If anybody had asked her three years ago if Jay believed in magic, she would have laughed. Or explained that she never gave the matter any real thought, since life after a suicidal father and the start of a college career was complicated enough that she didn't have spare attention for flights of fancy. Oh sure, there was magic tricks: sleight of hand or smoke and mirrors or whatnot. But real sorcery? Nope. Such things were best left in books and movies where the laws of physics don't have to apply. Magic wasn't real; its just a plot device to make heroes stand up and fight.
Then came sex with Hugh/Jeff. And the monster, death and running in its wake. The supernatural was real and its was cold, dark, and bitter. Living under its shadow for so long... Well, as a little girl she'd always wanted to ride a unicorn. Say a unicorn trailing rainbows made an appearance these days? Jay wouldn't be surprised if the thing tried to impale her on its sparkly horn. Or keep her prisoner while withholding food unless she brushed its coat or braided flowers into its mane.
If any body had asked her if she believed in magic three days ago, just after Paul's death, she would have cried. Magic was just another word for monsters and curses and death.
Now? Watching the Sarzo Clan work their preparations, magic had become hope.
Abelia-Roo sat like the queen she was, enthroned on a seat of cushions, overseeing the operation. The work was punctuated by her harsh orders and berations of everyone involved.
Unperturbed by his boss's insults, Branje carried a bag of pure salt and walked around the clearing pouring the salt in an elaborate line of curls and stylized jaggedness. He had spent almost twenty minutes studying the old parchment the Winchesters had provided before attempting to reproduce the spellwork in real life. Still, it didn't come out right. Broom in hand, that attempt was swept away and the second attempt was coming along nicely.
A girl called Tshilaba darted in and out of the salt lines, always careful not to disturb even a grain of salt. In the empty spaces of the salt design, the gypsy girl stooped to paint intricate sigils on the hard-packed dirt. Delicate hands dipped a paint brush into a silver cup and fluttered light strokes. Branje's twenty minutes had bought time for Tshilaba to do some studying of her own.
As for her paint... Well. Dean insisted that the cut on his forearm wasn't that bad. That knotted (but clean) bandanna tied tightly around the wound certainly attested to his lack of real concern. The spell required "blood of one who is doomed" and specific herbs mixed together as the medium. Neither brother had wanted to cut into her skin and make her bleed.
Chivalry wasn't completely dead these days, and for some reason it wore plaid.
Preparations complete, Dean lead her to the appropriate spot. The big man had to tip-toe around the lines and paintings. Not an easy feat when the hunter wore size 11 steel toe boots with heavy soles and a distinct lack of flexibility. (Granted, they were ideal for kicking open doors or stomping a ghoul's head, but not for this.) Jay picked her way along the same path in his wake.
Abelia-Roo banged her cane on the ground to signal it was time to begin. A man named Kalakos touched a match to the candle beside her. The gypsy queen began to chant. The formerly scratchy and abrasive old woman's voice gained strength as the lines flowed.
Jay shuddered at the power gathering around her, made all the more awesome by her lack of comprehension of the Romani language.
Tshilaba added her young, sweetly-tuned voice to the chant at the start of the second recitation. Her words flowed in and around her mentor's, but never matched them. They provided a fitting harmony to an already eerie scene.
A sharp clap from two set's of hands punctuated the moment that the Urmeaza appeared. It stood in a complete circle of salt, completely still. Still, except for the eyes. It glared death and murder at Dean and Jay. Back and forth, between the two; like It couldn't decide who It wanted to kill more.
Kelly screamed in shock and flung herself behind Sam's back. Sam, standing outside the design but close at hand, vented a surprised grunt. His salt gun snapped up in undisguised aim, but didn't fire. The Romani men, muttered quietly to each other in amazement. Clearly, Dean and Jay weren't the only ones to see the creature among them. Most of the men there, like Kelly, had never seen a monster so close before. Unlike Kelly, they had a reputation of machoism to maintain. No Rom let themselves yell out at the sight.
Another sharp clap, and the Urmeaza began to screech its rage to the sky. Before their eyes it switched from the man in a backwards hospital gown, to a naked Japanese woman, to a scraggly homeless man: all the forms used on Dean. On an on the forms went until It cycled back to Jay's father, Greg, Greg's mom, and all the stranger's Jay recognized from her own initiation to this nightmare.
"Its rewinding," Dean whispered. "Retaking every form Its ever wore."
Faster and faster the forms flickered by: men, women, old, young, healthy, bizarre. As they watched, the forms that wore clothing slowly began to show the change in decades. All the way back to a civil war southern belle, complete with her hoop skirts torn and her bodice ripped open.
With a final sharp clap, the Urmeaza exploded into dust. The gypsy women stopped their chanting, and silence descended on the camp.
"That..." Dean pointed a finger at the empty space where the Urmeaza once stood. "That was... Why in the hell would a sex monster curse look like a seventy-five year old grandma attached to an IV pole? Did It need more of a challenge or something?"
"Dean," Sam laughed.
"No, seriously, the thing is only allowed to walk so It picked the slowest moving human in existence? What's with that?" Dean stepped off his mark and started walking to his brother.
Jay skittered around him to her Kelly's embrace.
"Doesn't really matter anymore, now does it?" Sam asked, smiling at the sisters. "It's gone."
Jay cried again then. But they were tears of joy.