A/N: Shout-outs to crankiestnebula, pipelite, Sweetie420, DoctorWho9, LILYpadsROX, Sage of wind Dragons, Madre, and MewLover9000. Supernatural episodes referenced are Malleus Maleficarum, Dream a Little Dream of Me, and No Rest for the Wicked.
Song credits go to Peter, Paul, and Mary as well as the ever-lovely James Taylor. If the songs in this chapter seem unfamiliar, I highly recommend finding them online and giving them a listen - particularly the JT one.
January 12th, 2008, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, 7:30 a.m.
Dean answered his phone with a gruff "I hate witches."
"Don't tell Willow that."
The hunter caught his brother's curious expression and mouthed, "It's Faith." Putting the phone on speaker, he continued, "They're disgusting."
"Not gonna hear any arguments from this end."
"Morning, Faith."
"Hey, Sam. How are you? Becka said you haven't been texting her back."
Surprised, Dean glanced along the front seat. "What? You got somethin' to share with the class, Sammy?" he taunted.
Sam squirmed uncomfortably. "It's nothing. We've just been comparing notes – she and Lily are working on the demon hunt, too, trying to get the name of that crossroads demon that I killed."
With great self-control, the hunter kept from whacking his brother upside the head. He still couldn't believe sometimes that Sam had been angry enough and dumb enough to kill the one demon who had known the location of his contract. It had been a damnfool move, and whenever Dean thought about it, his panic worsened. But making Sam feel like crap about it wouldn't do anyone any good, and so he tried to keep his own mouth shut. Sam was doing a fantastic job feeling guilty all by himself.
"Sure, Sam," Faith laughed. She sounded better than she had in a while, and for a moment Dean allowed himself to hope. If Faith was this chipper, maybe she'd found something.
"Kinda early for a social call, Faith," he said in an effort to bring her back around to the point.
"Sorry – I'm not great with the time zones. Angel's been dragging me into his melodramatic hellhole of redemption. He thinks he needs to resurrect Giles."
"What?" demanded Sam.
"Yeah, it's not a great idea. His plan's got about a thousand holes in it – and that's without me actually sitting down to think about it. But he's full steam ahead, and I'd rather have him talking than not, so we make do. I let him drag me along on his braintrust ideas, and I get to strong-arm him into more demonology. So far, so good. Anyway . . . came across a whole truckload of new books at an occult estate sale yesterday. You want us to tackle 'em all, or would you rather I send some 'cross the pond?"
Dean struggled to keep his tone nonchalant. "I thought you were heading this way in a couple of weeks?"
She had been babysitting Angel since July and had been pouring through the Watcher's Council's archives in London since September. Every occult literature treasure trove was as empty as the last, and the hunter knew instinctively that there was nothing new to be discovered. They were up against a brick wall. Unless and until they knew which demon held all the power, any attempts to break his deal by magic would be useless. At best, they would simply fail, unnoticed. At worst, Sam would die and be dragged down to Hell in Dean's stead. That wasn't an acceptable alternative.
It was January now, and Dean was ready and willing for her to admit defeat and come back to the States. Besides, she had promised to make it for his birthday in a couple of weeks. It would be his last birthday in his twenties – his last birthday ever, whispered a traitorous voice that Dean was doing his best not to listen to. He wanted to take Sam, hit up Vegas, party like he had when he was twenty-three. And she had promised to be there.
"I'm sorry, Dean. I don't think I can make it."
"What?" he asked sullenly, aware of Sam's worried eyes off on his right and not giving a damn.
"I got a voicemail from my parole officer yesterday. The FBI's been poking around again, asking about my whereabouts, my associations with a pair of career criminals called the Winchesters. I've told her that I don't hang out with felons, and she said that she believes me - or maybe she doesn't give a crap what I do – it's kinda hard to tell with her. But I got the impression that she's under a crapload of pressure to provide the feds with something."
This took the wind right out of his sails. "Oh."
