Part one of Two. The rest will be poster shortly. ;)

~Christianne

Nikki POV

I'd given Kory a good chunk of the money from the hotel room and went with her to get a car. It was a simple one, nondescript and a little dented. We divvied up the stuff in my trunk. I kept most of it, Kory said she was going to take a road trip to see some distance family members in Iowa.

I, on the other hand was going to Cumberland, Sam called about a psychotic killer. It sounded like a werewolf to me. It attacked three brothers, killing two.

I called when I was on the road and sweet-talked the coroner's assistant into telling me a little more about the report. It was a little shorter than I would have liked; D.O.A. at the scene and chunks of the kidneys, lungs and intestines were missing. Not a werewolf. I was a little disappointed.

I called Sam and Dean when I got into town and we planned to meet at the hospital to talked to the surviving victim. I stopped at a gas station to change out of my jeans and t-shirt, and into the new pants suit I bought. Sleek gray slacks with a matching jacket, and a dusty pink button up blouse. I managed to get my hair into a kinda-sorta bun, and put the Montana detective badge on my hip. I also invested in a real holster with my newfound cash, and put my gun in it.

I didn't see and dress shoes I liked, so I was still sporting my Chucks. They smacked the cement as I walked through the parking lot of the hospital; there had been another killing. I frowned, stopping as I saw a big fat green frog in the middle of my path. I tried to coax to one side, so it wasn't in the middle of the road, but the thing wouldn't budge.

"Hey," I said in a friendly tone when I got to the nurses station. "I'm here to see Dr. Garrison?" I asked.

"He'll be out here soon." She said, turning the page in her magazine. I rolled my eyes a little and leaned my hip on the counter. I looked over my shoulder as I heard some familiar voices.

"Detectives." I greeted casually. Dean actually did a double take. Sam chuckled one.

"What the hell happened to you?" Dean asked, looking me up and down.

"I got my hands on some cash and spent it wisely." I said, smiling. Sam, who'd been wordlessly staring at me, cracked a smile. "What do you think? Do I look like an underpaid government worker?" I asked, quickly controlling my expression to become serious.

Sam and Dean quickly turned their backs to the rest of the hallway, away from the two state troopers that were leaving one of the rooms.

"Good God, you two have been here what?-Five hours?-And you're already hiding from the police?" I giggled.

Dean sent me a glare, and Sam gave me a sidelong glance.

After the troopers left, the three of us went into the room they left. Dr. Garrison was the surviving victims doctor.

"See still have to keep you for observation," a masciline voice said calmly. "While the drugs work their way out of your system." The man was probably Dr. Garrison.

The crying blonde was the surviving victim at my best guess. "I-I have things to do, arrangements to make."

"It can wait." Dr. Garrison said in the same calming voice. "Now, you need rest. Stay, please." He looked over his shoulder and saw us. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Detectives," he greeted us, nodding his head slightly.

"Dr. Garrison." I said in return.

"What the hell's going on here? My whole town's going insane." He asked us bluntly.

"We'll let you know as soon as we do." Sam assured him.

I gave him a reassuring smile as he left.

I went in the room first, thinking she might be a little more comfortable not being questioned by two massive guys.

"Miss Watson?" Dean asked.

She looked at us.

"Hey," I said calmly. "We need to as you a few questions." I moved my jacket to show the shiny badge. I hope to a traumatized woman, and at a distance, it looked like a badge of a federal agent.

"Do we really have to go over this again?" She asked weakly. "Now?"

"We'll try to be brief." Sam said.

"Miss Watson, can you tell us how you got away?" Dean asked her. She nodded a little.

"I-I didn't eat as much as Ken did, so I wasn't as out of it." She explained. It was really, really weird what happened to them; they got lost in the woods, found an old granny's house, went in and ate pie, then granny started stabbing the guy.

Her voice broke as she spoke. "And-And when the old woman was…c-carving up Ken, I shoved her. She fell, cracked her head on the stove." I clenched my jaw.

