A Case of Do or Die 1/8
Meta data is in the master post.
Chapter 1
Of All the Gin Joints
April 12, 1987
John woke more or less rested the morning after a salt and burn in Milwaukee and was just about ready to start loading the car to head back to Blue Earth and his boys when the handle of his closet door rattled. He turned to frown at it... and jumped a good six inches backward when it burst open in a flash of light and a man about his own age and size tumbled through it. The man might have been a fellow Jarhead-short, sandy brown hair and a rangy build in an Army surplus jacket and combat boots under his well-worn jeans, and green eyes that had seen a hell of a lot of war-but given the fact that he’d fallen out of John’s closet, John didn’t want to take any chances. So he had his sidearm aimed at the guy’s heart by the time the guy had righted himself far enough to be on his knees.
The guy didn’t move any further, just raised both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “John?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I don’t even have time to prove I’m human. Guess you have to take my word on that.”
John frowned at that, but then he realized that the light edging the frame of the closet door hadn’t faded, and the space behind the kneeling stranger was a black void, like... some kind of portal.
But the stranger didn’t give him time to object. “John. Do you love your sons?”
John blinked. “Of course I do.”
“Would you do anything to keep them safe? Even if it cost you your life?”
“Yes,” got out before John could think about it. “But why-”
“I don’t. Have. Time. I just need you to read this.” The guy reached into the inside pocket of his jacket with one hand, keeping the other hand in plain sight, and pulled out a packet of papers that he tossed to the floor between them. “There’s a quest. Three trials, and you can close the gates of Hell forever. I’m not gonna lie. It will kill you, and Hell will do its damnedest to stop you. But the thing that killed Mary, every damned creature that’s gunning for your boys-you can end it all. Permanently.”
“Why me?”
“Because we can’t, my brother and me. Look, just give me time to go back where I came from. Read what’s in there. Talk it over with your friends if you want, but... please. I’m beggin’ you. You don’t want to know what’ll happen if you don’t.”
John lowered his gun a fraction. “Who are you?”
The stranger swallowed before replying hoarsely, “A righteous man.”
John didn’t know why he bought it. But somehow that answer prompted him to lower his gun all the way. The stranger nodded once, then leapt to his feet and bolted back through the portal, leaving the papers behind. The light flared again, and the closet door banged shut. John waited about two seconds before jerking it open again, only to find the closet the same as it had been five minutes ago-well, apart from the sigil that appeared to have been burned into the thin wood from the inside. He snapped a Polaroid of it before approaching the papers.
There were notes in the margins-notes in Vietnamese, a language John could never fully forget how to read, no matter how poorly he’d been able to speak it when he was in theater fifteen years or so ago. He’d look at them in more detail later. But the main English text was exactly what the stranger had said, instructions on how to close the gates of Hell for good. There were notes after the text, too, written by two different people, not the Vietnamese-American whose handwriting made up the main text and whose grammar was too good not to be a native English speaker. Those notes included details about how to get the hellhound for the first trial, how to get into and out of Hell for the second and the spell that would let him carry the innocent soul out of Purgatory with him, and how to cure a demon for the third. They included lists of allies to seek out, names of hunters and other individuals to avoid, sources of supplies and weapons and information, and a particular warning to avoid approaching Metatron because his long seclusion had made him power-mad. (That was John’s summary, anyway; the actual note included some long explanation involving Shelley, Coleridge, Blake, and “the Romantic ideal of the poet as god,” which went way over his head and gave him unpleasant flashbacks to high-school English to boot.) And they chronicled what would happen after each trial: the purifying fire that seemed to take root as unquenchable fever, the maddening resonance that resulted from proximity to Metatron, the way the final trial would consume him further with every step he drew closer to completion.
There was also a special note about the second trial: The best we can figure is, since Mary’s soul is still stuck in Lawrence, Hell’s first attempt to stop you will be to drag her into the Pit. The demons have no way of knowing what you’re up to or what the second trial will be, so they’ll set it up for you without realizing it. Be forewarned, though-there’s no telling what they’ll do to her before you get there. She may be in pretty bad shape. The a in “Mary” looked like it had been converted from an o, though, and the last sentence was followed by what seemed to be several words so thoroughly scratched out that they were wholly illegible. John wondered what that meant and whether the person writing had been about to write “Molly” or some other “Mo-” name...
... or Mom.
The question nagged him all the way back to Blue Earth, where Jim insisted on calling in Bobby, Rufus, Caleb, and Bill and Ellen to give their opinions. None of them knew of the mysterious Men of Letters the English notes mentioned, and none of them recognized the symbol that had been burned in the closet door by whatever means the stranger used to open the portal. What information they could verify was accurate, including the identity of Rabbi Isaac Bass and his affiliation with the Judah Initiative; Rufus knew him well. But not one of the hunters knew what to advise John, especially given the very strong likelihood that he would be leaving the boys orphaned if he did go through with the trials.
