Disclaimer: I do not own the concept or characters from the show "Supernatural." Any other characters not related to the show, The Vampire Diaries or Nightwold series, however, are mine and are not to be used in any other fan fictions. Some concepts were also borrowed or loosely adapted from L.J. Smith's "Nightworld" and "The Vampire Diaries" series. This chapter has information on the episodes up until 02/11/10. I will not include any spoilers for future episodes of Season 4 until they are released on TV. This is the start of a new trilogy. The first trilogy is: "Possession," "Broken," and "Sacrifice," followed with a new trilogy, starting with "Mission." This story takes place following the events in "Mission," and has the same characters from the first trilogy. I do not own any quotes used in the actual episodes. Any lyrics mentioned in this story do not belong to me are are the property of their original writers.
April woke up and reached for the notebook she had placed near the side of the bed.
She had to write anything useful down, any knowledge that her mom have unintentionally divulged during her slumber.
From what little had already scribbled out, she feared that the whole journey had been a total bust.
Mom's Dream
Waiting at a dock in 1912 New York for news of the Titanic sinking, checking a giant board of names
An argument between her mother and uncle in a room.
Sitting on a bench in a park with her brother, he leaves her there. At night. She couldn't hear anything or make out particular words.
Random. Extremely random. One thing that was consistent: her Uncle James' presence.
It was odd to see him 'alive;' she had only known her uncle through stories and photographs. There were no videos of him, no live representation for her to truly have known him. So, to be able to see it through her mother's eyes, was simply amazing.
He hadn't been very tall, but appeared as a lanky, muscular young man. He seemed no older than a mid-twenty year old, however April knew better. The boy with the deep, dark eyes had seen more during his time on the Earth then many could hope to see into a few lifetimes combined.
In her mother's dreams, or memories for all April knew, he kept close to Abby and, even when he wasn't making physical contact, he posed a possessive air over his sister. She had the feeling that anyone who messed with her, clearly messed with him.
April and Jesse had just been observers in her mind, no direct interaction. They just let everything play out.
She had to admit, she liked viewing her mom in that time, in those clothes. Somehow, her daughter found it more fitting for her mother. Abby always had this refreshing coolness to her, but underneath her mother's modern attempt, was pure sophistication. Seeing her mother in neck-to-floor elegance with a plumed hat just proved it. It reminded her of the movie Hello Dolly.
There was nothing seemingly obvious in the dream. The pair had scanned the list at the dock, looking for a particular name of someone they knew. There was one thing though, one thing that wasn't entirely obvious except in hindsight, but April noticed because it reminded her of her own brother. He had searched the list, scanning, until he came to a name on the list of survivors and stopped. James' face changed. It was for a mere second, yet April could read him just as she could read Dylan; he was terrified. There was something on that register that worried him.
After that, when Abby asked him what was the matter, he just explained that the enormity of the tragedy was wearing on him. Abby bought it, but April knew that was a cover. No, there was something, or someone, on the roll call that scared the living Hell out of him.
How the fuck would April find something in that list? It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. On top of that, from what it seemed in the dream, even her mother didn't seem to know what was going on. Abby appeared just oblivious to the information that James knew in the dream-but maybe she also recognized it as some sort of message or sign. But, of what?
April didn't have an obvious reason for her mother's anxiety in the dream, no clear concession that she could jump off from. There was just a name out of several hundreds of names on a passenger survivor manifesto. Even that, April hadn't even seen what part of the list it was from, or how the giant board was organized. Nothing.
Super.
She glanced over at the clock. 6am. That took almost the whole night? It literally felt like five minutes, an action packed five minutes. Man, she was going to be dead for the rest of the day.
April got up and stretched out the kinks, heading down to the main room of the cabin.
Gwen and Cas were already seated at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and talking. Ruby was on the floor by the couch, laying down and trying to stretch out a crick in her back. Sam, who was usually the first one up, was no where to be found. Odd.
"Hey, Hell must be freezing over," Gwen joked. "Look who's up before 10am on a day off of school?"
"Good morning, April," Cas smiled warmly, his blue eyes flashing over his newspaper.
"Hi," she groaned, walking to grab a cup of java for herself.
