Zertranomil was but one of many soldiers under the command of the great lord, Prince Azazel. A terrifying tyrant intent on the destruction of the world's status quo and the enslavement of mankind.
There were many of them, but lately, that many became fewer.
Monsters capable of destroying his kin came out of the woodwork, wreaking havoc in the well-planned schedule. From what he's heard from his witch converts, white-winged goody-two-shoes angels have been destroying infernal bases and doubling the guards on the opened Devil's Gates.
If it were not dire enough, a witch had been exorcising his kin faster than they could replenish their ranks. Some crossroad demons, having recently visited Home, foretold of the higher ranks' becoming ill at ease with such news.
Home's sake, even Lord Azazel placed a kill list for the witch.
But that wasn't his problem. After all, all he had to do was observe the special children as Lord Azazel invaded one of their dreams and turn them on each other. A simple duty compared to the pitiful few that earned the lord's ire.
"But why are they here?" Zertranomil groaned, his sclera turning black for a brief moment as he failed to contain his frustration.
His gaze returned to the sight of the Winchester brother talking to the special child, Andrew Gallagher, and the witch, Richard Greythorne.
Three of the most head-ache-inducing hunters this side of the continent arrived one-by-one and made contact with his ward. And if he was hearing them correctly, it would seem their knowledge of the special child was more than his kin and Lord Azazel thought they knew.
A surprisingly dangerous development, he surmised. One that needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. Just as he was about to inform his lord, the sounds of their plan trickled upon his meat puppet's ears.
'No, I can't let them kill Weber. If they accomplish their task, then lord Azazel will…' He shuddered at the mere thought. It was not only Alastair who was a master of torture, after all.
Zertranomil followed them as they split into two groups, one heading towards the square and the other towards Weber's workplace.
He stood still at the crossroads of indecision as his eyes turned pure black, a barely visible vapor emitting out of his meat puppet's pores.
For, you see, Zertranomil was part of an almost extinct species of demonkin that traced back their ancestry and corruption to the age of Aspasia of Melitus and Amennakht, scribe of Dayr al-Madīnah.
They used to be called Bathins.
Although his memories of his origin were but a speck of dust, his gained ability still made him proud of his debated birth of corruption.
The world around him turned dark as if the clouds were crying, the sun had grown shy, and the moon grew as large as the planets themselves. The sound of civilization grew silent as the echoes and roars of the unearthed horrors came forth like a gushing dam.
In the middle of the black and white and terror, two thin lines colored by blood came to be. One was traced back to the fleeting form of Andrew Galagher and the other headed for the same direction as the witch and Dean Winchester.
Shadowy tendrils appeared around him, wrapping and engulfing him in their umbral embrace as they pulled him to the other side of existence. A world that mirrored that of the human's, thus, allowing them to travel unheeded and invisible to even the eyes of the earthbound angels.
Riding a pale horse made of the flesh of the earth-struck horrors, Zertranomil passed through the incoming cars and monolithic buildings as if they were a cloud of bubbles.
It did not take long before he arrived at their destination, even faster than the two hunters were.
Sensing their imminent arrival, Zertranomil succumbed to the call of agony as he transferred back to the real world, disengaging the crumbling dark world around him.
He scanned the area and found his ward, deeply hidden in the throng of patrons inside of a fairly popular bazaar. He had a phone in hand, waiting for his mark.
Zertranomil knew of what Webber was planning, and frankly, he was proud of his ward. To kill without being seen and for the victim to kill himself happily. That was the work of a masterful demon.
'To see a human quickly succumb to corruption.' He sniffed the air, a grin that reached his ear on his meat puppet's face. 'What a treat!'
Zertranomil saw the hunters arrive and wanted to deal with them now before they could interfere with Weber's plans.
But he waited.
After a while, he saw the two hunters split up as they, too, waited for the appointed time.
Soon, the witch got up from his seat and entered the gun store. The Winchester, however, stayed outside, eyeing the passing crowd of Zertranomil's ward.
And, by all rights, the Winchester did, just as Weber made the call.
Now, Zertranomil made plentiful choices in his past that would have been less than ideal - that was why he was a demon in the first place - but this one takes the cake.
Seeing his ward unknowingly hunted by the Winchester, he made his move.
Invigorating the very last of his corrupted magik, Zertranomil used his telekinesis and grabbed the Winchester's body into a standstill. All the while using the backdoor made by Lord Azazel to enter Weber's mind and nudge him in the right direction.
That he did, controlling the Winchester and alerting his companion inside of the gun store.
What happened after that, of course, was a complete disaster.
Even with his initial help, the Vulpine Witch was more threatening than they had thought. His magical and physical capabilities were nothing he had seen before; the fire spell alone put him on the right path of the most destructive of natural witches.
He could have helped, but the fear of Lord Azazel's wrath inhibited his interfering ways. In fact, the demon prince valued their individual strength as much as he valued their lives.
After all, a weak demonic general was miles better than no general at all.
Of course, it was not that he did not try. By possessing a doctor in the same hospital as they, he was able to find their room and pass along for a brief moment. Not for long, though, as the hunters had senses like those of a bloodhound.
'No better than the hounds of that damn Crowley.' He mused frustratingly.
Just before the hunters left, he had felt a sudden spike in magical energy around the hospital. Enough to feel a drop in the ambient residue of magik for a few days after the spike.
He was curious and found that spike to originate from the very room of the hunters and his wards.
Soon after they left, beholden by curiosity and fear of his master, Zertranomil entered the room. At least try to, for as soon as his meat puppet opened the door, he felt like not going there anymore.
"Maybe I should wait after they come back." He told himself. "Yes, that would be wise. I-no! What is that?"
He asked himself such questions for the next few minutes as he tried to enter the door repeatedly. After a couple of hours, he had figured out the remnants of magical energy surging through his meat puppet's brain, attempting to restrict his control over it.
The magik protecting the room was so potent that once he tried corrupting it with a dispelling curse, his meat puppet was repelled in both physical and spiritual level.
To others, he may have vomited, but to him, such an attack caused the destabilization of his control over his possession. Needing almost a day to regain full control.
Once he returned, he received the most grievous news.
He snarled. "What?"
"Yeah, you just missed them." Replied the incompetent detective. "Parking lot. D'you know that Quantico has their own jail? Huge world."
He paid the imbecile no heed, power walking to the parking lot. Morbid thoughts running rampant in his infernal inner workings, eyes nearly burning through his socket as he scanned the whole of the parking lot.
Having been informed of their signature car, Zertranomil closed in on the black Impala where he was the unconscious form of Webber in the backseat.
'Why was he alone in the car?' He asked himself, his sclera turning jet black once more. The world began to turn black and white, the edges of his sight straining hard to see strips of blood-red marks, but before he could fully activate his ability, he heard a loud noise.
A gunshot, he thought.
Then he felt liquid running a winding trail on his head before dripping into his shoes, red liquid.
Blood, he surmised.
But not his blood, for he was a demon and, therefore, had no corporeal form. So it must be his meat puppet. Someone had shot him in the head, he correctly guessed.
Just as he tried to remove the bullet, a voice resounded across the parking lot, full of mirth and arrogance.
It said, "We could smell you from a mile away, demon?"