Jim offered to pray. John thanked him very kindly and made an appointment with Missouri.
Missouri’s face was grim when he finally arrived the next evening. “Let me see the papers, John,” she said before he even had a chance to speak.
“Hello to you, too,” he murmured and handed them over.
She gasped quietly as she took them, eyes widening further every second she held them without reading the actual text. Then she dropped them on the coffee table as if they burned and sank down on the couch, weeping.
“What is it?” he asked, sitting down across from her. “What did you see?”
She shook her head, and it was a long moment before she was able to speak. “He was right. You don’t want to know. Terrible, terrible... mm. The evil those poor boys have suffered, for him to think the only way out was to ask his own father-”
“WHAT?!”
She nodded. “That’s the spell. ‘Blood leads to blood.’” Finally, she managed to look him in the eye. “You were right, too. Dean’s a protector by nature, but that boy had seen a whole lot too much war by the time he used that spell. More than you’ll ever know. More than any man ever should. Hell’s gates needed closing, but he just couldn’t let Sam do it himself. And Sam wouldn’t let Dean do it himself. Seems the bloodline was part of the key, and the boys didn’t have anyone else they could trust. So seein’ as how you’d have traded your life for Dean’s in the end anyway-oh, Lawdamercy, John, it killed him to open that door, to have to ask that of you. He hoped like anything he’d go too far, land in your father’s closet, or Mary’s father’s. He could live with losing them, with never bein’ born. But if the ch-ch-choice was b-between y-y-you an’ S-s-s-sammy....” She broke down again, sobbing and wailing enough for both of them.
John couldn’t keep tears from spilling down his own cheeks. He couldn’t make sense of what she was telling him, but he had never seen her so upset, not even the day she’d gone into the ruins of their burned house and come out with the truth. It took him a good minute to pull his thoughts together well enough to voice any question at all. But when he did, what came out was, “Why? Why me, why now?”
She shook her head and hiccupped a couple of times before she had enough control to speak again. “I don’t know why you. But if you want to save your boys... you close those gates now, and this thing you’re all caught up in, this curse been laid on your family, it all fails. I don’t know what comes next, only that you’d stop a powerful lot of evil from hurting them and the rest of the world. And if you don’t... they’ll die.”
“And... the-the thing that killed Mary?”
“Was a demon. Won’t kill him, doin’ this, but you’d lock him away with all the rest.”
He sat back with a deep breath, watching her watch him with tears still streaming down her cheeks. He’d never hunted demons before, not knowingly. He didn’t know what a world without demons would be like, whether smarter people than he would consider it a change for the better. His mind was still too scattered from the shock of the revelation that the stranger hadn’t been a stranger at all for any of the implications to be clear. And there was the question of vengeance when it came to the demon who killed Mary, whether he could be satisfied with only locking it away and not exacting a life for a life.
And yet he kept coming back to the question his son-his own son, the righteous man-had hardly wanted to ask: Would you do anything to save your sons? Even if it cost you your life?
Missouri sniffled loudly. “You’re going through with it.”
John sighed. “Do I have a choice?”
“John, you listen, now. It don’t have to get done right this second. Take some time and love those boys. Give ’em some memories to carry with ’em-the kind you wished your daddy’d give you ’fore he took off.”
He flinched, but he knew she had a point. He couldn’t just disappear the way P-the way Henry had. There was always the chance that the boys would see his choice as an abandonment, but... hell, knowing he was going to die, it was almost like being handed a diagnosis of terminal cancer or something similar. Or maybe it was like being the one to take the chemo for a cancer that was killing the whole planet. Either way, the chief difference was that he could control how long he had left with the boys, even if he couldn’t control the time the trials themselves would take.
He refused to think of it as a suicide mission. It wasn’t that he wanted to die-but from what Missouri had said, he was dead one way or another. Stepping in front of this oncoming train now would give him a better chance of stopping it from hitting his boys than if he did it however many years in the future, when it was evidently too close to stop. But that said, he didn’t have to take that step right that minute. He could take the time to give the boys some closure first.
Yet the thought of closure brought to mind that note about Mary. “Did the new owners finish rebuilding the house?” he asked aloud.
Missouri nodded slowly. “Mm-hm. And it’s been quiet. Hadn’t seen that she was still there, but I don’t know everything. Just like I don’t know if she’ll be strong enough to talk to you. But she’ll hear. You go talk to her. That’s a good idea.”
“I will, then.”
“And you call me if you need anything. I mean that. Day or night, anything at all, you call me. This is a mighty thing you’re doin’, and you shouldn’t have to face it alone.”
“I’ll remember. Thank you.”
