Still penniless, here.
Dance in the dark
Mary hadn't realised how terrible she looked until they reached the hospital. The harsh artificial lights showed every bruise, every tear of skin, smear of blood, smudge of dirt. She was pretty sure she stank, too: she couldn't remember the last time her captors had permitted her to wash properly.
Mother never stirred from her side, not hovering, she never hovered, probably couldn't even spell the word, just always there. She told the doctors they were sisters, cold fingers lacing through Mary's, and for a few moments, Mary Colt felt twelve years old again.
They let her wash first, soap off the grime and dried blood of months in that basement, that small suffocating concrete cell, and then checked her over. Her hands were a terrible mess from beating on those unyielding walls, torn and scraped and swollen. Otherwise, she had few serious physical injuries, but she was thin, so thin she was barely there, skin stretched tightly over her bones, ribs plainly visible, shoulders and hips jutting out at terrible angles.
Mary took one look at her reflection in the cold mirror hanging in the impersonal, hard-edged bathroom and turned away, sharply reminded of the healthier concentration camp survivors she'd seen in Germany in 1945.
Finally, they put an infusion in her arm, for nourishment or hydration or whatever, she was too tired to pay attention, wrapped her hands in miles of bandages, and gave her warm clean scrubs to sleep in (she'd flatly refused to wear a hospital gown; just in case). Then she curled up under a pile of blankets and looked at Mother.
"Can you open the windows? Please?"
Mother paused a moment, but then nodded. The fresh air streaming into the room eased Mary's nervousness instantly, and she wondered vaguely how many centuries it would take her to get rid of the claustrophobia.
"What did you do to me?"
Her voice was very quiet, sleepy and sad. Somehow, she didn't have the strength to shout and scream and rail at her the way she had wanted to when she'd first realised what she'd become.
"I saved your life."
Mother's voice was equally quiet. Gentle, soothing. New one for her. It had always been Father who'd chased away Mary's nightmares as a child.
When he'd been there, which hadn't been often.
"You cursed me."
"It was the only way."
"To do what? You haven't done me any favours, you know. You've trapped me here. You of all people should know what that's like, surely."
"Yes."
"What, no apology?"
"I don't apologise."
"How about explaining?"
"I had to be sure you'd still be alive when Azazel made his move. I couldn't chance Sam's descendents dying out before that."
Mary sighed. She didn't have the strength right now to point out the flaws in Mother's logic, the cold cruelty of what she'd done to her. Tired, she was so tired, cold and hurting, but finally safe. After two centuries of running, finally safe. It had never really come home to her before just how long she'd lived – nearly two hundred years. They felt like eternity. Mother's hand ran through her hair, slow and comforting, and she drifted off, back into darkness, warm and inviting.
But she woke trembling and breathless some time later out of a dream in which she was back in that cell, struggling against a shadow with yellow eyes, John's blood drenching her wedding dress while fire licked at the skirts. Mother held her, rocked her back to sleep, cold cold hands on her back, her head, holding her close. Mary clung to her as she hadn't clung to anyone for more years than she cared to count, and slept again eventually.
The next morning, Mother watched her wolf down breakfast looking caught between revulsion and envy.
"I thought it was bad for you to eat so much after a period of starvation," she said.
Mary shrugged at her, waved her fork in the air until she swallowed her mouthful of bacon.
"I don't play by other people's rules."
"I see incarceration hasn't done your mouth any harm."
"Were you expecting it to?"
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."
"Presents you with a bit of a quandary, then."
Mother sighed. "Mary. Can you please take this seriously?"
"This what? My bacon?"
"Enough," Mother snapped. "Save it for later. We need to go to New York."
Mary rolled her eyes. "I might have known you didn't rescue me out of the goodness of your heart."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mother was still snapping. It had always been her default setting. "You're my daughter. I –"
"Love you? Please. Save it. For all you care, I could have rotted in that basement for another fifty years, but you needed something first, didn't you?"
Mary felt an odd elation, a bubble of unnatural courage filling her stomach. She'd never spoken to Mother like this before… but God knew she'd wanted to. Mother looked – not stricken, exactly, just… shocked. As if she'd never before wondered what Mary thought of her. As if it hadn't even mattered to her. Somehow, that made Mary bolder still.
"The answer's no, Mother, I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Ungrateful brat," her Mother hissed, an old familiar accusation. "After everything I've done for you? I've given you eternity."
"If you had asked me first, I would have preferred to die of pneumonia," Mary snarled, quiet but just as fierce.
