In Normal, Illinois, in the year 1958, a sharply dressed man woke his young son and bid him goodbye on his way to work, playing a music box to soothe the boy back to man travelled to a mysterious building bearing the same symbols as a pin on his tie, and greeted a beautiful woman named Josie. Men in robes called Josie away, but while the man waited, a number of screams draw his attention. He entered their chamber to find the men slain, Josie possessed by the demon "Abaddon," and the last living man begging him to hide a mysterious box bearing the same symbol. The man fled into one of the adjacent rooms, and began putting together a spell, diving through its portal before Abaddon caught him.
November 3, 2005
Palo Alto, CA
Reiko awoke in her hotel bed to find the angel staring at her. "Castiel!"
Reiko pulled the covers over her short nightgown. "What are you doing here?!"
Reiko spoke in a whisper, fearful of waking her sisters. Kuri and Dean were out on a date and hadn't come home yet; they might've gotten a separate room. Sam was asleep in the adjoining hotel room on the couch next to Mana.
He motioned for Reiko to come outside, which she did. She could smell spring rain.
"Castiel," she murmured softly. "What are you doing here?"
"This concerns your family," he said, stepping back, worry slipping into his tone. Reiko felt a bit jealous. "You have to protect the Winchesters."
"Explain," Reiko put a hand on a hip.
He looked confused at her behavior. "Henry is coming here, and Abaddon will be after him. You must protect them."
Reiko mulled it all over in her mind.
Reiko coughed, feeling shy. "Whatever you say Castiel. But just one thing…"
She summoned her courage.
"What is it?" He seemed curious.
"I want to see you again, and not on business." Kuri said firmly. "I want to go on a date."
His cheeks went pink and she could briefly see his wings dance in the darkness as he briskly nodded, then kissed her—on the cheek!—and flew away.
November 4, 2005
Hikawa Shrine
Lebanon, KS
The Winchester brothers were in the other room eating and drinking beer.
A man flew out of the closet, standing before Sam and Dean. "John…Where is John Winchester?"
"We…we don't know," stammered Sam, while Dean pointed a gun at the man.
"What are you doing with the Guardians then?" the man shouted. "Where are the others—"
Mana, Reiko and Kuri entered the room.
The door was flung open and Reiko turned in shock and threw her hands out in surprise. Suddenly, as if the universe was finally listening, it stopped.
The man in the closet doorway was frozen. It was Henry Winchester.
The freeze dropped and Henry stared at the girls. "Surely you didn't freeze me on purpose did you, Reiko?"
"It's you!" said Reiko. "Don't hurt him! He's your grandfather. Henry Winchester."
"John is my son," Henry said. "I belong to the Men of Letters. They were annihilated in my time by a demon, and I brought the Key to the Bunker here to the future, hoping to find family. But I was forced to leave my son behind with no explanation."
"That sounds familiar," Dean said resentfully.
"His problem now is probably why he couldn't return to dad," Sam said sadly. "Dad is missing."
Henry sat down with his grandsons and the witches and explained the ways of the Men of Letters, including information that the Bunker was theirs now that the others were gone.
Reiko was thinking about hunters and the Men of Letters. Kuri jumped suddenly.
Xxx
Dean and Sam Winchester were in the Manor, talking about the Key to the Bunker.
"Don't worry about it, I've got this handled," Dean said to Sam. "The Guardians will blame Dean and Sam for this, and we'll hand the key to the supernatural motherlode to the leaders of Hell."
"Don't be overconfident," Sam replied. "That's what gets us shifters killed."
Dean laughed and walked outside. SWAT teams had guns pointed at him.
"Come out with your hands up!" came the cry of a bullhorn.
"There's nothing stopping me now," Dean muttered, and ran into an alley and ripped off his skin.
Xxx
Reiko grabbed her sister. This was just like when they were small. Something like this happened then too, didn't it?
She couldn't remember. But she felt like right now, she needed that memory.
She couldn't help. Just like back then. She held her shaking sister and wanted to scream.
They all felt stronger, more powerful, their yoki was raised and she felt like she was on fire. Their powers were stronger but they still couldn't use them.
"Dean is…" Kuri explained my vision to the group.
"It sounds like a shapeshifter," Dean said before Henry could speak. "Don't worry this should be simple."
They then discussed a plan to destroy the shifters. Unfortunately they didn't have supplies to destroy the shifters at the Manor. So they all went to one of the Winchesters' storage spaces to get silver weapons.
