Prologue
Darkness pressed close to the modest two-story house in the small Kansas town. A streetlamp pooled golden, ozone-smelling light down onto the figure of a man leaning against it. The flame of a lighter rising to the cigarette held loosely between his lips illuminated a nondescript, Caucasian face that no one would ever remember or be able to point out in a police lineup. But his eyes, as he took that first draw on the cancer stick before the lighter's flame was extinguished, his eyes would never be forgotten by anyone who saw them. His eyes flashed yellow when they gazed up to the second-story window of the house he had watched since sundown.
Yellow was such a warm color, the color of the sun, such a cheerful and happy color. But there was nothing in those yellow eyes that was warm, nothing that was cheerful and nothing, nothing that was happy. There was only soullessness, emptiness, the purest form of evil that had ever existed. What was in those eyes was what had made mankind stay close to the fire when people first learned to walk upright. What was in those eyes was what made us fear the dark. And now those eyes disappeared from the lamppost and reappeared to focus on a smiling baby boy in a crib in front of that upstairs nursery window.
"You're supposed to be asleep, little one," the gravelly voice said in a sing-song timbre. The baby cooed and kicked his tiny feet, the simple innocence of the gesture almost enough to melt the iciness that had frozen the soul of Yellow Eyes a millennium ago…almost. "Don't worry, kiddo," the voice whispered. "Daddy's come to take care of his boy…Sam." One little pinprick. One tiny drop of blood that dripped passed his little pink lips. That was all it took to change the baby's life, his destiny, forever. Sam was forever changed. He never had a chance. Yellow Eyes had won and it had been so damned easy. Or so he thought. Only one thing would ever be able to stand between Yellow Eyes and his plan for all mankind. And that one thing would offer itself up for the first time that very night in the form of a mother's love for her child.
Mary Campbell had been raised by her parents, Samuel and Deanna, to be a hunter and she'd been a damn fine one until she met and married John Winchester. Mary had told John everything, of course. It had been the most awkward conversation of her life but in the end, John accepted the truths he had never even dared to dream, had married the love of his life and she had given him two amazing sons. They were out of 'the lifestyle' as Mary had called it, and had been living the American dream for close to six years.
It was late when Mary woke up. Her heart was racing and the little hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. Maybe she'd just had a nightmare or something, but Mary knew she had felt that feeling before. She rolled over, shivering from the feeling deep in her gut, but she swallowed it down and got out of bed to check on her children. John's side of the bed was empty and Mary smiled thinking that he'd probably fallen asleep in front of the TV again.
She walked softly down the hall in her bare feet and long, white, cotton, night gown. She peaked in on her eldest son, Dean, who was fast asleep with his little thumb securely between his lips. Mary just smiled and shook her head. They were going to have to do something about that thumb-sucking, and soon. Dean was four already, pushing five. Mary tiptoed over to the bed and knelt to kiss her first-born's forehead. "Mommy loves you, Dean," she whispered, tucking his covers up around him before easing out of the room to check on her youngest in the nursery.
Sam was cooing in his crib so Mary knew he was awake before she even got to his room. He'd be hungry and likely need a diaper change. Mother's intuition was probably what woke her Mary thought. When she got to the doorway, she could see John was already at Sam's crib, likely having heard the baby on his way to bed. "Oh, hey sweetheart," Mary said softly. "I'll go warm him a bottle if you'll get him changed. Then we can get a few more hours' sleep."
Mary headed down the stairs and turned for the kitchen to make Sam's bottle. When she passed the family room, though, she saw that John had left the TV on. She turned to shut it off and froze in her tracks, her heart seemed to stop and time slowed down to an infinitesimal breath. John was asleep on sofa. Mary turned and ran as fast as she could back upstairs to Sammy's room. Who was it standing by Sammy's crib? Who? And as she skidded to a stop in the center of the room the man turned his yellow eyes on her and she knew he was no man. Mary began to whisper a prayer under her breath, asking for protection for her baby, her family. It would be the last words Mary Winchester would ever speak.
Screams broke the silence of the night in the Winchester home. Dean, not quite five years old, woke to the sound of his father's heavy work boots pounding up the stairs and his father's voice yelling, "MARY, MARY!" Dean could not know that he would remember those sounds for as long as he lived. They would haunt his dreams for years to come, but not as much as the eerie silence that followed, a silence that wrapped the little Winchester up as much as the inky blackness of his room.
Dean crawled out of his big-boy bed, his crib now occupied by his little brother, Sammy, down the hall in Dean's old nursery. He padded on pudgy little feet out of his room and down the hall. He coughed and wrinkled his nose at the nasty smell that he couldn't know was something burning and dragged his blanky calling, "Daddy? Mommy?" His little fists were pressed and rubbing against his stinging eyes when suddenly his father ran out into the hall carrying little Sammy, who was crying now too.
"Dean, take the baby," his daddy said, handing Sammy over to his eldest son, pressing the baby into the frightened little boy's arms. Dean shook his head 'no' to his father and tried to back away. Mommy always said that Dean was too little to hold Sammy all by himself and Dean didn't want Mommy to be angry with him. "Take him Dean," his father ordered, his voice stern, causing Dean to act out of pure instinct. "Take Sammy and run, son," Daddy had said. "Get out of the house, NOW!"
It was the same dream that Dean had dreamed nearly every night since that crisp November night. He had clutched his baby brother to his little chest, dropping his blanky in the process, and ran as fast as his little legs would carry him down the stairs and out onto the lawn. Sammy was still crying as Dean rocked him to and fro, cooing to him and shushing him like he'd seen Mommy do when Sammy would fret. Dean had no idea where his mommy and daddy were and only just realized as he looked up at the fire now spreading through the upstairs nursery that tears were rolling down his own cheeks as well. It would be years before Dean would recall that he had seen a lady in white on the ceiling of Sammy's room, fire all around her. He would also recall that he had seen a man in the midst of that inferno just before the windows blew out, a dark man with glowing yellow eyes that couldn't possibly have been his father, because John was running toward them now, reaching out and covering them just in time as the windows blew out to rain shards of glass down on them all.
Dean couldn't know it at the time, but that night was the end of the happy family of which he and Sammy had been so integral a part. There would be no more kisses from mommy on boo-boos before they were bandaged, no more being tossed into the air only to be caught and hugged into the safety of daddy's strong arms, no more prayers before being tucked safely into bed with kisses each night. And Dean never again sucked his thumb. Mommy was gone, dead Dean had been told, and Daddy changed forever that night into a man Dean didn't recognize. Daddy was now a man so full of his own pain and loss that he couldn't recognize that, as the years drifted on, his children were suffering too.