They both stood, and she pulled him into a warm hug, a few more tears spilling from each of their eyes onto the other’s shoulder. Then she released him, and he gathered up the papers and left with only a farewell smile and nod of thanks.
It felt strange to drive up to their old house and see it repaired, almost as if the fire had never happened. At first it hardly seemed like the past three years had even happened. Yet as he looked more closely, he could tell that the siding was new, pick out the points where the new roofing gave way to the old, see the branches that were still charred sticking out among the new green leaves near the nursery window.
He wondered, now that Sammy was past toddling, whether he’d ever have tried to find a way to open the window and climb down the tree. Dean had tried it once at about Sammy’s age, but he’d only gotten two steps out on the porch roof before he’d lost his nerve and started crying.
Man, that was a lifetime ago that John had pulled his shaking son back to safety. The fire had burned that fear out of Dean, seemed like, or maybe it was just a matter of having grown up enough to not fear any evil except harm to Sammy. The boy had just turned eight a few months back and was a better, steadier shot than many of the raw recruits, fresh from Basic, that John had handled in ’Nam.
He couldn’t let his baby’s eyes turn into the eyes of the man who’d fallen out of his closet. He couldn’t.
“Mr. Winchester?” prompted a female voice, startling John out of his reverie. He turned to see one of the house’s new owners standing on the front porch; they’d met when he came back for the closing, at the real estate agent’s insistence. “Can I help you with something?”
John pulled himself together. “Uh, sorry. I just... happened to be in town, so I thought... the place looks good. Real good.”
The lady smiled. “Would you like to come in and see what we’ve done inside?”
“If... if it wouldn’t be intruding. I shoulda called, I know.”
“No, it’s no trouble! Please do come in.”
He let her give him the five-cent tour, and enough of the décor had changed that it didn’t really feel like home anymore. Home, honestly, was that chunk of Detroit steel sitting at the curb, much as he hated to admit it. Still, it was hard to go back up those stairs, see the new floor and a few scorch marks remaining in the old, and remember how he’d fled for his life because he couldn’t save Mary’s.
And then, in the room that had been Sammy’s nursery but was now a sewing room, John suddenly felt a distinct chill.
“Strange, isn’t it?” the new owner said. “We can’t figure out why that happens. And it’s only in this room-well, sometimes in the guest room, but not usually in the master or anywhere else. It’s almost like the room’s trying to make up for having been so hot in that fire!”
John chuckled a little. “Yeah... yeah, that is odd, huh?” But his eyes strayed to the ceiling, as if they expected to find Mary still there, ringed in flame. He knew she wouldn’t be, but still.
The new owner noticed, and her smile turned sad. “Would you like a moment?”
He nodded. “Yeah, if... if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll go fix some coffee.” She patted his arm and left.
He waited until he heard her start down the stairs, then closed the door and moved further into the center of the room. Then he took a deep breath and let it out again. “Hey, Mar. I, um. I’ve... been looking for the thing that killed you, and... well, they call us hunters. I kill monsters and ghosts and such now.”
The chill deepened in a way he recognized.
“I’m-look, I’m not here to-to do anything. I just-it’s a long story, but I’ve got information on how to close the gates of Hell.”
Something cold brushed his arm.
“I’ve got to do this, Mary. For your sake. For the boys. But there’s... there’s a chance something could take you. The second trial is delivering an innocent soul from Hell, and my... my source thinks the soul’s probably going to be you. So I wanted t-to warn you and to promise I’ll come for you as fast as I can. I’ll get you out of there, I swear.”
There was a pause, and then he very clearly felt a kiss press against his cheek. And a second or two after that, his wedding ring suddenly turned icy cold, fiery hot, and back to normal in quick succession.
“Whoa, what-what was that?”
And for the first time, he heard the barest whisper in his ear: Entreat me not to leave thee.
He swallowed convulsively a time or two. “Mary....”
Another kiss, and all went still.
He struggled for composure for a long moment before he finally felt able to go down and face the prospect of coffee and polite conversation. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much of either waiting for him-the coffee cup was small, and the new owner was sensitive to the fact that he was a widower and didn’t try to force much chit-chat. He thanked her for the tour and the coffee and made his escape without too much awkwardness.
It wasn’t until he was almost back to his motel with Chinese takeout that he noticed the papers on the seat beside him start to move a little.
He cleared his throat. The movement stopped.
“Mary....”
A cold spot developed right next to him.
He sighed. “Look, save your strength, all right? I’m not starting the trials tomorrow. Missouri-that’s the psychic who told me what happened-said I should spend some extra time with the boys first. And I’m going to. You can read over my shoulder or something later.”
The chill lessened a little.
“Why are you even here? I... I don’t... don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, but....”
A cool hand squeezed his arm.