When she realized Jamie wasn't around and asked the elders where her little brother ran off to.
"He woke Dean up at the crack of dawn to go fishing," Cas grinned. "I guess Dean and Sam didn't get in till like three this morning, so I'm sure he was really pleased to have a couple hours of sleep."
"Wow. Dad and Sam up that late on an off-hunt night? Doesn't sound like them," she mused before taking a sip of the tepid coffee.
"Your dad and uncle do like to hang out, you know," Ruby said mid-stretch. "They are brothers. Speaking of which, heard from Dylan lately?"
April shook her head no. She hadn't spoken to him since right after Prom, but she'd been meaning to get in touch with him. Truthfully, she should probably call him that afternoon-and see what he can find out at the nest. After all, if Gwen told Sonora, perhaps then Dylan could spy on Sonora and find out what she knew. Somehow, they needed to air out the dirty laundry.
"Mom up yet," she asked.
"She went for a run a little while ago," Gwen said, her aunt's eyes skimming over the entertainment section of the newspaper. "She might be back by now."
"Ok," April said, taking a piece of toast off of Cas' plate and she headed up to her parent's mini-cabin.
As she walked the aged wooden steps, up a small hill towards the cabin, she began to have doubts. Maybe she was wrong about her mom. Perhaps what happened the night before was just her own dream or maybe Jesse made something up to placate her. But, how could she have known what her late-uncle was like? He seemed so real and not what she had imagined.
April was second guessing herself and didn't know what to think.
Yesterday, she thought maybe her mom was up to something. Just the next morning, she thought maybe she should just ask her mother straight out: is there something going on with you?
"Mom, you home," she yelled as she opened the door. "Ma!"
No answer.
"Dad? You around?"
Nope. Still nothing.
'Oh well, guess I'll just wait here,' April said, plopping down on the couch.
She sat on the seat, putting her legs on the coffee table. Her feet moved back and forth, watching the pattern her shoes made as she blurred them back and forth. Her eyes shifted to an item on the coffee table. Her mother's laptop. Guess she could cruise the internet while she waited.
April picked up the computer and found that it was already logged onto the web. She opened the minimized window and gasped at what was being searched: passenger manifesto for the H.M.S. Titanic.
She slammed the laptop shut and ran out of the cabin to call her brother.
In...out...in...out.
Her breathing matched the sway in her arms and legs, increasing her momentum as she ran. She needed a breather, sometime to herself. There were many times when what she needed was to just run away with music blaring in her ears. Right then, her MP3 player was on "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi. There was no good way to cure the blues than with 1980s rock n' roll.
And, oh man, she had the blues.
Her dream from the night before was wearing on her.
She did remember that day when she was waiting for her friend Mellie Walsh. The young human had gone on a trip to Europe to discover the world. Mellie had pleaded and begged Abby to join her for the adventure of a lifetime, and Ab had been all for it. It was James who had sternly said no, and at the time, she hated him for it.
"I forbid it," James had spat, standing over her as she lounged on the chaise in their living room.
"Forbid it," she scoffed, cooling herself with a hand-fan in the summer of 1911 since their air cooling unit was broken. "Really, Jamie, you must be kidding yourself."
"Oh but I'm not joking around, Abby. You are not going with Mellie to Europe! You will not step one foot out of the States!"
She stood up, standing on her tippy toes to be eye-to-eye with him.
"Oh yeah, what are you going to do if I put my toe into Canada? Kill me," she asked, turning on heel and rushing out.
"Abby, you are not going and that's final!"
"You're my brother, not my father! How dare you order me around," she hissed back.
"Because you are all I have left and it's not safe for you to on your own and especially in Europe! You are not safe there!"
"Why? Why not?"
He threw his hands up.
"Mother just said to never go there, that includes both you and me! I'm not going to let you go run off and get hurt, Abby! Not after all this time! I didn't waste my life protecting you for nothing!"
The 'waste my life' part always got to her.
She had stopped at that point, her anger changing into sadness. Is that what he thought of her? Was she only a responsibility?
At that point in the argument in 1911, she gave in, promising that she wouldn't go to Europe. That left Mellie to venture through the history and culture of the Old World on her own...for almost one whole year.