"Yeah. I figure they'll have a watch on my passport, and I don't want to lead that Agent whatshisface anywhere near you guys, so . . . you could always fly here?"
"I don't do planes," Dean said gruffly.
"Right, yeah. I knew that." An awkward pause commenced. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," the hunter lied. He took the phone off of speaker and pretended to look at the screen. "I've got another call coming in. Good luck with the books. Let me know if you find anything."
"Okay-"
He hung up before the end of that second disappointed syllable and dropped his phone into his shoebox of cassettes. Turning the radio back up, he ignored the puppy dog looks that Sam was shooting his way and stomped the gas pedal into the floor. He had to get away, had to fill his ears with thrashing drums and wailing guitars. Any noise but the voices in his head. Anywhere but here.
January 28th, 2008, London, England, 11:29 p.m.
"I need a favor."
"What's up?"
"There's this chick. Goes by the name of Bela Talbot. She's a professional thief. Magical antiquities, black market deals, that whole shebang. Speaks with some kind of English accent or something. She stole the Colt. I need it back. We've been trying to track her for the last week, but she's gone to ground. Can you look into the international side of things?"
"You want me to track her down?"
"I want to know everything, down to what she had for breakfast the day she turned twelve. You got that?"
"I'm on it."
"Thanks."
He hung up before she could get another word in, which was just as well. Their conversations had gotten a little . . . tense . . . lately, and between trying to keep Angel from going off the deep end in his resurrect-Giles campaign, spending six hours a day researching demon deals, and trying to form a contingency plan with the Mayor, she was running a little ragged. To make things more complicated, she'd hooked up with the bass guitarist guy again last night, in an attempt to relieve some tension, and now he wouldn't stop texting her.
This request felt like a second chance, an opportunity to make things up to Dean. She might not have been able to make his birthday, but she could find out whatever there was to find out on Bela Talbot. Time to crack open Giles' old address books, start making some phone calls. At the very least, it would provide a change for a day or two.
It took Faith two weeks, exhausting every still-living contact in Giles' personal directory with ties to the occult. She spoke with small bookshop owners in Dover, made late-night conference calls with Cairo artifact dealers, and even paid a visit to the National Archives to sift through marriage and birth records. At the end, while she nearly a hundred pages of sour anecdotes, she had still not been able to unmask the real person behind the mercenary façade.
That alone was incredibly frustrating, but there was one small light at the end of this research tunnel. She had a phone number. And not just any phone number. This very exclusive secure line connected potential customers directly to Ms. Talbot. Faith had already contacted a technopagan hacker working around the Old Street Roundabout, but their attempts to put a trace on the number failed. It was highly encrypted against mundane hacking and securely warded against the mystical kind.
She was skimming the anecdotes a final time in search of anything that could lead to a tangible lead, when an email came through from a museum curator in Monaco. Faith glanced at the contents of the email. The curator didn't have much to say that was new. A year previous, a very famous doll, one that was rumored to be haunted, had been stolen. Police suspected the museum publicist, who had held her post for only two weeks and had vanished the same night as the doll went missing.
Unlike everyone else Faith had talked to, however, the museum curator had a photograph and had attached it at the bottom of the email. She stared at the photo in shock. That face . . . that face was familiar.
The Slayer hunted through her hard drive in search of one particular folder. She hadn't accessed it in years, but somewhere on her laptop were the surveillance photos Giles had taken at Lady Genevieve Savidge's formal ball. After a couple of misdirects, Faith found the pictures she was looking for. Lips pursed, she flicked through the images. If she remembered correctly, there was one particular photo . . .
Aha! And there it was. In one frame, Hope Lyonne stood in a small group of women with Gigi Savidge, all dressed to the nines, all smiling and laughing. With them was Bela Talbot. Faith frowned at the younger Bela in the picture, trying in vain to remember her name. What had she called herself that night? Lucy something. Lucy . . . Lucy Harker.
