Coyote and Wolf - Prologue
Prologue
Circa August 2, 1983, Sam Winchester was three months old. Mary Winchester had been up for two days straight and she, Missouri Mosley and Ellen Harvelle gathered in Samuel’s bedroom. John had been working long hours at the shop and Mary had found time to prepare everything. Herbs cut from her garden were hung around the room.
Heather and motherwart for protection, also some elm to burn and some rue candles that Missouri made for the same. Savory and columbine for love, and Ellen had brought a paste to anoint Sammy with. Mary sniffed it - cinnamon and cardamon for love and lust. Raising an eyebrow at Ellen, Mary took another sniff- betony for protection, purification and love, black cohosh for courage and protection, coltsfoot for visions. Glancing at Missouri, Mary knew that was her addition because Missouri was sure that Sam was a seer as she was. There was a hint of catnip and apple blossoms for luck and friendship.
Dean had been sent to bed hours ago and as the time of Samuel’s birth hour approached the women gathered close around him. Mary knew some of what was coming, the death and destruction that would surround her boys. She would like nothing better than to take that from them, to let them lead normal, happy lives. But she had dreamed and Missouri had told her of her visions. Ellen, the goddess bless her heart, had been a rock. She was their ground, always had been. Without Ellen, Mary would still be panicked and dithering about what to do.
Mary still wasn’t sure how the three of them became friends, but the Lady blessed their friendship and now she has a chance to save her son. The spell they planned on doing would not only protect him from evil, it would lead him to his true love -his other half - because when Mary had been pregnant with Sam she had been touched by him, that yellow-eyed bastard Azazel.
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“Good of you to take such good care of our son, Mary.”
Mary had never seen this man before in her life and he was putting his hand on her stomach. Looking at her like she was some prize bitch that he had bred, it gave her shivers. She was slipping her hand in her purse for her knife when his next words stopped her.
“It was nice of you to wait up for me,” he whispered and touched her stomach again before backing off, his eyes flashing yellow. Mary flashed back to the night that John had come home late and said those exact words to her as he slid into bed. They had made love, and then John had left Mary sleeping. Awakening, she had padded out to the living room only to find him asleep on the couch.
She woke him with a kiss and her blood had gone cold as he said he hadn’t wanted to bother her and had slept on the couch. No one had ever called her a slow witch. The next day she had sought out Missouri and told her what had happened. Missouri had a vision as she touched Mary’s stomach and it frightened Mary to her core. It was about her dying.
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Until Mary had ran into Azazel she hadn’t even been sure she was pregnant; she still had a period, there was no sickness, not like she had had with Dean. The moment that thing had touched her stomach she felt something move, her child and she would be damned if she was going to let that yellow-eyed bastard have him without a fight. It had taken the three of them months of searching to come up with the demon’s name: they had used Mary’s blood and an ancient ritual that Ellen had found. Mary had cried the day Missouri told her of Sam’s problem, and it was Ellen who had come up with the solution.
Samuel had an incomplete soul, because his father (though Mary could hardly stomach to call him that) had none. So Ellen had dug through history after history and finally came across a mention of a half-souled person. The young woman had been bonded to another when she was a child and when they met, somehow her soul was healed.
So on this, the anniversary of Samuel’s birth, Mary spoke the words, Missouri made the motions and Ellen held them all together as they cast a spell of protection and love on Sam Winchester. Life and true love, soul mates and protection from evil, they cast in different forms, in different languages, hoping to confound the evil that they all knew would trail Sam until he and his soul mate could be together.
Mary sighed as the power settled on the sleeping child just as the clock chimed the quarter hour, 11:15 -the moment of Sam’s first breath. The three of them kissed Sam on the head and Mary opened the door to find Dean sleeping on the floor outside. A worried frown touched her face briefly; they hadn’t cast a circle because of the way the spell had been designed. Had she harmed her eldest while protecting her youngest? Then the worry passed. Love had been cast tonight and no harm could come from that.
Smoothing Dean’s hair, she carried him back to bed. “Sammy,” Dean murmured and Mary leaned down and kissed her son’s warm cheek.
“Sammy’s fine, love. You sleep.”
“Love Sammy, fine,” Dean murmured back in an odd copy of her words. Mary shook her head and let Dean sleep in peace.
Slipping out of his room, she walked to the front door. They had spoken of this, the three of them. They knew that they couldn’t stay together. Mary and the others knew she would be dead inside four months at the most and she needed her friends, her sisters, to be safe. They had agreed to split up, to never speak of one another again. Samuel needed protection and this way, if the demon found out what they had done, it could only come after one of them.
That her friends would do this for her, for her son, left her in tears. “Goddess bless you,” she said as she kissed Ellen’s cheeks. “May your hearth ever burn warm. I don’t know. . .” Mary started and both of the women stopped her.
“We know you would do it for us in a heartbeat. We love you,” Missouri spoke quietly in the darkness as the crickets chirped around them.
“Sisters forever,” Ellen whispered as she pulled Mary into a tight hug. Mary tried to memorize this moment because she knew they would never have another together, not in this lifetime. She heard the rumble of the Impala as it turned the corner at the end of their street. With a last hug she said goodbye to her sisters of the heart and turned to face the bright lights of John’s car. She reminded herself to throw some protections on the other love of John’s life. Feeling that the car would be both his and the boys haven for a while after she died, she knew she should do it soon.
“Was that your coven?” John asked as he stepped out of the car and Mary was in his arms before he could blink.
“Of course.” Mary’s mother had been the one to show her that the best way to hide something was out in the open. “We were so busy casting spells I almost forgot to make you dinner.”
John laughed and slapped her ass. “Food woman! What else are you good for?”
Mary threaded her arm through John’s as they walked inside. “I thought that the sex wasn’t half bad,” she quipped and then danced out of his reach as he grabbed for her. Bringing him supper that she had kept warm in the oven, she sat across from the table and watched him eat, wondering for the millionth time if she should tell him. Once again coming to the conclusion that she couldn’t, he needed to be in the moment if he was to protect Dean and Sam, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t do that if he was either worried that she was insane, or worse, decided that she was telling the truth.
Three months later she walked into Sammy’s room and found Azazel standing over Sam’s crib, dripping blood into her baby’s mouth. No! They hadn’t prepared for that. Demon blood would twist the protections all out of order and just NO! She felt herself get shoved against the wall and under her breath she started chanting, protection and love; she would keep her son safe until he could find his other half, she would.
She lay on the ceiling and looked down at her son. Feeling the life draining out of her she gave up the fight as she heard John coming down the hall. Oh how she loved this family, and with that thought Mary died.
part one