Dean, I don't know if it was her that attacked them, why would she try so hard to get everybody to leave if she was just going to kill somebody?"

"So, what?" Dean asked, "you think she was there to fight whatever attacked them? You think she's some kind of hunter. Maybe she just needed to get somebody alone."

Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley saw a shape drop passed the window. With no warning to the boys, he clicked his fingers, deciding that following her would be far more helpful than listening to the mountains of testosterone struggle. When she had made enough of a gap between herself and the Winchesters he appeared before her. She seemed irritatingly un-unnerved.

He gave her a leering smile, "You've been eavesdropping."

She returned his smile with perfect accuracy, "You've been playing hunter."

"Why are you so interested in those behemoths?"

She cocked an eyebrow, "why are you so interested in me?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, "You're going to ask me that," he said, taking a step closer to her, "After you," he took another step, closing the gap between them while she remained motionless, smirking, "assault me in a library and" a few inches from her he disappeared and reformed right behind her, face curving around toward hers, hands on her waist, he whispered his last few words, "smelled me?"

She shuddered and leaned into him, then, as though catching herself, jolted away, "You're mad I called you a boy king." She said evenly.

He didn't answer but gave her his darkest stare.

She laughed, but it sounded forced and uncertain, "Well, Crowley, if it makes you feel better, you're a big, tough, man king.

This was, to date, the only time she had seemed unnerved by him rather than the other way around. He was not prepared to lose this edge.

He stalked toward her, a darkly amused glint in his eyes, "You have been busy, haven't you, so many deaths in so little time."

She was backing up away from him, trying to regain her previous nonchalance but not quite achieving it. "What do you mean?"

He raised his hand and touched her lightly on the shoulder, pushing her gently backwards. Her back hit the wall of the alley he had found her in and, keeping his fingers against her, pressed her against the bricks.

Judging from what he had witnessed of her previously, he had no delusions that he was trapping her anywhere, but she seemed off her game, so he thought now was the ripest time he was going to get to offer her a curve ball. He looked at her with smoldering eyes and very lightly, trailed his finger up and down her arm, leaving one had to press her into the bricks.

"Don't get me wrong," he whispered into her ear as he leaned nearly against her body, "I like the bloodshed."

She didn't really seem to be paying any attention to what he was saying, she was staring at him, glancing between the hand on her shoulder, the caresses to her arm and his darkened eyes, with a confounding mixture of desperation and some form of sadness he couldn't place. As soon as his words stopped she seemed to start coming back to herself so he continued crooning at her in his hushed whisper, paying more attention to her reaction than exactly what he was saying.

As he talked she closed her eyes and, he had to restrain himself from jumping, settled her hands on his waist. Less obviously than before, she tilted her head forward and inhaled strongly. As she did her grip tightened on his waist.

He stopped talking, as soon as the silence fell, her eyes flew open and she lurched abruptly away from him, stumbling out of his grasp. She glanced at his eyes once before she began to flee down the alley. They were filled with rabid, desperate longing and the look he could, this time, interpret. Grief. He recognized it because he had seen it many times before. In the eyes of widows and orphans and parents of dead children, it was a look he had learned to read because if a human looked like that, they would beg for their soul to be taken for one more year, one more day, one more second. And here was the girl. The mysterious, violent, unfathomable girl, looking at him with those eyes.

"Wait." He said. And he meant it. He had never seen eyes like that while he had been poisoned with human blood. He could remember thinking they looked like prey, but now they thrummed into him and set jagged hooks into his lungs.

She stopped, as though she couldn't help herself and stood, so still she looked fragile and waited.

He stepped toward her again, as he neared, he reached out and gently tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. It wasn't so much that he wanted to help her, human toxin hadn't ruined him completely, but when she looked at him as she had, when she leaned into his touch and shuddered at his proximity he felt a thrill of power over her that made him giddy, he wanted very much so to know how far he could push it.

He let his thumb brush softly across her cheekbone and, gritting her teeth as though she wanted nothing more than to flee, she tilted her head into his touch. Very slowly, careful not to spook her, he put his other hand on her waist and pulled her against him. He leaned his head down and let his hot breath curl across her jaw. He let his lips nearly touch her skin and she whimpered. He blood coursed with satisfaction at the sound. Her breath was coming raggedly, and her brow was knitted severely, her entire body stiff and unmoving. He turned his head and allowed his lips to ghost across hers, so close to touching he could feel their proximity.

Then screams ripped through the night, breaking her spell. She wrenched herself away from him, looking at him furiously before the tore after the screams.

XXXXX

AN: Hey guys! Sorry about the long wait, I was in the super busy process of moving and didn't have much time to write. I hope this chapter makes up for it! Hope to update soon!