I didn't have a lot of experience with this part, the people who we were trying to help in the first place, the broken-up, crying victims. I looked up at Sam, hopefully for guidance, but he didn't look much different from what I felt.

"She-She's dead, right? I-I kil-killed her?" She looked at me. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I looked at Sam again. Still no guidance.

Dean spoke, sidestepping the question completely. "Do you have any idea why she did this to you?"

"No." She said, really crying now. "One minute, she's this sweet old lady, and the next, she was like a monster." That last word got my attention.

"Can you remember anything else?" Sam asked gently.

"Uh…Y-Yeah." She sniffed. "Did you find a little girl there, by any chance?"

My eyebrows raised. "A little girl?" Sam and I spoke almost at the same time.

"At-At the house?" Sam clarified.

After wiping her eyes, the woman in the bed nodded. "I thought I saw her out the window. She-She just disappeared…just vanished into this air…it must have been the drugs." Sam, Dean and I shared a look.

"The disappearing girl, what did she look like?" Dean asked.

"Does it matter?" She sniffled.

"Yeah, yeah it does. Every little detail matters." I told her.

"She had thing long dark, dark hair, and really pale skin. She was around eight…She was a beautiful child. It was…odd to see her in the middle of something so horrible."

I took one step inside the house, crossed my arms and huffed. "Why is it always little girls?" I asked, taking the EMF meter Sam handed to me. "Really, what made someone God knows how long ago think 'Hey! I'm going to make a horror movie where the killer is a demonic six-year-old!'"

"What's up with you?" Dean asked, looking in the kitchen.

"I was thrown in a pool by a demonic six year old! Sorry if I don't like them!" I snapped, holding the EMF meter along the windows, trying to ignore Sam's chuckling.

"Any EMF?" Dena called a few minutes later.

"Yeah. It's going nuts." Sam called back.

"That's an understatement." I added on. "There was definitely a spirit here." Sam gave me a look at my absolute. "I can feel it." He raised an eyebrow. "No, I mean I can literally feel it."

"So, the spirit stood outside the crime scene and watched?" Dean asked doubtfully.

"Looks like." Sam said with a shrug.

"What the hell do you make of that?" Dean asked, looking between us.

"Actually, I have a theory…sort of." Sam said.

I looked at him, interested. "Hit me." Dean said.

"Well, thinking about, fairy tales." Sam said casually. My brows furrowed.

"Oh. Well, that-that's nice." Dean said. Good Lord, I can hear the teasing now. "Do you think about fairy tales often, or-"

"No, Dean, I'm talking about the murders." Sam corrected him, clearly annoyed. "A guy and girl hiking through the woods, and an old lady tried to eat them."

"Hansel and Gretel." I said, realizing this had some weight.

Sam nodded. "Then we've got the three brothers arguing over how to build houses, attacked by a wolf."

"Three Little Pigs." Dean said, realizing what I did a few seconds ago.

"Yeah." Sam nodded.

"Actually, those guys were a little chubby." Dean reasoned.

"You're one to talk Mr. Extra Bacon on the Cheeseburger," I laughed, reaching over and pinching his side, just over his hip. He grunted and smacked my hand away from the small amount of pudgy-ness there. He glared at me and I just laughed harder.

"Wait, didn't the Three Little Pigs end with a 'happily ever after'?" Dean pointed out. "Hansel and Gretel to?"

"No, not the originals." I put in, pulling my jacket on. I'd tossed it over a chair a few minutes after we got to the killer-granny's house. "The Grimm Brothers weren't really writing kid stories. It was more like the folklore of its day. It had a lot of sex and violence—and a surprising amount of cannibalism."

Sam nodded in agreement. "They all got sanitized over the years, turned into Disney flicks and bedtime stories."

"So, you think the murders are, what?—A re-enactment?" Dean asked, looking at the window with the EMF. "It's a little crazy."

