We all grabbed something to drink and I took Coyote on a tour of the place. It didn't take her long to be utterly impressed with it.

"How many books and files are in here?"

"Thousands. These guys date back centuries. The things Sam and I have found in here would blow your mind."

"And one demon took them all out?"

"Knight of Hell, a bit more complex than a demon. Damn near unkillable actually. She got inside and just went to town." We rounded the corner and I pulled open the door to the dungeon. "My two favorite features other than the warding are this room and the fact that somehow this place scrambles cell signals. Cell phones weren't even a thought in anyone's head when they built this place. I don't know how they pulled it off, just happy they did." I grabbed the bookcases and slid them apart. "Here's the dungeon."

She shivered, gasped and took a step back, "No!"

I hadn't expected that response, I closed the bookcases as fast as I could "Honey? You okay?"

Her eyes were squeezed shut, I reached out to try to steady her as she leaned against the wall. As soon as my hand touched her skin her eyes flew open and they were totally out of focus. She wasn't seeing me, she was seeing something else. "Demon!"

"Coyote! Hey, it's me!"

Her eyes came back into focus but were totally filled with fear, "I saw you, in a chair, in that room. You had black eyes, you were a demon, the hate, the violence, the sheer evil...you, you never told me. I thought it was just nightmares, fears of what the Mark could do to you. Not that it had happened. Why?"

My heart dropped and my stomach started knotting up, worst mistake ever bringing her here. One of these days I'll actually think my way all the way through a plan. I just hoped she wouldn't see my lack of telling her as lying, that wouldn't go well. "I guess I kind of thought you already knew, plus it's not something I really knew how to bring up. I figured with your Shaman gifts and the pouch you'd have seen it at some point or other. You didn't ask and I didn't want to talk about it. Talking about the nightmares when you asked about them was hard enough."

"How are you not one now? I don't understand, I thought that was pretty much a permanent condition, that you had to be dead to become a demon."

Coyote had hunted, sure, but she'd never gotten too involved with demons. Luck of the draw or just didn't stay in it long enough. Native culture doesn't have demons so she'd never have had to deal with them all that often. "Technically yes, I was dead, King of Hell used the First Blade and the Mark to turn me into a demon. The Mark doesn't let the people it's attached to go all that easily. Sam and I had found a way to cure demons earlier for something else we had to do, he trapped me and turned me back. Those dreams where I tried to kill him? Not just dreams."

As I'd explained things the fear left her, she looked back at the bookcases and shivered again. "That's not all I saw, what they did in there, what they imprisoned. I can still feel it, the spells, the energy, it all lingers in places like that."

"I'm sorry, I didn't think my way all the way through this. Sometimes I forget about what you can pick up on. You're not mad that I didn't tell you about the demon thing?"

She shook her head and straightened up, "I could be I guess but what would be the point? I knew something was seriously wrong with you, my instincts told me to run, I didn't. My choice. You didn't know I was psychically and spiritually linked with you so I can't blame you for subjecting me to that can I? Knowing about it now doesn't change anything. If Sam had called and told me you were a demon, I'd have been right next to him in that dungeon saving your ass. So no, I'm not mad."

I couldn't think of a single thing to say, which doesn't happen all that often, so I just held her. She would have had every right to blow up at me, finding out she'd been sharing head space with a demon even years after it happened would more than qualify for getting kicked out of her life. "Thank you. I should have told you, I just..." I still didn't feel that I'd done anything to deserve her sticking around, waiting for me and putting up with me. It almost hurt how much she'd done and put up with to make this work. I'd had it easy compared to her, after all she wasn't damaged almost beyond saving like I had been.

"I know Babe, I know. Just, from now on, no holding back. Especially now that I know the truth. This thing with Jacob, being here, you have to be careful. Memories are powerful Dean, I'm not saying you'll turn into a demon again but I think I have a better idea of why you feel like you have to do this."

I let her go, "Yeah there's a lot of shades of being influenced by evil crap, or even not evil crap. Sam and I know them all."

"Not just that," She turned away to head back to the main room, "You want redemption and not in anyone else's eyes, but in your own."

"This isn't about guilt Coyote."

"I know, that's why I said redemption. There's a difference. Let's see what Sam's up to."