Faith smirked. She was still seven leagues behind, but she'd just moved one square further across the chessboard. She dialed the number.
"Hello?" answered a female voice in poshly accented tones.
Reaching deep inside, Faith grasped for the fragments of Hope Lyonne as she had been. "Hello, yes. I am trying to reach Bela Talbot. I am interested in acquiring a particular piece of history and was told that she might be of assistance."
"Congratulations. You're in luck. I am Bela Talbot, and I am currently accepting commissions. What sort of history did you have in mind?"
"My father is rather unfortunately obsessed with the American Wild West. He also has a predilection for making all sorts of nasty enemies who are . . . rather difficult to manage. They tend to cling to life by some unexpectedly tenacious means. I had heard there were certain pieces of Americana that tend to be more effective at protection – both the reactive and proactive types."
Bela laughed lightly into the phone. "I think I know what sort of thing you mean. Before we proceed any further, I should inform you that my rates are by no means substandard."
"Of course. If you want the best, you pay for the best. I would expect nothing less."
"Excellent. Do you have any more specifics about the desired acquisition? Does your father prefer swords, mojo bags, rare curse ingredients?"
"He likes firearms, actually. Pre-Civil War, when he can acquire them. There's one legend that he is overly fond of. Daddy likes to believe that Samuel Colt made a pistol during the ride of Halley's Comet in 1835 that could kill anything. It's only a rumor, I'm sure, but if you had anything along those lines – or knew of anything along those lines – we could make it extremely worth your while."
"I don't know of anything just at present, but given a little time, I'm sure I can find something that would suit your father. What did you say your name was?"
"I don't quite see how that's necessary –"
"For security purposes, you see. If I am going to accept your commission, I need to know a little more about you, first."
Faith swallowed down pure bile. "Last name is Lyonne."
The mercenary thief's voice changed, trading its mellifluousness for venom. "Hope. You bitch."
"Lucy. I'm surprised you remembered."
"You were Gigi's houseguest when she died. Doesn't take much effort to remember a name, a face. I thought your voice sounded familiar."
In another time, the mention of Gigi would have filled Faith with guilt. But she'd been handling things a little differently of late, exorcizing her demons by summoning one. She threw herself whole-heartedly into the con, relishing in the power of being nasty. Faith had been playing nice for far too long. "I hardly see how any of that is relevant. That was business. So is this. You are a professional, are you not? Act professionally."
"The rate for my services just tripled."
"Surprise, surprise. How the world turns. I don't care how much it costs – can you locate the item that I specified? The Colt pistol?"
"I looked into you, Hope." Bela enunciated each word with extreme care. "After Gigi's death, there were quite a few people who wondered about your bona fides. I did some research, and lo and behold, Hope Lyonne did not really exist."
"Neither does Bela Talbot – or Lucy Harker. Bit hypocritical to be bothered by my alias, isn't it?"
The other woman spoke over her. "I looked further, asked a client to use some facial recognition software. You're rather infamous, aren't you, Faith?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about." Taken aback, Faith lost her hold on the Hope persona.
"Faith Lehane, convicted murderer and self-styled vampire slayer."
It really pissed her off when people forgot the capitals. They were important. "Your point?" she shot back, her voice just shy of a snarl.
"I can see right through you, Faith. You're so transparent as to be invisible. No, I won't be doing business with you. I don't deal with rabble. And, by the way, you can tell Dean Winchester from me that his little plan hasn't worked. The Colt is mine now, until I find a satisfactory buyer. So he can stop being the ever-present pebble in my shoe."
"He's going to find it, you know."
Bela laughed. "He can try."
Faith continued on as if she hadn't spoken. "And then he'll kill you. Or I will," she added as an afterthought.
"Two redneck thugs, united forever by their love of murder. Ha," scoffed Bela. "I look forward to watching you fail in the attempt." Still laughing, she hung up.