"He says to his demon-psychic brother and the Wiccan." I added onto his sentence. Sam rolled his eyes, Dean gave me a dirty look.

"Touché." Dean said eventually. "How's the creepy ghost girl involved?"

"Um, well, she must'a been here for some reason." Sam thought out loud. "I'm willing to bet a dollar that she was at the construction site, too."

Dean stopped putting the EMF meter in his bag. "We have to do research now, don't we?" he asked slowly.

Sam just shook his head at how painful Dean made research sound.

Dean was in the library, Sam was at a different library. I was leaning on my car outside the library Dean was in. I'd been assigned the police station and town hall. I finished quite a while ago, and was just waiting now.

"Hey Nikki."

"Ah!" I yelped, jumping, and reaching for my gun. I turned to see Zack, leaning fairly close to me, on the hood of my car. I let out a groan and got off, walking in small circles in the parking lot to try and slow down my heart. "God, why do you do that?"

All I got was a chuckle from the blond.

"Hey, where were you?" I asked, cocking my hip. "I waited around that town for hours after I got my grimoire back!"

Zack just shrugged, adjusting his jacket. "I got busy."

I rolled my eyes and leaned back next to him on the hood of my car. "Why do you want it?" I asked him.

"Why do I want what?"

"Don't be stupid. The Epiphany Spell, why do you want it?" I snapped at him.

"I'm sorry, can I not want a piece of powerful magic?" Zack asked, with more sass in his voice than a full grown man (or demon in this case) should ever have.

"No, you can, I just want to know why a demon wants a spell that gives people intense spiritual experiences." I snapped at him again.

Zack rolled his eyes and jammed his hands deeper in his pockets.

A few moments later, Zack spoke. "You know how people become demons, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, people who end up in Hell, after a few hundred years come out all demon-ey."

Zack rolled his eyes. "Yeah…Yeah that's what they do…But, you know…before they went to Hell, some demons used to be good, humans. Not all, but a couple."

I looked at him oddly.

"Doesn't really answer my question, you know." I told him.

"I know." Zack sighed, looking at the park across from us. He cleared his throat quickly and stood up, running a hand through his hair.

I had to blink a few times.

How did I not see how attractive he was?

Thick, wavy blond hair. Striking blue-gray eyes. Strong, defined features. And damn did the boy have an ass.

Zack glanced around briefly, then got a small smile on his face.

He took a step forward, and rested his palm on the hood of my car, leaning closer to me until our noses were only an inch or less away from bumping. "So, are you going to give me the Epiphany Spell?" he asked quietly.

If Dean could do unspeakably dirty things to three or four girls in practically every town he went to, then I could flirt with a demon.

One side of my mouth quirked up and I leaned back slightly, moving my arms behind me to prop myself up. "You know, that's a really complicated and complex spell. You need a lot of stuff to perform it. If I give it to you, I don't want you coming back in a few hours complaining that you can't find Datura."

"In the north corner of an east facing graveyard without an iron fence." Zack rattled off. I laughed once at that.

"By the way," Zack said. "Not to jump subjects, but I saw your little wardrobe change earlier. Not a bad ensemble at all; but polyester? Really Nikki?"

I rolled my eyes. "If you want the spell, do you really thing insulting my fashion choices are the way to get it?"

"It's not insults, its constructive criticism." Zack countered.

I sighed and reached behind me. Zack's hand shot out to grab my wrist behind me. I think we both froze, glaring at each other. I snorted at him and used my free hand to shove his (surprisingly firm) chest. Not that it did much.

I held the folded papers between us by one corner. As Zack reached for them, I pulled my hand back. "Promise me you aren't going to use this to kill people." I bargained.

Zack rolled his blue-gray eyes and laughed once. "Yeah, I promise." He chuckled.

I gave him a sweet smile and flipped the paper back in his reach. He took it, quickly putting it in the inside pocket of his jacket.

"See you soon." He said as he was waking away.