He sighed again. “The boys can’t know. Dean knows what I do, but Sammy... he’s just a baby. He won’t ever know if I can help it.”
The papers flew up and smacked him upside the head.
He laughed in spite of himself. “Damn, I’ve missed you.”
Another squeeze, and the cold spot faded out.
It was a good thing John’s only plan for the evening had been to eat and sleep, possibly with some TV thrown in. Mary squeezed his arm again after he’d gotten the salt lines set, and after he ate quickly, he found himself talking to not-quite-thin air about everything from hunting to the latest on Sammy and Dean. He wasn’t sure he’d ever talked to Mary this much while she was alive. For hours he kept up the monologue, the only sure sign that Mary was listening being the cup of water she kept bringing him every time his voice got hoarse. He even confessed how he felt about things, how the grief and rage and stress and fear were taking their toll, how he worried that something would use him against the boys or them against him, how he always hoped this would be the year he’d end the war by Christmas and how the elusiveness of that goal made him fear that it never would be over, and how very much he missed her still, every damn day.
When he finally faltered to a halt, he heard, I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry.
And the storm burst. He cried and cried in a way he hadn’t since shortly after the fire, and it felt like she embraced him and shed phantom tears of her own. By the time he’d cried himself out, he was too spent even to change for bed. The last thing he was aware of was the sheet sliding up over him.
He woke the next morning to someone pounding on his door. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled to answer and was almost knocked over when Missouri pushed the door all the way open. “I brought breakfast,” she said as she charged past him. “It’s in the car, and I suggest you eat it out there.”
“Whu-?” John mumbled but staggered out to Missouri’s car to retrieve the coffee and bacon-egg croissant-from a bakery, not McDonald’s-that were sitting on her front passenger seat, then plopped down on the Impala’s hood to consume them. A few sips of coffee and a couple of bites of sandwich cleared his head enough for him first to realize that he’d forgotten to shut the room door and then to make out Missouri talking to someone quietly.
“You listen here, Mary-girl. This. Was. Not. Your. Fault.”
John was so startled, he almost dropped his coffee.
“No, now-I know that. ... It wouldn’t have mattered, girl. ... Even if you’d lived-you hush now. Listen to Missouri. ... All right. They would have found some way to force this on your babies no matter what happened to you. Dean wasn’t lyin’; it’s bigger than the four of you. ... Then they would have found some other way. ... Mary. ... I know that. I know you did. But girl, you got to face facts. It is what it is. And John’s got to do this. ... Child, have you met the man you married?!”
He couldn’t suppress a snort at that. Missouri had to know he could hear her anyway; hers was the kind of voice that carried regardless of volume.
“Well, honey, I think it’s foolish and reckless and absolutely the best thing you can do. He needs you. But he wasn’t lyin’, either. You save your strength, ’cause you will need every bit of it when the time comes. And don’t you go blamin’ yourself, now. You weren’t to know. You just love your man and your babies while you can, ’cause it ain’t every woman gets even this kind of second chance. ... All right, baby girl. You take care, now. And what I told him, I’m gonna tell you, too. You need me, you call, however you can.”
John didn’t have to be psychic to know the conversation was finished. So he scarfed down the rest of the croissant and stood just as Missouri came out and pulled the door most of the way to, shaking her head.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
She sighed. “Poor girl, been readin’ those papers even though you told her not to. She grew up a hunter, you know-well, you don’t, since she never told you that you remember.”
“A hunter? Mary?!” Yet even as he struggled to get his mind around the idea, a flash that felt like long-suppressed memory came to him, an image of Mary with a short silver sword in her hand, facing off against a pale woman with striking red hair like... like she’d been fighting such things all her life. When had that happened, and why couldn’t he remember more than that flash?
Missouri took another step toward him, her face serious. “John. Don’t you go blamin’ her. She wanted you safe, all of you. She thought this was the way. She was wrong, but I told her the truth just now-the Powers That Be would find some way to force you and your boys into this life no matter what she did. And there ain’t no use cryin’ over it now. You can’t change the past, but you can change what’s comin’. You shut this down, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
He sighed and nodded. “Thanks, Missouri.”
She pulled him into another long, warm hug, then let him go. “Go on, now. She’s about done cryin’, ready to go.”
He nodded again. “Thanks.”
She squeezed his arm and went back to her car, and he pulled himself together and went back inside just in time to see the papers that were scattered across the table gather themselves up neatly.
“Mornin’,” he rumbled as he walked up to the table and was greeted by a cold kiss on his cheek. “Let me get myself presentable, and we can go.”
Mary kissed his cheek again and went back to straightening. By the time he’d showered, shaved, and dressed, his bag was packed and ready to go, and the papers were resting on top. He smiled, gathered everything up, and carefully scuffed the salt line on his way out the door.
