**Author Notes - Thanks to everyone who is following this and has left a review - all of you are amazing and awesome. Ido plan on finishing this - since I started writing fanfic, I feel like I've improved a lot, and started writing longer chapters on other stories - the new chapters on this one will probably gradually get longer, so I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies in length from chapter to chapter. The original chapters are being tweaked for editing and grammar, but not overall plot. Thanks again. ***

Someone screwed up.

An incredibly angry black woman sat in the circle of red paint, intersected with more red lines and other archaic symbols that denoted a supernatural containment trap. Silent, murderous rage emanated from her and it hadn't cooled in the time she'd been here already. Low, dusty light through the dirty windows highlighted the center of the room, and her, as if they planned it that way.

The fact that she was pissed wasn't weird. The fact that she was there at all was.

The brown-robe bedecked leader grumbled. "I don't understand. Demons are supposed to possess one of us. There's should be all this black smoke or something."

A wheedling voice volunteered, "At least half of the set-up worked. She's stuck in the circle. Let me see your book."

Printed sheets exchanged hands, in a manila folder.

The second voice sounded irritable. "What the hell this?"

"... I got it off the internet."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"The trap part worked, didn't it?"

"Well, thank God for small favors."

The demon? Wore the kind of clothing that suggested she was on her way to a nightclub. Or a dominatrix convention. All black leather with silver accents and her black hair back in a high, tight ponytail. She one-handedly flipped a wickedly curved knife that looked scary as hell. It glinted silver and black with a feather pattern when it caught the dim light. A matching second knife was embedded in the far wall. She wouldn't throw her reserved one if she couldn't get to it.

Probably.

It was sheer luck she missed with the first, probably some short-lived after-effect from the summoning. None of the brown clad figures had moved for the evil thing buried half to the hilt in the basement wall.

Between her stilettos and rough floor lay an unmoving Paul. Who had wet himself. She capitalized on him being a bargaining chip and refrained from doing severe damage to him. Yet.

He had stepped inside the trap lines when the woman appeared out of thin air and collapsed on the floor. It seemed like a good idea, since they weren't expecting anything that remotely looked like a living being of any kind. She looked up and she wasn't human - her face flashed into a ruined half-mask that proved she wasn't with one dark eye and one milky white. Paul ran forward, bearing a short, broken two by four. It was a brave but useless move in an attempt to deal with whatever it was they brought here.

Reacting with otherworldly reflexes, she had been thrown back by the lines of the trap when she tried to leap out of it. So, some of the rules applied, just not all of them, maybe. She seemed to be somewhat aware of how the thing worked or what it was since the first words out of her mouth (in English) were "I'm a demon, not the Devil!" followed by a verbal river of profanity in multiple languages. They were guessing.

Her face calmed into that of a human woman as she assessed her situation. She may or may not be a demon, but she wasn't making deals in any case.

"You got the wrong underworld resident for 'deals'. And when he turns up, he will have your guts for garlands. And I'm going to help him. If you're all very lucky, he'll stand back and let me eviscerate all of you myself."

Luck was moderately on their side at this point - she didn't know that she could use Paul as a living meat bridge to break the lines and get out. She didn't know how the rules worked in this world, much less that she was in the wrong one.

Unfortunately for them, they didn't exactly know that themselves, being idiot college students who thought it'd be fun to summon a demon and make a deal for better grades.

She adjusted her seat, occasionally testing the circular boundary of the Trap. "Which of you assholes is responsible for this?"

As a unit, they looked back at Steve, who shuffled through sheets of loose printouts. This was his idea. Steve was grouchy. "I'm telling you, I've seen this done. This isn't how it works. She was supposed to possess me so we can make a deal. Not..." He waved uselessly. "Apparate."

And appear she had, whole cloth.

"Yeah, and I'm sure if whatever we were trying to summon had shown up and been trapped, it would have been as happy as she is now."

Steve and the others glowered at each other.

There was no way in hell any of them were going to break the painted Devil's Trap lines.

"Now what?"