In March, she had received word from her friend that she was to return to America in April on the fabulous ship, the Titanic. She asked to be met at the dock in New York on April 17th.
Abby planned to do just that, only on April 15th, the papers declared that Titanic at sunk in an unforeseen, catastrophic disaster. Through a sea of a thousand people, mostly adorned in black, she navigated the pandemonium, trying to find any news of her dear friend.
No word yet. She just had to wait for the ship Carpathia like everyone else for a word. When the ship arrived and they posted the list of survivors, Mellie's name wasn't on it.
"I-I don't see her name, Jamie," she sobbed, turning and grabbing a somber deckhand that had just exited the ship. "Excuse me, sir, have you seen a small red head, about 5 feet tall, brown eyes. She was on Titanic...I was hoping-"
He shook his head and walked away, muttering something about no hope.
Suddenly, James eyes stopped at a name, although she could not see anything.
"Is it Mellie," she thought, thinking that maybe he was just shocked at discovery her friend's name on the manifest.
"We have to go," he said, seizing her by the arm.
"Jamie," she squealed, batting his hand and pulling away. "What is wrong with you?"
James approached her, grabbing her hand with increasing intensity, fear in his eyes.
'We have to go now. We're going home, packing up and heading West-right now.'
Abby stared into his eyes, seeing the intense fear, his hand shaking her body.
"Fine," she said between wracking sobs, knowing that she probably had just lost her human friend. "Let's go. Where to this time? California? Oregon? Colorado? What are we going to call ourselves?"
They made plans as they made their way back to their brownstone.
What was that name he viewed? She had scanned the list seven times since she had gotten up that morning. There wasn't one name that rang a bell. Not one single name. What the hell did James know that she didn't?
'Damn it, James, why did you always have to be so cryptic,' she chided her late brother.
She'd have to figure it out later. For now, she would finish her run, then go back to spend time with her family, sneaking time to study the spells in her mother's book on the side.
So much to do, so little time.
Dean watched the line like it was about to snap any minute. He could relate.
Abby was already gone by the time he got up at the ass crack of dawn, Jamie knocking on his door to remind him that dad promised to take him fishing in the morning. He didn't doubt he made the promise, but the little dude didn't realize his dad had been up all night.
"What's up, Dad?"
"Huh?"
"You're sorta spacey today," Jamie laughed. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Fine. Me and your Uncle were up way past our bedtimes," he smiled. "That's it. Don't worry about me. How did you fair here your first night? See anything strange?"
"Nope," he said, saying that he slept really well, which was great. It was nice to see something going well for someone. "Zac hasn't talked to me in a long time, actually and the last time I saw him-I told him to get bent."
Nice.
Dylan sat back, his hands behind his head.
"Ok, so my grandma comes here with my granddad from Europe to America-"
"Not even. They first arrived in the Caribbean and lived there for a bit. At least that's what it says in this report," she flipped him an old book which was falling to pieces at the binding. Sonora had found many ancient books in a secret vault. She used her particular skill-set to break in. To her surprise, many of the books had some things regarding his family that hadn't been disturbed in over 200 years. Why were they hidden away? Did they really have information regarding his past?
Sure enough, there in front of him was a short, unfinished history of Thomas and Anne Stuart. They once lived in the English New World colony of Port Royale for a short time before making their way to St. Augustine. Thanks to Thomas' partial Spanish heritage on his maternal side, it seemed they made complete safe passage.
Then the story went on to document a short synopsis his late-grandparent's time in the colony of Florida and their subsequent deaths. It was labelled by the locals as an accident, a terrible fire. Dylan knew better. They the victims of a terrible crime.
"So, there's nothing about my grandma before they came to the Caribbean," he questioned, finding it odd that the history just ended. "Nothing about her life before then?"
"Well," Sonora said, laying on her bed, reading a file. "It says your grandma was originally from England."
She flipped the file onto the floor, grabbing an even older book. She pulled out a yellow crinkled paper, more like a rolled parchment.
"Marriage certificate," she announced with skepticism.
Dylan looked up as Sonora sat up straighter on the bed.