Next
Chapter 1
Of All the Gin Joints
April 12, 1987
John woke more or less rested the morning after a salt and burn in Milwaukee and was just about ready to start loading the car to head back to Blue Earth and his boys when the handle of his closet door rattled. He turned to frown at it... and jumped a good six inches backward when it burst open in a flash of light and a man about his own age and size tumbled through it. The man might have been a fellow Jarhead-short, sandy brown hair and a rangy build in an Army surplus jacket and combat boots under his well-worn jeans, and green eyes that had seen a hell of a lot of war-but given the fact that he’d fallen out of John’s closet, John didn’t want to take any chances. So he had his sidearm aimed at the guy’s heart by the time the guy had righted himself far enough to be on his knees.
The guy didn’t move any further, just raised both hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “John?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“I don’t have time to explain. I don’t even have time to prove I’m human. Guess you have to take my word on that.”
John frowned at that, but then he realized that the light edging the frame of the closet door hadn’t faded, and the space behind the kneeling stranger was a black void, like... some kind of portal.
But the stranger didn’t give him time to object. “John. Do you love your sons?”
John blinked. “Of course I do.”
“Would you do anything to keep them safe? Even if it cost you your life?”
“Yes,” got out before John could think about it. “But why-”
“I don’t. Have. Time. I just need you to read this.” The guy reached into the inside pocket of his jacket with one hand, keeping the other hand in plain sight, and pulled out a packet of papers that he tossed to the floor between them. “There’s a quest. Three trials, and you can close the gates of Hell forever. I’m not gonna lie. It will kill you, and Hell will do its damnedest to stop you. But the thing that killed Mary, every damned creature that’s gunning for your boys-you can end it all. Permanently.”
“Why me?”
“Because we can’t, my brother and me. Look, just give me time to go back where I came from. Read what’s in there. Talk it over with your friends if you want, but... please. I’m beggin’ you. You don’t want to know what’ll happen if you don’t.”
John lowered his gun a fraction. “Who are you?”
The stranger swallowed before replying hoarsely, “A righteous man.”
John didn’t know why he bought it. But somehow that answer prompted him to lower his gun all the way. The stranger nodded once, then leapt to his feet and bolted back through the portal, leaving the papers behind. The light flared again, and the closet door banged shut. John waited about two seconds before jerking it open again, only to find the closet the same as it had been five minutes ago-well, apart from the sigil that appeared to have been burned into the thin wood from the inside. He snapped a Polaroid of it before approaching the papers.
There were notes in the margins-notes in Vietnamese, a language John could never fully forget how to read, no matter how poorly he’d been able to speak it when he was in theater fifteen years or so ago. He’d look at them in more detail later. But the main English text was exactly what the stranger had said, instructions on how to close the gates of Hell for good. There were notes after the text, too, written by two different people, not the Vietnamese-American whose handwriting made up the main text and whose grammar was too good not to be a native English speaker. Those notes included details about how to get the hellhound for the first trial, how to get into and out of Hell for the second and the spell that would let him carry the innocent soul out of Purgatory with him, and how to cure a demon for the third. They included lists of allies to seek out, names of hunters and other individuals to avoid, sources of supplies and weapons and information, and a particular warning to avoid approaching Metatron because his long seclusion had made him power-mad. (That was John’s summary, anyway; the actual note included some long explanation involving Shelley, Coleridge, Blake, and “the Romantic ideal of the poet as god,” which went way over his head and gave him unpleasant flashbacks to high-school English to boot.) And they chronicled what would happen after each trial: the purifying fire that seemed to take root as unquenchable fever, the maddening resonance that resulted from proximity to Metatron, the way the final trial would consume him further with every step he drew closer to completion.
There was also a special note about the second trial: The best we can figure is, since Mary’s soul is still stuck in Lawrence, Hell’s first attempt to stop you will be to drag her into the Pit. The demons have no way of knowing what you’re up to or what the second trial will be, so they’ll set it up for you without realizing it. Be forewarned, though-there’s no telling what they’ll do to her before you get there. She may be in pretty bad shape. The a in “Mary” looked like it had been converted from an o, though, and the last sentence was followed by what seemed to be several words so thoroughly scratched out that they were wholly illegible. John wondered what that meant and whether the person writing had been about to write “Molly” or some other “Mo-” name...
... or Mom.
The question nagged him all the way back to Blue Earth, where Jim insisted on calling in Bobby, Rufus, Caleb, and Bill and Ellen to give their opinions. None of them knew of the mysterious Men of Letters the English notes mentioned, and none of them recognized the symbol that had been burned in the closet door by whatever means the stranger used to open the portal. What information they could verify was accurate, including the identity of Rabbi Isaac Bass and his affiliation with the Judah Initiative; Rufus knew him well. But not one of the hunters knew what to advise John, especially given the very strong likelihood that he would be leaving the boys orphaned if he did go through with the trials.
