'Well, there were other generations…' Azazel had said it himself.
It was easy to pinpoint when and where Mary and others like her must have slipped through their fingers. With the demon dead, guards were lowered, and even those few hunters who had been culling the psychics were only looking for people fitting the general profile.
That profile was: twenty plus, generally sucky life, angry at the world. Oh, and the weird powers thing kinda like Heroes, and the erratic killing sprees, so… unlike… Heroes.
But there was an upside. Unbelievable, no? And that upside was that Dean now knew why the Summers' girl had been so set on Mary. But if Mary really was a demon psychic, and the psycho bitch had come for her, then…
It'll go for Sam next.
And what am I doing? I'm a bloody phantom!
"Why are we still here?"
How am I supposed to jump in to save the day when I don't even know if I'm dead or not? Whoa, not dead, not dead.
"Hey, Mr Strong-and-Silent," Mary poked him, her freckled nose wrinkled in annoyance. "Why are we still here?"
Harvelle's.
"Because." Dean said.
"Because… why?"
"Because I'm the oldest and I said so." She just looked at him, and the look was so damn familiar it was eerie. It's like dealing with kid-Sam all over again, he thought in exasperation.
"The girl will come back here."
"How do you know?"
"Because I do."
Mary's expression didn't change.
"Tell me about her." She piped suddenly. "Tell me about this woman."
"Why?"
"We're not going to start that again. Humour the dead girl. Tell me something."
"Um… where do you want me to start?"
"I dunno. How about the beginning? That's usually as good a place as any."
Dean grinned slightly. "Alright, fine. You should know I'm not good at expositions, though. Never was."
"Dean-"
"Now, about seven years ago, her family lived in your house. The Summers' family. Eight kids and mom and dad. A whole family of over-achievers. The only way the youngest daughter could have topped them all was to get into the White House at twenty-five. I'm guessing that the pressure finally got to her and she snapped."
Mary looked down at her little blue slippers. "She killed them all."
"Yeah."
"How could you do something like that? How could you ever do something like that?"
Maybe I've got to this kid quick enough. She doesn't have to go the same way all those others did.
But then again, Dean himself had a lot of romanticised ideals when he was ten.
"A week after she turned twenty two." He said. "She was admitted to a correctional facility, and died there. No cause was ever found."
"What about her family?"
"Nothing."
The pair was silent for a moment. "Since she died, each family to move into your house has lost a member to some freak accident. Drowning in the pool, falling out of the tree house, hit by a car backing out of the drive. They…"
"…were all kids." Mary finished.
"Yeah."
"And now I'm dead too."
"Mary-"
"Would you stop 'Mary'-ing me?" She demanded. "I'm not stupid. There's no way that we would even be able to see those… people in there if we weren't."
"A person can be a spirit without being dead." Dean said calmly. "I, for one, will not accept that some skanky dead chic put my lights out that easily. Maybe put me in crazy, limbo-world, but I know I'm not dead."
"Did you ever think that that's why ghosts exist? Because they just don't want to accept it?"
This kid is quick. Either that, or she's a big fan of The Sixth Sense.
He had no reply for that one. "I've got to protect my brother." He said. "I've been protecting my brother for so long… it's the only thing I know how to do right." It felt odd to tell a little girl about his lifelong duty, but his whole existence had been so very odd that he'd probably be whacked in an asylum hopped up on happy pills if he ever told someone the full truth.
"How old is he?"
"What?" What? "Eh. We stopped celebrating birthdays ages back." A tactful way of saying 'I don't really remember'.
"Why?"
"There just… didn't seem any point."
"Do you do Christmas? Easter? New Year? Anniversaries?"
"No. Not really." Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Squirt, you getting to a point anytime soon?"
"I… it's just… so… completely… insane. All my life I've been told that these things don't exist. That they're only thought up by producers with sick minds to cater to the wants of the fanbase. And then, all together, I'm told that they are real and I should be afraid as I wait for a demon to swoop down and magic me off to wherever."
"You put it that way, it really does sound insane." Dean muttered. "But if you want insane-" He stopped. Thought about it for a moment. Yeah, Mary, I'm not just some psycho that's come in off the streets. I hunt these things, and make sure the dead stay dead. Tah da!
"What?"
"Ah, never mind."
"What are you going to do when you catch her?"
"Make her put us back." He said matter-of-factly.
Hopefully before the Reapers find us…
The Same Place at the Same Time:
When Jo had called him, she was in a state of shock. Sam could tell because she was so completely calm as she spoke. Her voice didn't quaver once.
"There's been an accident." She said. "It's Dean."
The glass he had been holding crashed to the floor.
What?
Later Jo stood before him and the fearsome Ellen, judge, jury and executioner.