Steve pulled a cell phone out from under his Halloween store cloak.

The woman's eyes ratcheted onto him. "Who ya gonna call, Ghostbusters?"

He blinked back at her and walked out of the room, heading up crumbling concrete stairs, punching numbers angrily. Stabbing a flat screen phone wasn't nearly as satisfying as something with buttons. It rang three times. "Harry? Are you there?"

"Hello! Thanks for calling (music intro) GHOSTFACERS. You've reached us either after hours, or no one is available to take your call right now. Please call back, or leave a message in one of the following boxes. For suspected hauntings, press 1. For spectral or other non-body attacks or sightings, press 2. For solid being sightings such as werewolves or vampires, press 3. If you believe you have seen a zombie or other undead, press 4. For possible demonic possession or other celestial activities, press 5. In the unlikely event of an apocalypse, do not expect returned calls."

Steve aggressively stabbed '5' "HARRY. Call me back. I have a... Demon problem. She's not going to keep."

"'Lo" Dean picked up. They were driving somewhere headed north. Dying notes of "The Unforgiven" leaked from the car speakers and Sam attempted to doze in the passenger seat. Dean clicked off the radio.

Cas was on the other end. "There's been a plane shift."

Well, that made as much sense as anything else Cas ever said. He handed the phone over to Sam. "Hey Sammy, find out what the hell Cas wants. English would be helpful."

Sam sat up and took it, brushing back long bangs, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "How's that?"

Castiel gave a long-suffering sigh. "There's been a plane shift."

Sam and Dean exchanged a side-eye.

Sam carefully asked, "Meaning what?"

"Astral. Probably infernal. It's somewhere west of your current location. Do you have a diviner you can call to pinpoint something like that?"

"Maybe. She's in the wrong direction. There are west coast hunters Bobby can call, if you want us to give him a ring."

Dean became more interested in the conversation. Sam switched the phone to speaker.

Cas continued, "You're better equipped to deal with it."

"Get to the point. Demons? Hellhounds? What?"

"More like the fabric of reality."

"Well, that sounds awesome." Dean quipped.

Dean could easily picture Castiel's 'lack of amusement face' "...Why does that sound 'awesome'? This is not a good situation."

"It never is, Cas."

Sam picked up their dad's journal, preparing to leaf through it. "What are we looking for exactly?"

"I don't know. Rifts aren't common, and they don't usually require your kind of tend to be localized and short-lived. This one feels different."

"Apocalypse?"

"I don't think it's directly related."

"What if you had to guess?"

"Our apocalypse could be bleeding over into somewhere else. Or making our dimensional walls thinner."

Dean sighed. "Okay. I guess I can see how that does make it our problem."

"That's what I said."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. "Wait, 'Our' apocalypse? Is there more than one?"

"Not currently."

"Okay. Is that going to be an issue for us? Is there a-, what, alternate reality that's going to have one?"

"Not anytime soon." Cas sounded irritated. "We're getting off subject. The source of the plane shift, I believe, is not currently undergoing apocalypse. 'Our' timetable was pushed up by Dean. It wasn't supposed to happen yet, if you remember."

"How do we fix this? Why can't the 'source' fix it?"

"Depends on what came through. If it was an angel or something of equally high power, they should be able to go back on their own."

"And if it wasn't?"

"If we're dealing with an infernal rip, we'll have to put them back ourselves. If they could go back on their own, they would have. Someone else has to step in."

"Okay, fantastic."

"I fail to see-"

"Cas."

The angel huffed. "Should be as simple as locating the rift and sending them back through. Rifts usually close on their own after the denizen is returned to their home plane of existence."

"And you can't handle this yourself, Cas? This is going to be pretty out of the way if you're right. And you are kind of angelic yourself."

"Let's say I have a very bad feeling about this."

Sam snorted. "Okay Han Solo."

Dean smirked.

"..."

"..."

"My name is Castiel, Sam."

"Nevermind. I guess we head 'west.' We'll make some calls to Bobby and see if he can help out."