Mother drew back a little, straightened up. Mary thought she knew the look in her eyes: the one she wore before her prey walked straight into a trap and got strung up by the ankle. Triumph and anticipation.
"So. Where else are you going to go?"
That needed no thought. "To John. To John and our sons, to tell them the truth. They may hate me, I don't care, but I owe them that. And a way to destroy Azazel, to keep Sammy safe."
Mother's eyes widened, and she smiled. Mary felt a cold stone drop into her stomach and grow larger and heavier by the second.
"Azazel is destroyed, Mary. Your Dean killed him, used your father's pistol. Sam is as safe as he can be in the middle of a war between humans and Hell."
She should have been relived, but the weight in her stomach just got worse. "All the more reason for me to go to them. They deserve an explanation. And I want to see my husband."
"He's dead."
Like a slap in the face, those words, hard and cold and unmerciful. She had to put her cutlery down with a sudden clatter; her hands were shaking.
"How? When?"
Her voice was barely a whisper. She wasn't even sure she'd spoken aloud until Mother answered.
"Shortly after you got caught. He sold his soul to Azazel in exchange for Dean's life. To the best of my knowledge, he's in Hell right now. Enjoying the hospitality. Soon your beloved mortal husband will be no different to me."
Mother was enjoying this. Her voice was filled with cold cruel triumph. "And as for your baby boys, what explanation could you possibly give them? Their father would still be alive if it weren't for your mistakes. They would have lives of their own, careers, families. What will you tell them, Mary? That their sainted mother is a thief, a liar, a witch, a killer and a fraud? That they've suffered for years at Azazel's hands because you were fool enough to think that you'd fallen in love with the latest in a long line of meaningless lays? He forgot about you within months, you fool. Did you really think you meant anything to him other than as an incubator for his brats? You?"
Mary couldn't even breathe. It wasn't true, it just wasn't, she knew it in every bone in her body, but Mother had always been able to twist the truth until Mary no longer knew what was up and what was down, until her certainties became agonizing doubts.
Then Mother's voice changed, became gentle, soothing, alluring.
"Come to New York with me, Mary. Help me find your father's pistol. Then, if that's what you still want, I'll set you free."
Mary stared at her. "Set me free? Reverse the curse?"
"If that's what you want."
Too much, it was all too much, the memory of that basement, of months of imprisonment and often torture still fresh and raw inside her, John dead, gone, in Hell for eternity, and she couldn't imagine a world he didn't exist in, her brave beautiful soldier, Mother's cutting words, because God knew they were the truth: how could she ever expect Dean and Sammy to even want to hear her out, let alone forgive her, being what she was?
And now, in the midst of all this, Mother was finally offering her what she'd searched for for decades: a way to end this half-life, this continual cycle of existence that never let her rest that had been her curse for nearly two hundred years.
"Go away," she whispered. Any louder and she'd start to cry.
Mother's eyebrows rose.
"Just for now. Leave me alone a while."
Mother looked at her searchingly for a minute or two, and then nodded, got up. Her hand stroked comfortingly over Mary's hair; she desperately needed a trim.
"I don't mean to hurt you, princess, but you need to know," she whispered, using Father's old nickname for her. "It will be all right, though. I promise. Everything will be all right now. You're mine, Mary, and I'll keep you safe. I promise. Sleep now. We'll leave tomorrow, when you're stronger."
Mary tensed up, face set, hugging her knees against her chest, breakfast forgotten. When Mother had left, she curled up in the bed, sobs racking her emaciated body, and cried herself hoarse, until her eyes were almost painfully swollen and there simply wasn't breath left in her body for another sob.
Then she sat up, and scrubbed her tears away. Trusting Mother's word on this was the worst thing she could do. Long and painful experience had taught her that Mother never made anyone as wise as herself. But Mary needed information, and she needed it from a source friendly to her.
There was only one being in the world besides herself and Mother who knew what she was. Only one being she trusted enough to ask for help. Sure, they'd had their arguments… but she'd known him since she was ten years old, an uneducated foul-mouthed guttersnipe in the streets of Hartford, dressed as a boy to escape the whorehouses, nearly two centuries ago, and he had never let her down yet.
Mary slipped out of bed and padded on bare feet into the bathroom. She washed her face and tied her hair back; then rooted through the drawers in the room until she found the one with the medical supplies. She palmed a scalpel and pulled open the door to the hospital room.