Jim offered to pray. John thanked him very kindly and made an appointment with Missouri.
Missouri’s face was grim when he finally arrived the next evening. “Let me see the papers, John,” she said before he even had a chance to speak.
“Hello to you, too,” he murmured and handed them over.
She gasped quietly as she took them, eyes widening further every second she held them without reading the actual text. Then she dropped them on the coffee table as if they burned and sank down on the couch, weeping.
“What is it?” he asked, sitting down across from her. “What did you see?”
She shook her head, and it was a long moment before she was able to speak. “He was right. You don’t want to know. Terrible, terrible... mm. The evil those poor boys have suffered, for him to think the only way out was to ask his own father-”
“WHAT?!”
She nodded. “That’s the spell. ‘Blood leads to blood.’” Finally, she managed to look him in the eye. “You were right, too. Dean’s a protector by nature, but that boy had seen a whole lot too much war by the time he used that spell. More than you’ll ever know. More than any man ever should. Hell’s gates needed closing, but he just couldn’t let Sam do it himself. And Sam wouldn’t let Dean do it himself. Seems the bloodline was part of the key, and the boys didn’t have anyone else they could trust. So seein’ as how you’d have traded your life for Dean’s in the end anyway-oh, Lawdamercy, John, it killed him to open that door, to have to ask that of you. He hoped like anything he’d go too far, land in your father’s closet, or Mary’s father’s. He could live with losing them, with never bein’ born. But if the ch-ch-choice was b-between y-y-you an’ S-s-s-sammy....” She broke down again, sobbing and wailing enough for both of them.
John couldn’t keep tears from spilling down his own cheeks. He couldn’t make sense of what she was telling him, but he had never seen her so upset, not even the day she’d gone into the ruins of their burned house and come out with the truth. It took him a good minute to pull his thoughts together well enough to voice any question at all. But when he did, what came out was, “Why? Why me, why now?”
She shook her head and hiccupped a couple of times before she had enough control to speak again. “I don’t know why you. But if you want to save your boys... you close those gates now, and this thing you’re all caught up in, this curse been laid on your family, it all fails. I don’t know what comes next, only that you’d stop a powerful lot of evil from hurting them and the rest of the world. And if you don’t... they’ll die.”
“And... the-the thing that killed Mary?”
“Was a demon. Won’t kill him, doin’ this, but you’d lock him away with all the rest.”
He sat back with a deep breath, watching her watch him with tears still streaming down her cheeks. He’d never hunted demons before, not knowingly. He didn’t know what a world without demons would be like, whether smarter people than he would consider it a change for the better. His mind was still too scattered from the shock of the revelation that the stranger hadn’t been a stranger at all for any of the implications to be clear. And there was the question of vengeance when it came to the demon who killed Mary, whether he could be satisfied with only locking it away and not exacting a life for a life.
And yet he kept coming back to the question his son-his own son, the righteous man-had hardly wanted to ask: Would you do anything to save your sons? Even if it cost you your life?
Missouri sniffled loudly. “You’re going through with it.”
John sighed. “Do I have a choice?”
“John, you listen, now. It don’t have to get done right this second. Take some time and love those boys. Give ’em some memories to carry with ’em-the kind you wished your daddy’d give you ’fore he took off.”
He flinched, but he knew she had a point. He couldn’t just disappear the way P-the way Henry had. There was always the chance that the boys would see his choice as an abandonment, but... hell, knowing he was going to die, it was almost like being handed a diagnosis of terminal cancer or something similar. Or maybe it was like being the one to take the chemo for a cancer that was killing the whole planet. Either way, the chief difference was that he could control how long he had left with the boys, even if he couldn’t control the time the trials themselves would take.
He refused to think of it as a suicide mission. It wasn’t that he wanted to die-but from what Missouri had said, he was dead one way or another. Stepping in front of this oncoming train now would give him a better chance of stopping it from hitting his boys than if he did it however many years in the future, when it was evidently too close to stop. But that said, he didn’t have to take that step right that minute. He could take the time to give the boys some closure first.
Yet the thought of closure brought to mind that note about Mary. “Did the new owners finish rebuilding the house?” he asked aloud.
Missouri nodded slowly. “Mm-hm. And it’s been quiet. Hadn’t seen that she was still there, but I don’t know everything. Just like I don’t know if she’ll be strong enough to talk to you. But she’ll hear. You go talk to her. That’s a good idea.”
“I will, then.”
“And you call me if you need anything. I mean that. Day or night, anything at all, you call me. This is a mighty thing you’re doin’, and you shouldn’t have to face it alone.”
“I’ll remember. Thank you.”