Xxx
Marshall and Fritz, two shapeshifters, easily got into the Manor. Marshall was disguised as Dean Winchester, and had been doing quite a lot of murdering lately in that body. Fritz was disguised as Sam, and forever on clean-up duty.
They wanted the Key to the Bunker. But how to get a magically protected item like that?
Fritz glared at Marshall. "How will we get this key from them?"
The two went to walk out of the attic, and were thrown against a wall. Marshall stood, shaking himself off. "Then we use the human they call 'Henry.'"
Xxx
Kuri tried to explain to Dean that he was in danger, but Dean wasn't buying it. He did see the wanted posters and the fact that the cops for some reason thought he was responsible for three murders in the past week.
"It's just a shifter," he explained to her. "We'll gank the bastard and then dodge the cops till it all dies down."
"But we can't move away Dean," Kuri commented. "You'd have to leave us behind. This Manor is all that is left to me and I'm not going anywhere."
Dean sighed. "We'll find a way."
Xxx
Marshall and Fritz grabbed Henry in his bedroom at the Manor. A fight broke out. At first it seemed that the shifters had the upper hand, but then the Man of Letters broke free and fought them off.
Just as he was about to kill them, however, they got the jump on him and forced him down into a chair, tied him up and held a knife to his throat.
"Your life isn't the one in danger here," Marshall said. "If you don't take the Key back from the Winchesters and deliver it to us, we'll kill your grandsons. And then there's those witches. They've never faced true evil. They are still innocent. It would be easy for them to become like us if they were, say, tortured long enough."
Henry winced and sighed, quickly formulating a plan in his mind. "Sam likes me better. He'll bring it to me if I ask him."
Xxx
Sam snuck away to see his grandfather. He had never known him and now he just had to spend some time with him.
Sam sat down across from Henry and the two talked about the memories they shared from when he was small. He even spoke about his father, John.
"So you would have raised us to be Men of Letters?" Sam asked. "I cant believe we missed out."
"I would've raised John to be a Man of Letters," he replied. "And when you two came along, you would've inherited it."
Sam explained how they had become hunters despite Henry's death.
"I'm sorry about what happened to your mother," Henry said."But you have to trust me. Your lives are in danger. You have to give me the Key to the Bunker."
Sam sighed. He knew this was too good to be true. "You just don't want us to be like you. I knew it."
He left angrily.
Xxx
Kuri entered the Manor to find it on lockdown. Dean was mad at Sam for going off with Henry alone. But Sam and Henry were nowhere to be found.
"How could he do that, Reiko?!" Dean demanded. "He can't be sure what that man wants!"
"That man is your grandfather, Dean," Reiko retorted.
"He wants the Key to the Bunker," Kuri muttered. "Sam told me. That's where he is…he's moping, because Henry lied to us. He just wants the key, like those shapeshifters."
"How do we know when shapeshifters aren't in our house?" Mana wondered. "They can be anyone, but they seem to like the Winchesters forms, maybe they've been watching us as the Winchesters!"
Henry was dragged in by Sam just then. "I found him trying to get into the Manor and steal the key."
Kuri looked at Sam. His reiki's all wrong! That's not Sam.
"That's not Sam!" Kuri looked at Reiko and Reiko held up her hands and plants grew from the earth and tied up the fake Sam.
The three sisters then turned and faced 'Sam.' 'Dean' came in through the front door. "You get it yet, Fritz? The entire SWAT team is on our tail; we gotta shif-"
Upon noticing that Fritz was tied up and he had been betrayed, Marshall turned angrily and stabbed Henry.
The three sisters quickly intoned the incantation:
"Si in circulo est domi
Salutis et descendit malum est errare.
Tolle de omnibus entibus moenium
Salva nos tres sorores, adhuc nostram invoca. "
Henry stared in shock at the witch, even as Reiko tried vainly to heal him. He whispered to Kuri. "Just like…Kaori—you are the Omamori."
Kuri's face reddened at the mention of her grandmother. Kaori Hikawa had been an extremely powerful witch.
"Now," Henry straightened. "We have to rescue Sam."
"He really is missing then?" Dean said, surprised.
"After he left me at the diner," Henry said. "Abaddon took him."
xxx
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Reiko asked.
"I'm gonna do it. He's my brother. He's the only family I got." Dean said, gritting his teeth.
"We've got you're back," Reiko said, in her strongest voice.
"So, what are you thinking?" Henry asked.
"Can you slow Abaddon down? Because if you can, I'll do the rest." Dean replied.