"Each and every time." Ellen was breathing steadily through her nose to try and calm herself, though any sudden moves would still not be tolerated. "Each and every time you go out that door you somehow manage to attract trouble like a magnet."
"Gee, Mom, I love you too." Jo sniped back, refusing to be intimidated.
Ellen narrowed her eyes. Sam could see the battle of emotions flick across her face. She was at once annoyed at the pair for not telling anyone else that they were working a job on Christmas Eve, concerned for Dean's wellbeing, furious at Jo for not sticking with her partner, secretly relieved that it wasn't her daughter that had been hurt, and guilty that she didn't see what was so blatantly obvious now.
Sam too was feeling guilty. And slightly hurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I guess we all have our secrets, huh, Sam?" She replied archly.
The two young people glared frostily at each other across the room. Ellen suddenly became animated and closed the staff door with a bang, breaking the spell. "It's been done." She said sharply. "Now it's time to go into damage control and figure out how to fix this thing."
"Yes, Ellen."
"Yes, Mom."
"That girl you said he was trying to save? What happened to her?" Ellen questioned.
"Hospital got an anonymous tip. Right after I got Dean out of the way. She's safe."
"As safe as anyone can be in a magical coma." Sam said darkly.
Jo's eyes narrowed.
"Did anyone see you?"
"No."
Sam made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. Ellen's eyes flashed. "Boy, if you're just going to try to pick a fight 'cause something's not the way you want it, go back to hold your brother's hand and let the grownups handle this." She said harshly.
"No, I… I'm sorry. I'll stay." Several times now, he had stood helplessly at the foot of Dean's bed, watching as his brother fought off whatever demons were in his head at the time. It made him feel so… useless.
"Good. 'Cause if this thing can send our kids to slumberland, we'll need all hands on deck to kick her scrawny ass to kingdom come."
Sam almost smiled then. He had always liked her 'you mess with us, we'll mess with you' attitude. Besides, Dean would never let him live it down if he handed over the case to mother and daughter.
Ellen had a friend that spent every Christmas at the Roadhouse since Bill had been alive. He was dark-skinned and tall, with a booming voice. Jo had taken him upstairs to the room where Dean lay.
"What do you make of it, Ruben?" Ellen asked as the man inspected Dean without laying a finger on him.
Ruben nodded.
"Voodoo. No doubt." He said, completely confident in his diagnosis. "The boy's as empty as a tree with termites."
"Voodoo? Is that bad?" Jo asked.
"What do you mean by 'empty'?" Sam enquired at the same time.
"One question at a time, kiddies. Firstly, some uneducated folk mix up the hoodoo and voodoo practises. Both very different things. Your hoodoo you can use for good or bad, right? Voodoo's the same. S'only Hollywood and them folk that have messed with people's heads telling them it's evil."
"But the girl who cast the spell or whatever is dead. How can it still be working?"
"The whole point of voodoo was to bring the living into contact with the dead. Sometimes the dead would choose to help us, God knows why, and would heal the sick while they were being possessed and suchlike. Looks like your little fairy princess has somehow turned the process on its head. Instead of contacting her, she's contacting them. Instead of healing, she's hurtin'. Like this poor mongrel. She's got him in a state of possession and she's bleeding him of whatever life he's got left."
That does not sound good.
"But if we exorcise him, that would work, right?"
Ruben shrugged. "Maybe. There's only a bit of European culture in the voodoo mix, so yeah, I'd try, but I'd also go out and poke around. See if I can find any shrines or suchlike."
"Yeah." Sam said. "I'll go now." He turned to Ellen. "Can you do it?"
"Hell, whatever. Not like he's gonna be the first Winchester I've ever had to exorcise."
Any other time he would have stopped to ask her what she meant. Not now. "Thanks, Ellen."
She watched him leave the room. "Tail him." She instructed Jo. "Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."
"Yeah, Mom."
"And don't mess up this time."
The door slammed after Jo went back out into the snow. Ellen glanced up at the clock. It was almost ten. They should get on it now, before the witching hour.
Yes, even she was a little superstitious.
"Gimmie a hand?"
"Of course, beautiful lady. It's been such a slow season until now."
She went down the stairs and pulled a giant keyring off a hook in the wall. Selecting the right one, she unlocked a trunk in the hallway and knelt down. Salt, bible, Holy water…
And a gun.
Sorry, kids. I'm not going to put myself in the line of fire if I don't need to. And if I need to… it'll be quick. I promise.
Suddenly there was a startled shout from in the main body of the pub. Ellen's head snapped up and she practically wrenched the door off its hinges to in her haste to get outside.
"What the hell-?"
"Nothing, Ell." Mac said. "Just one of the girls having a fit."
"What?"
"Reckons that someone just tapped their fingers on the counter and there are cold spots all over the place. Fancy," He took a long drag on his cigarette. "Cold spots. In winter."