They both stood, and she pulled him into a warm hug, a few more tears spilling from each of their eyes onto the other’s shoulder. Then she released him, and he gathered up the papers and left with only a farewell smile and nod of thanks.
It felt strange to drive up to their old house and see it repaired, almost as if the fire had never happened. At first it hardly seemed like the past three years had even happened. Yet as he looked more closely, he could tell that the siding was new, pick out the points where the new roofing gave way to the old, see the branches that were still charred sticking out among the new green leaves near the nursery window.
He wondered, now that Sammy was past toddling, whether he’d ever have tried to find a way to open the window and climb down the tree. Dean had tried it once at about Sammy’s age, but he’d only gotten two steps out on the porch roof before he’d lost his nerve and started crying.
Man, that was a lifetime ago that John had pulled his shaking son back to safety. The fire had burned that fear out of Dean, seemed like, or maybe it was just a matter of having grown up enough to not fear any evil except harm to Sammy. The boy had just turned eight a few months back and was a better, steadier shot than many of the raw recruits, fresh from Basic, that John had handled in ’Nam.
He couldn’t let his baby’s eyes turn into the eyes of the man who’d fallen out of his closet. He couldn’t.
“Mr. Winchester?” prompted a female voice, startling John out of his reverie. He turned to see one of the house’s new owners standing on the front porch; they’d met when he came back for the closing, at the real estate agent’s insistence. “Can I help you with something?”
John pulled himself together. “Uh, sorry. I just... happened to be in town, so I thought... the place looks good. Real good.”
The lady smiled. “Would you like to come in and see what we’ve done inside?”
“If... if it wouldn’t be intruding. I shoulda called, I know.”
“No, it’s no trouble! Please do come in.”
He let her give him the five-cent tour, and enough of the décor had changed that it didn’t really feel like home anymore. Home, honestly, was that chunk of Detroit steel sitting at the curb, much as he hated to admit it. Still, it was hard to go back up those stairs, see the new floor and a few scorch marks remaining in the old, and remember how he’d fled for his life because he couldn’t save Mary’s.
And then, in the room that had been Sammy’s nursery but was now a sewing room, John suddenly felt a distinct chill.
“Strange, isn’t it?” the new owner said. “We can’t figure out why that happens. And it’s only in this room-well, sometimes in the guest room, but not usually in the master or anywhere else. It’s almost like the room’s trying to make up for having been so hot in that fire!”
John chuckled a little. “Yeah... yeah, that is odd, huh?” But his eyes strayed to the ceiling, as if they expected to find Mary still there, ringed in flame. He knew she wouldn’t be, but still.
The new owner noticed, and her smile turned sad. “Would you like a moment?”
He nodded. “Yeah, if... if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll go fix some coffee.” She patted his arm and left.
He waited until he heard her start down the stairs, then closed the door and moved further into the center of the room. Then he took a deep breath and let it out again. “Hey, Mar. I, um. I’ve... been looking for the thing that killed you, and... well, they call us hunters. I kill monsters and ghosts and such now.”
The chill deepened in a way he recognized.
“I’m-look, I’m not here to-to do anything. I just-it’s a long story, but I’ve got information on how to close the gates of Hell.”
Something cold brushed his arm.
“I’ve got to do this, Mary. For your sake. For the boys. But there’s... there’s a chance something could take you. The second trial is delivering an innocent soul from Hell, and my... my source thinks the soul’s probably going to be you. So I wanted t-to warn you and to promise I’ll come for you as fast as I can. I’ll get you out of there, I swear.”
There was a pause, and then he very clearly felt a kiss press against his cheek. And a second or two after that, his wedding ring suddenly turned icy cold, fiery hot, and back to normal in quick succession.
“Whoa, what-what was that?”
And for the first time, he heard the barest whisper in his ear: Entreat me not to leave thee.
He swallowed convulsively a time or two. “Mary....”
Another kiss, and all went still.
He struggled for composure for a long moment before he finally felt able to go down and face the prospect of coffee and polite conversation. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much of either waiting for him-the coffee cup was small, and the new owner was sensitive to the fact that he was a widower and didn’t try to force much chit-chat. He thanked her for the tour and the coffee and made his escape without too much awkwardness.
It wasn’t until he was almost back to his motel with Chinese takeout that he noticed the papers on the seat beside him start to move a little.
He cleared his throat. The movement stopped.
“Mary....”
A cold spot developed right next to him.
He sighed. “Look, save your strength, all right? I’m not starting the trials tomorrow. Missouri-that’s the psychic who told me what happened-said I should spend some extra time with the boys first. And I’m going to. You can read over my shoulder or something later.”
The chill lessened a little.
“Why are you even here? I... I don’t... don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, but....”
A cool hand squeezed his arm.
He sighed again. “The boys can’t know. Dean knows what I do, but Sammy... he’s just a baby. He won’t ever know if I can help it.”