"A Thomas Brian Stuart to an Ann Sybil Norris," she read. "Is Norris is your grandma's maiden name?"
"I don't know," Dylan admitted. "Mom never mentioned a last name at all. Maybe that is it. It's definitely something to make a note of." He said, marking it down on a yellow paper in his steno pad.
"Your phone's vibrating," Sonora said, being able to hear it in his bag from across the room. "Dare you to get it before me."
He smirked and zipped over to the bag, being knocked over by her before he could get his hands on it.
"Nice try," she smiled, tossing the phone to him.
"Hello," he answered gasping from his ordeal. "April! Hey, sis. What's up?"
"Dyl, I'm having some major issues," she sighed, sounding out breathe.
"Hey, you okay? You sound like you've been running," he said. "What is there to run from in Wisconsin?"
"No one is chasing me if that's what you're implying. No, I went on a run to get away from home for a while. Besides, I need to get some phone calls done without nosy people around. Jesse wasn't answering and I was meaning to give you a call anyway-Dyl, some weird shit is going on," April said.
She went on to describe her suspicions regarding their mother, including her misgivings about the dream the night before.
"Look, I know it was wrong of me to ask Jesse to do that and to just go into Mom's mind like that, but I had to find out something. I just want to know, did you hear anything from Sonora that came from Gwen?"
He admitted that he had, becoming more curious by the moment.
"Yeah, she did," he whispered, Sonora giving him a dirty look from across the room, giving him a signal to nix it. He motioned to her that it was all right and she replied with a roll of her eyes.
"So, what have you found out," April inquired.
"Not much yet," he sighed, explaining that their was a shitload of information they still had to go though.
"Anything on Caleb's friends," April asked, who must have obviously be eavesdropping on Gwen's side of the conversation with Sonora. "We've got a small list: Mom, Lenore, Declan, Donovan were the closest to him. From all we found out, Gwen didn't know him all that well. Those were the closest associates that we know of. So, take Mom out of the equation and we're down to three important people in his life. As far as Mom's fam, I haven't found much."
"Same here," she admitted with obvious frustration. "There was something in her dream about Uncle James finding a name on the Titanic passenger survivor manifesto that creeped me out. It was the way he looked at it; he was so scared. I mean, what on Earth could scare a 200 year old vamp, right? There was something on there, and you know what? I caught Mom checking out the list this online morning. There has to be something on there but finding one name out of over 700 people with a name we don't even know? It's like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. I checked the Stuart names on the registry and there was nothing that seemed to fit, but I have no other names."
He stopped, looking down at his grandparent's marriage certificate in his hand.
"Try the last name Norris," he said.
"Norris? Where'd you get that from," she asked.
"Call it a hunch."
Sam sat at the kitchen table with Dean, watching as his brother knocked back the fourth beer of the day, and it was only 1pm. Good start considering they both had about two hours of sleep the night before.
"Hey, you wanna slow down," Sam commented as Dean put the empty bottle on the table.
"Sure. Thanks, Betty Ford. I'll slow down when I know that nothing is going on. You know, there's only few things in my life that get me down and those things are," he stopped to hold up, counting on his fingers. "You, her and the kids. That's about it. So, yeah, I get pretty bummed when I think that one of them could be hiding something, you know?"
"Dean, maybe we still shouldn't jump to conclusions until we know what's in the book, you know," Sam said, reassuring Dean that perhaps there is an explanation for Abby's discretion. "For all you know, everything just could have been hiding the fact that she was bringing you up here or maybe that is a diary; just a journal that she doesn't want everyone to read."
"Oh come on, Sam," Dean yelled, shocking Sam. "Have you been sniffing glue? If it was a coded diary, why would she have to hide it? There is something in there that is important and she's trying to keep it from us. The million dollar question is why?"
Sam looked out the window, seeing Cas, Abby and Ruby on the speed boat dragging April, Gwen and Jamie behind on the tube. Good ol' family funtimes. Dean had told the group he wasn't feeling too well and wanted to stay on shore and Sam said he'd hangout with him. In reality, they were waiting for Bobby to arrive.
"So, you don't trust her anymore," Sam asked. Dean's brow furrowed, his eyes focusing on the table.