Henry carved a devil's trap into the head of a bullet. He handed it to Dean.
"A devil's trap carved into the bullet," Dean put the bullet into a gun and handed the gun to Henry. "You're gonna have to get close. And "close" means it could get ugly."
"I know. But you do that for blood."
"Speaking of blood…" Kuri gestured to the silver bowl.
Henry stopped her. "All of you should know, there were high power sorcerers and magicians amongst the Men of Letters. Abaddon killed them all. You won't be able to defeat her with magic. I….sure wasn't able to. I gave up my powers like a fool. After this Dean, promise me you and Sam will keep your powers."
Dean swallowed. "I promise. But first we gotta get Sammy back."
Kuri, Reiko, and Mana nodded, then knelt over a silver bowl. Reiko got out the herbs: 3 sprigs Rosemary for remembrance, two tablespoons chopped, ground holly for spirit calling, a pinch of cypress for longevity, one shredded yarrow root for contacting relatives
Mana went and got Dean, and as the herbs were being prepared Sam's name was repeated by Dean.
Kuri placed the herbs in the silver bowl. Dean placed in the bowl a photo of Sam as a baby held by Dean. With a knife, Dean pricked his left finger, so the blood would flow straight from the heart.
He added the blood to the bowl.
"Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester
Et sanguis sanguinem meum, ad te voco,
misit nos ad te cruor sanguinis mei ".
Processing Plant
They appeared outside the processing plant.
Mana, Reiko, and Kuri walked around the plant on each side, planning on making a powerful fire barrier to keep Abaddon from escaping before Henry and Dean could implement their plan.
The Protective Fire Ritual began exactly at dusk. The circle was prepared for each of them, and they were in synch, with candles at each of the five element stations. In the center of each circle on a wrought-iron table, there was a red chalice filled with precious oil mixed with cinnamon. As the sun set, the three miko entered their circles without speaking. They were carrying long wooden matches and athames.
The mikos cast the circle and then went to the oil-filled chalices. Holding it before her, she began at the east and walked deosil around the circle, pouring the oil into her right hand, and with that hand, sprinkling the oil around the circumference of the circle. As she walks, she says:
"I call upon the element fire to watch, bless, and guide this Ritual. To honor fire I anoint the circle with cinnamon oil poured by my own hand and I proclaim my Intent to seek the element's protection over this Warehous. To show my Intent is pure, I proclaim these ancient truths."
In a loud, clear voice the mikos cried,
"Coming forth from seclusion I have done no wrong. I have not defiled the things of Heaven in thought or deed. I have not inflamed myself with rage. I have not cursed using the name of Heaven."
The ancient proclamations end when the mikos returned to the center of the circle. They lit the oil left in the chalice and holds it over their heads saying:
"With pure Ritual Intent I hold fire to this oath of protection. Its strength is in me and through me its flame will be lasting, consuming with fierceness any who wish ill to those I call family."
Still holding the flaming chalice, the mikos then took their athame and approached the yellow candle that represented fire at the east edge of the circle. Passing the blade through the chalice flame three times, they said:
"I am one with the flame. Even in the midst of sunshine, I enter into the protective fire, I come forth from the fire, the sunshine has not pierced me, thou who knows my pure intent has not burned me, but thy fire will keep this Warehouse safe, cutting like this knife through wax any who dare to defile this Ritual."
With the hot athame the mikos carved the address of the processing plant into the yellow candle, and then carefully placed it in the chalice, allowing the flame to consume it. While it burned, the mikos thanked the other elements and sent them away, and the mikos stayed alone with the burning candles, waiting until the entire candle is consumed and the flame dies of its own accord before they left to meet the others.
When they finished, they were out of energy, but Abaddon could not escape.
xxx
Dean and Henry walked through the plant. Henry's hands were behind his back and Dean holds his arm. They entered a large room.
"Don't do it, Dean." Henry said.
"Too late for that now." Dean said.
Abaddon and Sam were waiting in the room.
"That's the problem with you hunters. You're all short-sighted." Henry said.
"Yeah, at least we're not extinct. Abaddon! I'll send Henry here over with the box. You do the same with Sam. No tricks." Dean puts the box into Henry's jacket pocket.
"My only interest is Henry and the key. You two are free to go." Abaddon said.
Dean gave Henry a shove. Henry didn't move and Dean took out his gun. "You can do this standing, or you can do it crawling. Your call."
Sam, whose hands were bound in front of him, started walking towards Dean, noting the firey auric heat haze lifting outside the warehouse. Henry started walking towards Abaddon. Sam paused when he and Henry met in the middle. "Henry, I'm sorry."