Frak. The Slayer threw her phone across the room and collapsed into Giles' heavy desk chair, her heart sinking into her toes. That had not gone according to plan. Frak, frak, frak.
March 18th, 2008, London, England, 11:15 p.m.
"Any news?" She despised the pleading quality in her voice that was often present these days.
Richard Wilkins gazed at her across the fire, sitting comfortably criss cross applesauce. "Sorry, firecracker. The boundaries between dimensions are getting more and more corporeal. What did you say your little friend Buffy destroyed in the depths of Sunnydale last year?"
"The seed of wonder, I think?"
He nodded. "Well, unfortunately, I don't think she realized the magnitude of what she was doing. Slayers rarely do. They're so impetuous. Get the bit between their teeth and just charge away with it. It can be the most infuriating thing . . . or the most refreshing one," he added quickly, noticing her less than impressed dead-eye stare.
"So what exactly did Buffy do?"
"Without the seed of wonder, the gateways between dimensions are slowing closing down as they exhaust their reserves of magical energy. The more they're used, the faster the barriers come up. Like a permanently fixed income that's quickly running out. What this means for you and your boyfriend –"
"Not my boyfriend, boss."
"Oh, well, a parental figure can dream." At the Slayer's continued glare, he backtracked, "Very well. What this means for you and your friend is that I can't make the trip from my little summer cottage to the Judeo-Christian Hell of human souls as often as I would like to. But I did slip through last week, and I talked to the head of the crossroads demons."
"And?" asked Faith hopefully.
The Mayor frowned. "Nasty, pedestrian little fellow. Absolutely filthy language – and his sideburns are really in the worst taste. He claimed not to know anything about it. And since I was on his home turf, so to speak, I didn't have the advantage of pressing the issue." He cracked his knuckles casually.
Faith suppressed the urge to shiver. Sometimes, it was easy to forget the capability for violence that lay beneath the demon's refined tones. He was on her side, at least marginally. That, combined with the relaxed camaraderie that filled their conversations often lulled her into a false sense of security. It would be so simple to believe him, to trust him the way she had in Sunnydale. But then moments like this happened, and she remembered all too well his cruelty when crossed.
She kept her voice neutral and her face impassive. "So now what? Now what do I do?"
"There are a few more gateways I can try, and probably a few more books somewhere out there in the world to read, but if any of it will work out? I don't know, sweet pea. I just don't know."
May 1st, 2008, London, England, 6:00 a.m.
Faith had been waiting for this particular call. She had wondered, expected, hoped it was coming, so she had started sleeping with a phone by her pillow and the volume turned all the way up. Never let it be said that Faith Lehane didn't know how to prepare.
"Give me just a minute, okay?" she said and then pulled the phone away from her ear.
She stumbled out of bed, creeping on tiptoe past the half-open door to Giles' study. The faint glow of a table lamp spread out in a triangle over the hall carpet. Angel must still be awake, brooding over some occult mystery in a musty leather-bound volume. He tended to do that, nowadays. There was no real need for Faith to creep, but she would rather avoid explanations for the moment.
Rounding the corner of the hall, she settled onto the large leather couch that dominated the living room. Her back pressed against one of the arms, she tucked her feet beneath the cushions at the far end. The Slayer braced herself and brought the phone back up.
"Hey," she said breathlessly. "I wondered if you were gonna call."
"I'm that predictable?" His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.
"I've been watching the calendar." A crushing weight sat on her chest, making it difficult to say anything at all, let alone the right words. If there even were right words for days like today.
"Yeah."
Heavy silence filled the air between them. They had had this conversation several times already. Faith had spent the last nine months preparing, upending heaven and hell in search of solutions, slowly drifting away when Dean's disappointment and regret each time she failed became too painful. It was excruciating - she could not help him, could not save him, could not even stand beside him and go down in a blaze of glory and a pile of bleeding Hell Hounds.
She'd offered; he'd refused. Faith knew better than to bring that discussion back up again.