"I don't know, Sam," he admitted. "You know, part of me is tellin' me I should have the benefit of the doubt, that I should just ask her if something is wrong. But, then the other part of me, that part I used to trust when we'd be on hunts, is telling me somethin's up."
Sam knew Dean was itching to find out what was in that book. He had to admit he was curious too.
Beep. Beep.
"Hello, y'all home?"
Dean was the first to get up, walking to greet Bobby as he made his route up the driveway.
"Hey, boy," Bobby said, giving Dean a hug. "How ya holding up?"
"Eh," Dean shrugged. "I guess that depends what news you got for me."
"Sam," Bobby greeted, moving to hug the younger Winchester brother. "You ok?"
"Yeah, fine."
"Where're the rest of the brood," Bobby asked, looking around for everyone else.
Sam pointed out to the lake as the group zipped by on the boat. Dean suggested that, while everyone was still out, they move up to the smaller, farther cabin at the top of the hill.
"Wanna beer, Bobby," Dean said. Bobby nodded and Dean tossed him a cold one across the kitchen. They sat down at the table together, getting caught up in small talk before Dean asked the big question. "So, what did you find out?"
"Well, from what I gathered so far, it ain't Latin or Aramaic or Babylonian. This is just a coded message that, without the key, is gonna be hard to crack," Bobby described before taking a sip of beer.
Sam smirked.
"Sammy, if you say 'I told you so,' I'll smack you," Dean spoke.
"Play nice, boys," Bobby joked. "No, it's most definitely a code. I can tell you the layout of it is journal like and the pages in the back are laid out like spells, but I can't tell you what the hell kind of spells. Boys, this book was written by someone who didn't want anyone to be able to read it but the person who memorized a code. If Abby can read it, she's the only one of us who can."
"But, who says that she can read it," Sam conjectured. "I mean, maybe she's working on a case on her own and doing exactly what we're doing; trying to figure it out."
"Possibly," Bobby said. "Could be it...or, maybe it has something to do with those letters."
"Why would you say that," Dean asked.
"Did you even look on that page that you sent me, ya idjit? Look," Bobby said, pulling out the copy Sam had sent to him. "Look."
Very faintly, behind the actual handwritten text, was the image of the seal. It must have been drawn very lightly or scratched onto the page, only appearing when it was copied or held up to particular light.
"She must still be worried about it," Dean said, his eyes scanning the copy, before putting it down on the table. "Why wouldn't she say anything to us?"
"You know her, she's the same as you; she doesn't like to toss her problems on other people," Sam clarified.
"Ya, but we know what good that does us, right," Dean said.
"Sure, yeah it's not good, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't do it, Dean."
"Sam's right," Bobby jumped in. "Ab might just be investigating it herself-but-you know, I find it interestin' that she was pretty cool as a cucumber about it when the letters first showed up. Now, she's looking into it? Why?"
"Something must have happened," Dean muttered.
Sam knew that Dean really meant something happened that she didn't tell him about. He didn't know if it was the part that she was in trouble was bothering his brother more or the fact that should could be lying.
"So, after 1 day, I'm officially out of retirement. Awesome," his brother said, chugging back the remainder of his beer.
He could tell by the glaze in his brother's eyes that he was not happy about it.
Alice Norris.
Alice Norris was a key to the puzzle.
"What does she mean to your mother," Jesse asked, leaning over April's shoulder to read the page uploaded on the internet.
He sat back down in his chair next from her at that coffee house in town. Thank god they had Wi-Fi.
"She has something to do with my grandmother; they share her maiden name," she said.
"How'd you find that out," he asked with some surprise, as if he had tried to find that same information for a long time.
"I have my sources," she smirked.
The point was, if her uncle had been scared by the name of a family member, something was really wrong.
"So, what have you figured out," he asked.
"All I know is that this chick, this Alice, survived and landed in New York on the ship Carpathia. After seeing the name on there, he looked shocked and he said that they had to leave New York immediately."
"So, you think that this Alice Norris was some sort of threat," Jesse pondered aloud.
"That's my guess. I can't figure any other reason why, but I can't find any information on her at all. Another dead end," she said as she snapped her laptop closed.