The papers flew up and smacked him upside the head.
He laughed in spite of himself. “Damn, I’ve missed you.”
Another squeeze, and the cold spot faded out.
It was a good thing John’s only plan for the evening had been to eat and sleep, possibly with some TV thrown in. Mary squeezed his arm again after he’d gotten the salt lines set, and after he ate quickly, he found himself talking to not-quite-thin air about everything from hunting to the latest on Sammy and Dean. He wasn’t sure he’d ever talked to Mary this much while she was alive. For hours he kept up the monologue, the only sure sign that Mary was listening being the cup of water she kept bringing him every time his voice got hoarse. He even confessed how he felt about things, how the grief and rage and stress and fear were taking their toll, how he worried that something would use him against the boys or them against him, how he always hoped this would be the year he’d end the war by Christmas and how the elusiveness of that goal made him fear that it never would be over, and how very much he missed her still, every damn day.
When he finally faltered to a halt, he heard, I’m sorry, John. I’m so sorry.
And the storm burst. He cried and cried in a way he hadn’t since shortly after the fire, and it felt like she embraced him and shed phantom tears of her own. By the time he’d cried himself out, he was too spent even to change for bed. The last thing he was aware of was the sheet sliding up over him.
He woke the next morning to someone pounding on his door. Bleary-eyed, he stumbled to answer and was almost knocked over when Missouri pushed the door all the way open. “I brought breakfast,” she said as she charged past him. “It’s in the car, and I suggest you eat it out there.”
“Whu-?” John mumbled but staggered out to Missouri’s car to retrieve the coffee and bacon-egg croissant-from a bakery, not McDonald’s-that were sitting on her front passenger seat, then plopped down on the Impala’s hood to consume them. A few sips of coffee and a couple of bites of sandwich cleared his head enough for him first to realize that he’d forgotten to shut the room door and then to make out Missouri talking to someone quietly.
“You listen here, Mary-girl. This. Was. Not. Your. Fault.”
John was so startled, he almost dropped his coffee.
“No, now-I know that. ... It wouldn’t have mattered, girl. ... Even if you’d lived-you hush now. Listen to Missouri. ... All right. They would have found some way to force this on your babies no matter what happened to you. Dean wasn’t lyin’; it’s bigger than the four of you. ... Then they would have found some other way. ... Mary. ... I know that. I know you did. But girl, you got to face facts. It is what it is. And John’s got to do this. ... Child, have you met the man you married?!”
He couldn’t suppress a snort at that. Missouri had to know he could hear her anyway; hers was the kind of voice that carried regardless of volume.
“Well, honey, I think it’s foolish and reckless and absolutely the best thing you can do. He needs you. But he wasn’t lyin’, either. You save your strength, ’cause you will need every bit of it when the time comes. And don’t you go blamin’ yourself, now. You weren’t to know. You just love your man and your babies while you can, ’cause it ain’t every woman gets even this kind of second chance. ... All right, baby girl. You take care, now. And what I told him, I’m gonna tell you, too. You need me, you call, however you can.”
John didn’t have to be psychic to know the conversation was finished. So he scarfed down the rest of the croissant and stood just as Missouri came out and pulled the door most of the way to, shaking her head.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
She sighed. “Poor girl, been readin’ those papers even though you told her not to. She grew up a hunter, you know-well, you don’t, since she never told you that you remember.”
“A hunter? Mary?!” Yet even as he struggled to get his mind around the idea, a flash that felt like long-suppressed memory came to him, an image of Mary with a short silver sword in her hand, facing off against a pale woman with striking red hair like... like she’d been fighting such things all her life. When had that happened, and why couldn’t he remember more than that flash?
Missouri took another step toward him, her face serious. “John. Don’t you go blamin’ her. She wanted you safe, all of you. She thought this was the way. She was wrong, but I told her the truth just now-the Powers That Be would find some way to force you and your boys into this life no matter what she did. And there ain’t no use cryin’ over it now. You can’t change the past, but you can change what’s comin’. You shut this down, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
He sighed and nodded. “Thanks, Missouri.”
She pulled him into another long, warm hug, then let him go. “Go on, now. She’s about done cryin’, ready to go.”
He nodded again. “Thanks.”
She squeezed his arm and went back to her car, and he pulled himself together and went back inside just in time to see the papers that were scattered across the table gather themselves up neatly.
“Mornin’,” he rumbled as he walked up to the table and was greeted by a cold kiss on his cheek. “Let me get myself presentable, and we can go.”
Mary kissed his cheek again and went back to straightening. By the time he’d showered, shaved, and dressed, his bag was packed and ready to go, and the papers were resting on top. He smiled, gathered everything up, and carefully scuffed the salt line on his way out the door.
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