I took another look at the bookcases that hid the dungeon. Everything I said to Sam that day rang in my head, every thought, every twisted demonic wish came back to me. I remembered how it felt as the purified blood worked it's way into my system, feeling absolute disgust at what I was feeling while at the same time being excited by the freedom being a demon gave me. No rules, no cares, just utter freedom from everything. I didn't care about saving the world, saving Sam or anything else, all I cared about was me. I'd never tell Sam or anyone else this but as the demon side weakened, there was a twisted, sick part of me that didn't want it to leave. One of Sam's contentions when he was soul less was that having a soul made him weaker, he was a better hunter without it. He'd fought tooth and nail against us shoving his soul back in him, I couldn't see how he could until I was a demon. It's not just the obvious damage that being possessed or influenced can do to you that we had to help Jacob through. If this cursed blade had worked like the Mark and you were actively aware of what was going on, it would be much, much worse. Because then the blade would have made him want to kill, Clive said the others had no idea of what had happened but I highly doubted that. That only works if something takes you over and blocks you from seeing what's going on, cursed objects usually don't work that way. It's hard enough to sort that out when you're an adult, I had no idea how to get a ten year old through it. Which really didn't matter because come hell or high water I was going to figure it out. I had to, because for a few minutes there I had legitimately wanted to kill Sam, both when I was a demon and during that ritual. Everything else I'd done when I'd been fucked up I could handle, but that I couldn't. She was right, there is difference between guilt and redemption. I didn't feel guilty about it, but I wanted some way to balance the scales, at least the scales in my head.

I followed her out and back to the main room, thinking about the First Blade and the Mark reminded me about something. "Sam? Where are you?"

"Kitchen," he shouted back.

I crossed the hall and headed to the kitchen, "Hey have you called Clive yet?"

"No."

He was making food, Coyote was sitting at the table. "Get in touch with him, get that blade and bring it here."

"I was going to do that after we dealt with Jacob. Didn't think it was a great idea to have that here with him."

"We need to see if there is some lingering link, like there was with me and the First Blade. I could feel that thing even after Cas had hidden it. Just because he hasn't done anything violent doesn't mean it's not talking to him or can't call to him when it's taken out of the curse box. We may have to destroy the damn thing to get Jacob back to normal."

Sam sighed, "I sense a long night of research ahead."

I patted his shoulder and sat down next to Coyote, "Bright side, we can test out this new digital archive you and Felicity have been working on."

That made him look a little more excited about it, "Uh, not really."

"Why?"

"I'm going alphabetically by species of supernatural creature."

I really didn't like the sound of that, "Which letter are you on?"

"D, and there's a lot of lore on demons. Sorry."

"I had to pick a case that dealt with an obscure culture that starts with the letter Z to come back on didn't I?"

Coyote snickered, "Sounds about par for the course for you."

"Thanks, really." Which meant we were back to using books. Great.

Six hours later we'd found pretty much jack and squat out about the Zapotecs. What we had found was the usual "if a person is a vessel of a god how to kill it" which was no great help since none of us were all that keen on killing a ten year old and we didn't know the name of the god the blade was dedicated to.

I threw the last of the stack of books I'd been working on the table, "I'm done. We'll just have to wait to get the blade. Tomorrow should be entertaining. Jacob and the blade showing up around the same time."

Coyote looked at her watch, "Any stores around here? We should stock up on food since we'll be here for a few days. Your fridge is pretty bare Sam."

"Yeah I know. There is. I'll make a food run in the morning."

"All right, let's order out and then I'm going to pass out."

"There's a good Chinese place," Sam said, "Here's the menu." He pulled it up on his laptop. We all figured out what we wanted, I called in the order and Sam went to pick it up. We were all pretty wiped out from the drive and the books so once we ate we headed to bed.

"This will be challenging," Coyote said once we got to my old room. Neither of us are exactly small people and the bed isn't all that big. She had upgraded to a king sized bed a few months after I moved in.

"Sorry, all the beds are that size here. The Men of Letters didn't seem too be big on cohabitation. We can take two different rooms I guess."

"Not really keen on that idea, I'll just pretend I'm in college again sneaking a boy into my dorm room."

"That brings back some good memories..."

"Sneak into a lot of dorm rooms back in the day?"

I winked, "Let's just say Sam's not the only one who got an Ivy League education. Difference is, I didn't have to pay for mine and there weren't a lot of books involved."

"Should I say it?" She started taking off her shirt.

"What?"

"Major was Women's Studies, right?"

"That's an option?"

"Yup."

"Damn! No one told ever told me that!"

"Which was probably a good thing."

We managed to get comfortable enough and settled in. Tomorrow I'd get to deal with cursed objects and a kid who'd had his whole world trashed by something beyond his comprehension. It was just like old times, joy.