"Hey, not a dead end," he grabbed her hands in his. "You did good. You know, you do make a great hunter."
"Thanks," she smiled.
It had taken her hours of looking in the registry until the wee hours of the morning, due to a terrible internet connection in her cabin, but she had finally found it. She had to be pretty stealthy with everyone hanging out in her cabin all night and even stealthier with her Uncle Bobby there now too. It was a game night, everyone playing cards and watching movies. Her mom had seemed totally at ease while her dad-now there was something eating at him. At one point, she had been so confused and unfocused on anything other than her sleuthing task, she accidentally moved her soda off the table with her mind.
"Oops, sorry," she said as she cleaned up the spill with a paper towel. "I must have knocked it with my foot on the table."
"Your foot was nowhere near it," Jamie had said, questioning why it really happened.
Everyone stopped playing, a stillness in the air.
Jamie looked around, noticing the strain.
"I meant I must have kicked the table, J," she smiled.
"OH, okay," he said. "For a minute I thought you were crazy."
Everyone laughed with relief and continued on with what they were previously doing.
April had smiled and continued doing her research secretly on her laptop, erasing the history with every search. After all, if her mom looked on there and saw what she had been searching, she would have realized something was up.
The next morning, she had called Jesse and wanted to let him know that the dream had worked to some extent. He agreed to meet her at the small town's main coffee shop.
"Are you free," she had asked over the phone. "I know you had a lady friend with you before-"
"She wasn't a friend necessarily. I'll refer to her as associate and, for your information, I was watching someone who was to be transferred to a sort of witness protection program. She got picked up to where she needed to go. Your mother's nest was kind enough to give her sanctuary."
"Did someone from the nest pick her up," she asked.
"Yes. Some guy named Donovan."
Lenore. Donovan. Declan. Caleb's closest associates, and those you could have known his secret plans. It was those plans that led his parents to join forces in Chicago, fighting his evil gang of vampires. They also may have known exactly what may have gone down in Red Lodge, Montana.
Dylan had read both case files over and over-well the official nest case profiles. Like Sonora had mentioned, things weren't meshing.
"Your mom and Caleb were gold up until Montana," she said, sitting next to him on the couch. "Why would he just go crazy like that?"
"Almost dying would do that to you and if Gordon was after them-
"From the looks of these photos, Dyl, I don't think this was Gordon Walker was the assassin."
Dylan looked at her funny.
"Come on, even my dad said Gordon was the killer in Red Lodge," he laughed. "I trust my dad."
Sonora said she never said Gordon wasn't killing in Montana, she just said that he didn't kill Caleb and the rest of the nest that initially settled there.
"Look. First he goes there with a number of nest members. They get killed. Lenore and some nest members move there to investigate. Gordon had tracked Caleb's nest to Red Lodge and found Lenore instead. Dean and Sam go there to investigate beheadings and cattle mutations...and you know the rest. The point is, Gordon got there LONG after Caleb had died; he wouldn't have been in Red Lodge yet. From my notes, he was always at least two weeks behind, thus making him four weeks behind Caleb, two weeks behind his death. Someone or some other group did it. Plus, the way the vamps with Caleb were killed were not Gordy's style. Look at these photos."
Sonora held a photograph out between them at a distance so they could see everything, taking in all the elements. She asked what he saw.
"Scorch marks, dead vampires with no head-"
"What else," she ordered.
That's when he noticed silver chains, barely shiny from the burn marks.
"Chains?"
"Does that look familiar," she asked.
"Iowa. That case with the vampires in Iowa not too long ago."
"Yep," she said. "Good job."
Dylan asked if she thought they were the same group and she said that there was a good chance. After all, why couldn't they be the same? Whoever they were, they had full knowledge on how to kill the undead.
"Whoever they are, my guess are super hunters-like we're talking at your dad's level, which is super rare or-"
"They're also vampires," he whispered in realization. "They know the best ways to kill and torture first hand."
She smiled at him, commending him for figuring it out. Sonora commented on how she found it odd that Lenore didn't investigate that theory during her time in Red Lodge. All the signs were pointing to something odd. That just didn't sit right with her.