Two be-suited FBI agents were talking to the doctor who'd treated her at the end of the corridor, and she bit back a curse. Of course: Mary Collins' parents had the money and influence to mobilize the entire US Army to look for her, damn them. She ran for the elevator before they turned and spotted her.
It might have comforted her a little to know she was mimicking her husband's movements of over a year ago when she jimmied the door to the boiler room open and found a small darkened corner to work the summoning in.
A cut across her palm, sigil drawn in the air with one blood-stained fingertip. It hung before her, red and glowing, and she whispered into it: his name, three times. She got an answer instantly.
"Well, well. Mary Colt. Been a long time."
Mary turned, grinning. "Anansi. Nice to see you too."
Then she dropped the scalpel and hugged him, both of them laughing.
"I should hope so too," he said. "Your timing is impeccable, by the way, my girl. I was just off to Beijing, for the Olympics. What say you, come along, help me paint the town red?"
Mary tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and would have answered, but the Trickster caught her bandaged wrist. "What happened?"
Voice low and concerned and comforting, same as the time she'd seen him working his magic on the man in the alley, the one who'd tried to rape her friend Sarah, and she'd stood in front of him, hands on hips, just outside the growing pool of the bastards blood, completely unafraid, and boasted, I know what you are.
"Demons," she shrugged now. "They hate me." She made her voice deliberately petulant and childish. Anansi shook his head at her. "You provoke it."
"Sometimes, yeah." She grinnned; so did he.
"So. Beijing? It'll be San Fran all over again. We'll really go to town, all the fun there is to be had in a nation of people just begging for their just deserts. But I warn you, no boyfriends."
"Anansi. I'm married."
"That, my girl, is what the divorce courts are for."
"Don't," she said harshly, and he frowned at her.
"I knew it. You are in trouble."
"I need some information. Mother's up to something, and she expects me to participate."
Anansi shuddered. "Mary-girl, you are probably the only person in this or any other world not terrified of your mother. She bullied me into a favour not two months ago. It's that knife of hers."
"Knife?"
"Kills anything. Like your father's legendary gun."
"Does it now," Mary mused. The beginnings of a plan was forming in the back of her mind. But first…
"About my info?"
"Anything for you, dear girl."
"Does the name Winchester mean anything to you?"
He threw his head back and laughed out loud. "Mean anything to me? Mary-girl. It means something to everyone who's anyone these days. The older brother, he killed Azazel, for God's sake. And the younger, well. Lilith herself is terrified of him. Thinks he's out to usurp her throne."
Mary's breath caught in her throat. "Is he?"
"Lord, no. At the moment, the only thing Sam Winchester is interested in is getting his big brother out of that deal of his. Guilt, if you ask me. All the underworld knows Dean traded his soul for Sam's life."
"He traded his soul…" Mary rubbed at her arms, goosebumps rising, grief and horror choking her voice. Her darling beautiful boys…
"He did indeed. Lilith owns his contract. She thinks it will give her control over the younger boy, and I said to her, Lilith, I said, you're a fool. The only reason Sam isn't your competition yet is because of Dean. The minute you take the older boy, you're in trouble. She didn't believe me. And, added to that, word from Below says she'll never manage to keep him, even if everything does go according to plan. Their father got out, you know, when the Devil's Gate opened in Wyoming. Crawled out of Hell. Lilith probably doesn't believe that story either, but really, if it's not true, then where, I ask you, is John Winchester, hmm?"
"John got out," Mary said, soft and breathless, and suddenly she was laughing and crying at once, clinging to Anansi and trembling in rather embarrassing ways. Breaking down when alone, was one thing, but this… "John's free. He's safe."
Anansi wrapped both arms around her, held her upright. He understood instantly. "Mary-girl, are you telling me John Winchester was that soldier you married?"
She nodded against his shirt, still sniffling, and he sighed. "Oh, dear. Well, at least I know where Dean gets his looks from. He's gorgeous, you know."
"Skank," she accused fondly. "You leave him alone."
"Too late," Anansi said. "They've already tried to kill me once. And that favour your mother bullied me into? She's taking an interest in them, Mary-girl. Or rather, in Sam. As far as she's concerned, Dean is expendable. That curse she put on you could save him from the Pit, you know, but she won't use it. She wants Sam for something."
Mary stared at him, silent and grim and furious, mouth tight, eyes hard as emeralds.
"She's about to get the shock of her life, then. They're mine, mine and John's, and no jumped-up demonic whore is having either of them."
Anansi grinned at her fondly. "That's my girl. How can I help?"