"Remember what I said!" I yelled to him. He turned around, still walking away, and made a big show of rolling his eyes.

I laughed, and used a hand to push my bangs out of my eyes. I held it at the crown of my head and looked around the parking lot.

"Hey," I said, a smile on my face as I saw Sam standing a little ways away. His hands were in his pockets, and his eyebrows were furrowed. My hand fell, and my curls bounced back in my face slightly. "What?" I asked him.

Sam nodded in the direction Zack walked off. "Who's he?" He asked, in a surprisingly cold voice.

I slid off my hood. "Zack." I said vaguely. Sam shifted on his feet briefly, and I leaned comfortably on my car. Sam glanced after Zack, and looked at me with a half-glare.

I think we were both practically running when Dean came out of the library.

"Checked every record they had. Found the usual amount of violent childhood deaths for a town this size. Do you know how many were little girls with black hair and pale skin?" Dean asked, heading towards the park across the street.

"Zero." I guess.

"Zero." Dean said before the words even left my mouth. "Do you know how many little girls with black hair and pale skin have gone missing?"

"None." I said, frustrated.

"Right again. Zip, zilch, nada. Tell me, one of you got something good, 'cause I totally wasted the last six hours." He said, looking between Sam and me.

I shook my head, but Sam had something. "Well, have you ever heard of Lillian Bailey?"

"Let's pretend we haven't." I said after a quick glance at Dean.

"She was a British medium from the 1930s." Sam explained.

"She got a thing for fairy tales?" Dean guessed.

"No, trances." Sam corrected. "See, she'd go into these unconscious states where, um—get this—her thoughts and actions were compelled by spirits." My eyebrows shot up at the end sentence.

"A ghost puppet master?" Dean asked.

"Yeah." Sam said with a nod of his head.

"You think that's what the kid is doing? Sending wolf boy and Grandma into trances and making them go kill-crazy?" Dean guessed again.

"Could be." Sam said with a shrug. "You know, kind of like a spirit hypnosis or something."

My eyes widened a little. For spirits to manifest in the normal way, they had to be angry. But to be so angry and powerful and be a kid. I almost couldn't wrap my mind around it.

"Trances I get, but fairy-tale trances? That's bizarre even for us." Dean sighed, shaking his head.

We all stopped dead.

There was a big green frog in the middle of the path, croaking contently.

"Yeah, you're right. That's completely normal." Sam said sarcastically, giving Dean a look.

"Alright, maybe it's fairy tales—but totally messed up fairy tales." Dean reasoned, then smiled a little. "Hey Nikki…" he started out slow. "Kiss it."

My eyebrows shot up and I looked at Dean in shock. "Excuse me?" I asked, laughing a little.

"Kiss it." Dean repeated, trying to hide a smile.

I looked at the frog, then back to Dean. "No." I said in a very slow, very loud voice.

"C'mon," Dean said, not even trying to hide how much he was laughing now.

"He…He might be on to something, Nik." Sam said slowly.

"Why, Sam? Why would you say that?" I asked—honestly, I felt a little betrayed.

"I dare you to kiss it." Dean said, barely controlling his laughter now.

He looked a little uncomfortable as he shrugged. "I-I mean, if we're right, that's a person."

"And if we're wrong, I kiss a gross slimy frog!" I snapped at him, turning to look at him, about to say more, but stopped. "Whoa." I said simply.

Sam and Dean followed my gaze to the porch of the large yellow house across the street; with a pumpkin on the porch.

"Yeah? It's close to Halloween." Dean shrugged.

"You remember Cinderella?" I asked Dean, putting a hand on my hip as I looked at the pale yellow house.

When Dean said nothing, Sam spoke up. "The pumpkin turns into a coach and the mice…become…horses." He slowed down as a mouse ran across the porch steps, skittering past the pumpkin.

Dean slowly looked at his brother with an odd look on his face. "Dude, could you be more gay?—don't answer that." He added quickly.