"Save it." Henry said.
Sam kept walking. Dean took out a knife to cut the rope binding Sam's hands. "Don't do this, Dean. This is a bad idea."
"Shut your mouth. Let's go." Dean cut the rope. Henry reached Abaddon. "Come on."
Dean and Sam tried to leave the room, but at a motion from Abaddon, the door closed.
"We had a deal!" Dean said.
Abaddon laughed. "Surprise. I lied."
Abaddon plunged a hand into Henry's abdomen.
"Henry!" Sam started to run towards Henry, but Dean put out a hand to stop him.
"Wait. Wait." Dean said.
Abaddon withdrew her hand and Henry gasped. His mouth was full of blood. He was holding a gun behind his back and that his handcuffs weren't fastened. "You're not the only one."
Henry shot Abaddon under the chin. Her skull glowed with bright light.
Kuri, Reiko, and Mana burst into the room, looking drained, but ready to fight.
"Whoo! What a blast. Now, give me the box." Abaddon reached into Henry's jacket pocket and took out a pack of cards. She threw it to the ground.
Abaddon screamed. "Where is it?!"
There were loud crashing noises and the lights went off and on with flying sparks.
"Okay. We can do this the hard way."
Abaddon grabbed Henry's chin and attempted to breathe black smoke into his mouth, but it was met with an invisible shield. She shoved Henry and he fell to the ground. Sam ran to Henry and supported him. Abaddon tried to move, but was held in place. She screamed again and sparks flew from the lights. "Why am I stuck?!"
Henry shook slightly as he leaned against Sam and looked up at Abaddon.
"You still didn't kill me," she said.
"No, but you'll wish we did," Dean cut off her head with a machete. "The demon trap in your noggin is gonna keep you from smoking out. We're gonna cut you into little steaks and bury each strip under cement. You might not be dead, but you'll wish you were."
Kuri ran forward and tried to heal him, but she shook her head, panting, as her green aura winked out and she nearly passed out. Mana shook her, and the barrier held.
"We have to keep it up, just until we get Humpty Dumpty to have her great fall," Mana smirked.
"It's alright. We did it." Henry said.
Dean crouches down in front of Henry. "No, you did it. For a bookworm, that wasn't bad, Henry."
Henry smiled. "I'm sorry I judged you two so harshly for being hunters. I should have known better."
"About?" Sam asked.
"You're also Winchesters. As long as we're alive, there's always hope." Dean and Sam looked at each other. "I didn't know my son as a man, but having met you two…" Henry took Dean's hand with his right hand and held out his left hand to Sam "…I know I would have been proud of him."
Henry died. Sam and Dean looked at each other, then Sam looked down at the box, which Henry had put into his hand. Sam looked back up at Dean, who looked down.
Lebanon Cemetary
Sam hammered a cross grave marker into the ground, then stood next to Dean in front of the grave. "H. Winchester" was carved into the cross.
"So Henry was a witch?" Sam asked.
Dean nodded. "Mana said she looked through her Grams things, and found this."
He held out a black and white photo of a young Japanese woman in jeans and a leather jacket, holding hands with a younger Henry. Dean recognized Shiken in her belt, and Reigan in Henry's belt. There was a date on the back: 1950.
"She said her Grams was his teacher, magical and mental," Dean said. "That same year, Grams married a mortal named Ichirou Hikawa. It broke Henry's heart…and he turned his back on magic, stripping his powers, and his son's powers. Winchester…is a magical name."
"Well now we have something to tell Dad," Sam said.
"Hey, I, uh... found this in Henry's wallet." Dean said.
Dean handed the photo to Sam. It was a picture of Henry holding a baseball and John holding a bat.
"Dad looks happy." Sam handed the photo back to Dean.
"Kind of makes you wish he knew the truth, huh? I mean, all those years thinking his old man ditched when the poor son of a bitch really came here and saved our bacon. Freaking time-travel, man." Dean replied.
"You think it would have made a difference?" Sam asked.
"What?" Dean said.
"Dad. If he'd had his own father around." Sam replied. "If he'd had magic. Do we have magic?"
"Sam," Dean said. "Sammy. We gotta find the guy first. Then we read him the riot act."
Sam took the box out of his pocket.
"The Bunker is right next to the Shrine right?" Dean said. "Think it's accessible?"
"A chance we've got to take, I guess. I mean, we are legacies, right?" Sam replied.