"I don't trust it, Dylan. Seriously, her orders right now cannot be trusted. If your mother is in trouble, I wouldn't put it past Lenore to be a part of it."
Lenore? His aunt had been around since he was a little boy and had only been nice to him. How could she have been involved with a deception and still hang out with his family? If that was true, it was completely messed up.
Sonora jotted down the points and got back to unearthing more information regarding Lenore, Declan and Donovan's past. He put his nose in his files, trying to find more information on Alice Norris. Thanks to his sister's investigating, he now had a name to put to the test.
"Are you ready to go back," Gwen said, basking in the sun, her toenails going from natural to a bright pink with every stroke of her nailbrush.
"No," she said, meaning that very word.
"Two days until sweet home Chicago," her friend smiled.
"Yeah. It'll be good to be home," Abby said, forcibly keeping her voice with a happy tone.
"It's been a great 12 days, my friend. Thanks for inviting me and Cas."
"You're welcome."
Besides her impending future, she had to admit, she was so grateful to have such memories with her family. Great meals. Wonderful times on the water during the day and warm campfires at night. Those were memories she would take with her to wherever she was headed.
It wasn't necessarily the fact that she was going to have to leave her family for a little while at most-she hoped, it was mostly the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen. Tomorrow night. Tomorrow.
"Hey, Ab, you there," Gwen questioned, waving her hand in front of Abby's sunglass covered eyes. "You're spacing out on me here."
"Blame it on the sun and the booze, hun," she smiled in reply.
"I'll drink to that," her friend grinned, raising her glass in a toast.
Abby followed suit, clinking her friend's drink and knocking one back.
"So, you and Cas seem to be going pretty well," Abby remarked.
"Yeah. It's great, Ab. Honestly, I think he's it."
"Well, I'll offer this advice, kid. Guys that you want to be with forever don't come around very often. They're one in a million. Take your shot with him while you still have one. If you let them go through your fingers, there are a ton of wonderful experiences you will miss out on," she advised.
"Like you and Dean," Gwen said.
Yes. Just like herself and Dean.
Her stomach twisted just at the mere mention of his name. How could she keep what she was going to have to do from him? Every moment she was with him, every breathe they shared in their presence-it was eating away at her.
Then again, she didn't know what exactly to tell him. It was just as much as a surprise for her as it was going to be for him. She only hoped that all her planning had paid off.
She memorized the spells that her mother wanted her to, the ones marked with a heavy red ink. They were mostly incantations involving blood, no other ingredients needed. All she would need was a makeshift knife to carve markings into her flesh. The only problems were, they were not clearly marked as to their intentions. Abby would have to choose one on the fly and pray that it worked.
"So, I say on our last night, we head out to the bar," her vampire friend said, leaning over to finish painting her toenails. "April can stay here and watch -"
"Watch who," April smiled, her feet clunking down on the wooden dock.
She bent her knees, taking a spot next to her mother on a towel. Very softly, she leaned against Abby, putting her head on her shoulder. Abby smiled and put her arm around her daughter, giving her a kiss on the side of the head.
"You okay, honey," Abby muttered.
April didn't answer at first. Her daughter bit her lip, as if to say or ask something very important, before shrugging nonchalantly.
"God, I wish people would stop throwing their garbage in the water," April said, nodding towards a piece of debris floating in the water.
Abby sniffed the air. That wasn't garbage. Gwen must have done the same.
The three of them looked into the water as the debris floated closer to shore. From the looks of it, it was just an extra large trash bag, but with her vampire eyes, she could see a slight wisps of blonde hair. With her nose, she smelled the distinct aroma of human flesh.
"DAD," April yelled, jumping up and running to get Dean, who would no doubt bring Sam done as well.
"Abby-a body?"
Not just any body. A metallic object glimmered in the light. It was just a flash in the sun, a small signal but it was enough to get her attention. It was a medallion of the three moons of Hectate. She had seen that same symbol just a week before in a bar.
'Hannah.'
Her phone vibrated on the dock. Abby cautiously picked it up and read the text message.
We know where you are.
This is a warning.
Don't try to out run us-or someone more important may share the same fate.