"That didn't sound gay." Sam insisted as we walked across the street, Dean was in front of us.

I tipped my head from side to side, and gave him a sympathetic look. "You should have let me say it—oh for the love of God!" I cut myself off, seeing the fat frog on the sidewalk.

"Just a little peck-"

"Sam, do not go there!" I said, giving Sam a stern look as I jogged up the steps to the door Dean had picked.

"Who knows Nik, maybe you'll find your fairy godmother." Dean said lowly. I gave him a sharp jab in the ribs with my elbow, and he shut up. "What about you, Sam? Need a chick with wings to get you a dress?"

We slowly started to walk about the house, and a rattling made us all grab out guns.

I stayed behind Dean—I was fearless, but not stupid. I wasn't as comfortable with a gun as I wanted to be. Yeah, I was a good shot, but in a real situation, I didn't know how I'd handle it.

"Help! Help me! I'm in here!" A female voice called from a back room.

We quickly made our way to the kitchen, where Sam quickly dropped to him knees to get the handcuffs that held the beaten blonde girl to the stove.

"You have to help me—she's a lunatic. My-My stepmom she-she just freaked out, screamed at me, beat me, chained me up." She said, sniffling now and then.

I batted Sam's hands away, and simply grabbed at the handcuffs, unlocking them. The gril quickly pulled hre hands down, rubbing her wrists.

"Where is she now, your stepmother?" Sam asked slowly. He got a mumbled 'I don't know.'

Dean was staring off, and I followed his gaze, and gasped slightly. There was a young girl with long dark hair and pale skin. She was in a lace white sundress with a red sash, and a matching one in her hair.

"Sam." Dean said, getting his brother's attention.

All three of us stared at the girl for a moment before turning swiftly out of our sight.

Sam and Dean went after the kid, I stayed with the blonde.

"Hey," I said gently, trying to get her attention. "I'm Nikki." I said, falling to sit on the ground across from her.

"El-Eleanor…Ellie." She mumbled, still rubbing her wrists.

"Is there someone you can call?" I asked her.

"I cal-called my boyfriend, but we got cut off when my stepmom…started hit-hitting me with a broom handle." Ellie said quietly. "He-He said he was going to come over."

"What's his name?" I asked, trying to calm her down.

"Brady." She said in the same quiet voice, with a soft smile.

"Ohhhh…I know that look." I said in a light, teasing tone. She had to relax.

She smiled a little, pushing hair out of her face. "Our first date was the spring formal. My aunt paid for…everything, I didn't even look like myself...but Brady knew me…we've been pretty much inseparable since then."

I quirked a smile.

"What about you?" Ellie asked. "Is one of those guys your boyfriend or something?"

I let out a snorting laugh. "No," I shook my head. "No, there's…there's no one I even want to be with." I added with a chuckle. "I got enough issues of my own."

Sam came back in after a minute or two and said they'd called the paramedics. "Will you be good for, like, 10 minutes?" I asked Ellie. She nodded, still on the floor by the stove.

I gave her a reassuring smile and gave her shoulder a light squeeze before I got up. Sam and I left through the back door.

Croak.

I groaned, and reached down to grab the fat frog from the sidewalk.

I pinched my eyes shut and planted a kiss on the top of its head. I dropped it quickly as it flickered into a full-sized guy, about 19 years old. He was dressed in a black polo and black pants, and there was an Applebee's name tag on his shirt that read 'Brady.'

"Oh-Oh my God!" He gasped, looking down at his arms. "You-You saved-"

"Ah-Ah-Ah-!" I said quickly, loudly, holding one finger up. "No! No, you will not say anything to me. You're going to get your frogy ass into that house-" I pointed to Ellie's back door. "-and comfort your girlfriend!"

Brady just blinked at me, then half-ran past Sam into the kitchen.

I made a disgusted sound and wiped my mouth with my sleeve. I saw Sam with his lips pressed tightly together, trying not to laugh.

"Not a word of this to Dean!"