RENEGADE "ANGEL"

Back in Black, PART I

Waking to incessant buzzing, Cordelia groaned, rolled, and promptly fell out of bed and onto the floor. She hissed, waking instantly. Disoriented and twisted up in a mess of blankets, Cordelia sat there for a moment.

Phone, she realized, and reached up onto her nightstand to grab for the thing.

The only numbers that stared back at her were triple six, the caller ID nothing more than "Crossroads."

"Damn you," she growled, but answered the phone anyway. "What do you want, Crowley?"

"Good morning to you, too, princess," came the reply. "No greeting for me?"

"No. What do you want?"

"To help you, darling."

Cordelia snorted. "Since when?"

"I come bearing news of your brothers, if you'll have it. But if you'd rather not..."

Cordelia's ears began to ring. "What is it, Crowley? What've they done now?"

The King of the Crossroads heaved a sigh, but said nothing.

"Damn it, Crowley, just tell me!"

"A deal's a deal, Cora. Promise me you'll get me what I want, and I'll tell you everything you need to know about your family on this side of the pond."

"I made no deal with you, you bastard. Just tell me!"

Crowley sighed and snapped, "Fine." Cora, who had been expecting much more resistance, blinked at the phone. But he continued, "Word along the grapevine is that the apocalypse has begun, and your brothers are right in the mess of it. You see, your dear twin Dean has broken the first of sixty-six Seals."

"No," Cora whispered. "No, he couldn't have!"

"I'd redefine what can and can't happen if I were you," Crowley advised. "We all felt it happen. Hell's having a field day."

Cordelia sat in silence. Her mind had gone terribly blank, and her heart seemed to have stopped beating. At last, she said, "Why are you telling me this?"

"You think I want the apocalypse?"

"You're a demon, it's what you live for."

"I quite like my existence, Cora, same as you and any other creature who'd like to see the end of the apocalypse before it begins—and trust me, there are a lot. Including your brothers. But they can't do it on their own. You have to help them."

Cora rubbed a hand over her forehead. "So in other words, go back to America."

"Go back to America. Find them. And sort this bloody thing out before the world is destroyed. And do it before Lucifer breaks out of his cage. I don't fancy being turned into blood-and-bone jelly.

"Oh, of course. You're looking out for your own skin, I ought to have—"

Crowley hung up before she could finish.

Biting back far too many curse words, Cora lifted herself off the floor and struggled out of her tangled blankets.

It had been... Well, it had to have been five years since she was last in America, and six since she'd last seen her family. Sammy left for Stanford and her father pushed her and Dean into hunting, so she disappeared, and that was a mild way of putting it. Inspired by her favorite books, Cordelia had faked her own death, leaving behind no body, and had fled to Europe with dyed hair and a fake name: Fable Castellanos. Not the most unnoticeable of names, but that wasn't the point, not really.

Cora moodily got ready and shoved as much clothing as she could into her suitcase. It was the same she'd run away with.

Despite her better judgment, Cora didn't think Crowley was lying. The demon was notoriously predictable as someone who would look out for himself at all costs. If he didn't want the apocalypse to happen just so he could save his skin, then Cora was prepared to believe it really was on—or about to be, at any rate.

Dean? Starting the apocalypse?

Cora wanted to think the idea was laughable, but...how could she? She knew how much trouble Dean would get in to save Sam, and she didn't doubt the same was the case now.

How the hell was she supposed to go back to her family? She'd faked her death for Dean and her father. She'd cut off all contact with Sam shortly after, as soon as she hit the English coastline and worked her way up to Aberdeen. Dean had probably told him she'd died on that hunt. (And a nasty death it was, too—wendigoes. That was why she got away without having a body to leave behind.)

You'll be fine, said the whisper in her head she'd come to think of as an angel on her shoulder. You just have to go back home. They'll understand. They'll be angry, but they'll understand.

Dean, in particular, would be livid. She'd faked her death on his watch, and their father had undoubtedly laid the blame on him—just as he'd laid the blame on Dean whenever Sam did some childish thing up until Sam left to go to college, and even after, when John would bring up something to guilt trip Dean and Cora.

So Cordelia, packed and dressed to travel, sat down at her computer and bought plane tickets back home. And when that was done, Cora got down on her knees and prayed.

"Look, I know I've messed up. I've lied to my brothers for six years. I've lied about who I am. I made a career and a life here that I probably don't deserve. But please, God, please just let this go well. Please just let me go home and fix this and do it right."

Cora did not get a response, but she didn't expect God to speak to her from the heavens: OH, OF COURSE, CORA, EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT. If that were the case, Cora was sure even Dean would believe God was truly there.

Shouldering her bag and picking up her suitcase, Cora took one last glance around the apartment that also served as her investigation office headquarters. She looked over the stenciled window, looking at the name she'd become familiar with beneath the words PHANTOM INVESTIGATORS.

"Bye, Fable," she sighed to herself, locking the door on her way out.

She'd return, if all went well, but Cora wasn't entirely sure it would go well. She was, after all, a Winchester.