"How are you?" It was a stupid question, but it had to be asked.
"Ready. I think. One way or another, this'll be over in 24 hours. We know where Lilith is gonna be, we know how to kill her . . . We'll be in and out before sundown. Once I've slept off my celebratory hangover, I'll call you."
"Okay. Sounds like you've got a plan. . . . Dean, if things don't go well . . ."
"I'm gonna be just fine."
"I know. And I'll talk to you in a couple of days. But . . . just in case . . . there's something I gotta say."
"What?" The word was empty, guttural, neither a question nor a demand. Dean had run out of emotion. He didn't have anything left for her tonight.
Save me a seat in Hell. "I'll bust you out."
A tiny fragment of despair crept into his voice. "Faith . . . this won't be anything like prison."
"I'll get you out. Somehow. I promise."
The hunter inhaled, a long, struggling breath. "I . . . I don't really want to talk about this, Faith."
"Oh." That stung.
He continued, "I can't sleep. I've been trying for over an hour. Sam's out like a rock. And it wouldn't be a big deal, but I need to be on my game tomorrow, so -"
"So alcohol and everything else are off the table."
"Yeah."
"What do you need?"
"Can you . . . can you just talk to me? Until I fall asleep. Or sing . . . your voice isn't that bad." The joke fell flat.
Faith cleared her throat of the legions of frogs that had taken up residence. She couldn't save him. This was the least she could do. "You want me to sing you a lullaby?"
"If you like," he said so casually and dismissively that it burned. "Or just tell me what you're doing in London."
And so Faith talked. She explained about Angel and his halting road to redemption, of the Slayer crowd in London and of the monsters they'd been chasing. She talked of Andrew's new novel - almost finished! - of Lily's latest theater role. She shared silly stories of bad dates that Becka had gone on, of vampires too foolhardy to believe in the dangers of sunlight, of Oz's successful meditation-for-werewolves program.
While she spoke, the sun moved overhead, the pale grey of dawn spreading across the living room carpet. When she ran out of words, she paused, uncertain as to whether or not she should continue.
"Don't stop," came the quiet, sleepy voice. "Keep going."
Faith didn't really know any lullabies. Her mom and her Aunt Stella had occasionally sung to her, but it was all folksy-driven stuff from the 60's and their own childhoods, not anything about babies and sunshine and pretty flowers. Which probably worked out okay. Dean wasn't exactly a pretty-flower person.
It would be fine. No one would ever know about this, and it would be fine. And if he did tell someone, who would believe him? After all, Faith Lehane did not sing lullabies. Besides, she kinda owed it to him. Dying man's requests and all that. And so she sang in a quiet voice, slowly recalling the words and melody of "Puff the Magic Dragon."
When the song finished, the Slayer listened to the slow, heavy breathing on the other end of the line. He was probably asleep. She didn't need to sing anymore. But there was one melody thoroughly stuck in her head, and she wasn't quite ready to say goodbye. Not just yet.
. . . .
"Well the sun is surely sinking down, but the moon is slowly rising.
So this old world must still be spinning round, and I still love you.
. . . .
So close your eyes, you can close your eyes, it's all right.
I don't know no love songs, and I can't sing the blues anymore.
But I can sing this song, and you can sing this song when I'm gone.
. . . .
It won't be long before another day. We gonna have a good time.
And no one's gonna take that time away. You can stay as long as you like.
. . . .
So close your eyes, you can close your eyes, it's all right.
Well, I don't know no love songs, and I can't sing the blues anymore.
But I can sing this song, and you can sing this song when I'm gone."
. . . .
As the last note faded away, Faith sat in silence, a stray tear dripping off the tip of her nose. Chunky black cell phone pressed to her ear, she waited. Her heartbeat slowed, and her breathing synced itself with that of a sleeping man half a world away.
She waited, closing her eyes and listening to that gentle in and out, in and out, until the cell phone battery died and Angel braved the sunlit room to come fetch her away.
