Powells Crossroads, Tennessee
She told us to meet her in the parking lot of Kelleys Chapel, a modest little church with a stocky steeple, erected in the crook of a quiet county highway and a dirt road. Night had long since fallen by the time we arrived, and was filled with the midnight lullabies of crickets, and the sweet smell of damp grass. Humidity hung in the air, reflecting the silver sheen of the crescent moon to gently illuminate the valley, but cast the distant mountains into shadowy mounds of soft peaks.
The Smoky Mountain air was thickest around the church. At least, it was for me. The holy ground knew I was on the verge of trespassing, and it was unwelcoming. Repelling. Standing on the threshold of the house of worship was like trying to force magnets together; neither of us wanted to be within the vicinity of each other, but Mystery was forcing us together.
Freya was less swayed than myself to stand on hostile soil, and had taken a wary position in a thicket of wild bushes on the other side of the highway. She sat low to the ground with a displeased look on her muzzle, watching us, waiting to leave the god blessed plot of land.
There had been some debate about a trap, a concept no one had really disagreed with. Cas took it upon himself to explore the town in search of demon activity. Sam and Dean took mobile patrol posts around the property with their respective demon-killing blades drawn and readied. Dean strolled the line between asphalt and dirt road, while Sam stood near the highway and a patch of trees that lined one side of the lot. Given my face was the only one Mystery would recognize, I was placed in the center of the lot where I chain-smoked and paced between the van and the line of trees.
"She should be here by now," I grumbled as I flicked a stub of a cigarette to the ground, sending a spray of sparks skidding across the weathered asphalt.
"She'll be here," Sam said with a shaky confidence. A confidence that was starting to whiter as time ticked on without Mystery.
His attention stole away from the church and narrowed down the dark highway. His muscles tensed, sending out warning signals for Dean and me to be on guard. I patted the right pocket of my jacket, making sure my Kurdish blade was right where I had left it, and Dean tightened his grasp on the angel blade. And we waited. Until:
"It's just Cas," Sam reported and we all relaxed. The angel came into view, shuffling his way through the parking lot with Sam at his side. Dean sauntered in and we stood in a loose circle under the stars.
The face Cas wore was troubled and torn.
"I've searched the town," he informed us. "Your father appears to be the only demon here."
Sam winced at the angel's words, the reminder that dear old dad was a demon. Not that he had forgotten; I was, after all, wearing someone else's face. But there was something about hearing it out loud that made him uncomfortable. Something that really rubbed salt in the wound.
"You okay?" Dean asked, and slipped his angel blade between his belt and his denim, having no jacket in the heavy heat to place the weapon.
The angel dismissed Dean's question with an unconvincing, "I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar," I accused. His brow furrowed.
"That's not entirely true," he said. His expression slackened and he ducked his head. "Although in this case, I suppose that wasn't very convincing."
The three of us stared at him for a minute, waiting for him to go on. When he didn't, Dean rolled his eyes and threw up a hand.
"You gonna share with the class or do we have to pull it out of you?" he said. Cas sighed.
"I reached out to my brothers and sisters," he confessed with humility. "Asking for their assistance in locating an Nephilim."
"An angel-human hybrid?" I asked. "What do you need an Nephilim for?"
"The trials," Cas said. "More of a spell, really," he said thoughtfully, momentarily straying in his thoughts before returning to the conversation at hand. "It calls for the heart of an Nephilim. I thought it would take months, if not years, to track one down, if one even existed."
"You're saying your angel pals actually helped you locate one?" Dean asked with disbelief. Cas nodded.
"I wasn't counting on their assistance," the angel said, equally as baffled as Dean. "They weren't willing to help until I told them I had found a possible way to reopen the gates. After that, I had three cherubs offering me their bows and the location of an Nephilim."
"What about grace?" Dean asked with an accusatory tone. "You find an angel willing to give up his grace?"
"Of course I have," Cas replied, impatient and cold.
Dean opened his mouth to argue, but pursed his lips and hung his head instead.
"That sounds like a pretty damn good thing to me," Sam said, his brows knitted in bemusement. "You look kinda… bummed."
Cas cast a look of guilt in my direction before turning to Sam.
"My brothers and sisters will expect me to test this theory sooner than later. They've already made arrangements for me to fly to the Nephilim," he said, then added, "He's in Oslo."
"And?" Sam said.
"And, that means I can't continue helping you here," Cas explained.
"We're fine, Cas," Dean insisted, quiet but confident. "There are three of us now," he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in my direction.
Cas gave me a tentative look.
"Don't look at me," I said, throwing up my hands in guarded defense. Pretending like him leaving wouldn't mean a thing to me. Like I wouldn't miss his company. Like I wouldn't need him to keep my swelling anger management issues in check. "Nobody asked you to stay in the first damn place."
Cas slipped me a discreet smile. I tipped my head at him.
"You're sure you don't need me?" Cas asked, reluctant to leave.
"We got this, Cas," Sam insisted. "Go open Heaven back up."
Cas nodded.
"If you need anything, you can call me." The statement came across as general, but it was directed at me.
"Jesus, Cas," Dean grumbled. "We know. Get out of here already. You can zap your feathery ass back from Oz… whatever when you're done, right?"
Sam smirked his knowing smile and Dean scowled.
"What?"
"Oslo," Sam corrected him. "It's the capital of Norway."
Dean rolled his head along with his eyes and looked to Cas.
"You can zap your feathery ass back from Norway when you get your wings back, right?" Dean asked with an air of frustration at Sam's persistence at correcting his older brother, frustration that was linked to a hint of skepticism.
"Yes," Cas quickly replied. "Of course." He nodded and took a step back. "Goodbye then."
The angel turned and headed for the highway. He stopped to give Freya a farewell pat before he pressed on down the road, and we watched him until he vanished into the haze.
"That was weird," Dean observed.
Sam spared me a knowing glance. While Dean was not oblivious to the friendship Cas and I had developed, only Sam knew the depth of it. The meaning behind it, and why the angel had been so hesitant to leave.
"Yeah, Dean," he said without skipping a beat. "Cas is kind of weird. I think that's been established." He paused. "You think he's going to use his own grace, don't you?"
"Wouldn't you?" Dean replied with a dash of remorse for his friend.
"What do you mean, use his own grace?" I asked.
Before either of them could reply, the sound of leaves rustling and twigs snapping commanded our attention on the trees behind us. We spun around and watched and listened. I gripped my knife, but didn't withdraw it. Dean plucked his blade from its jerry-rigged sheath, and Sam held his up and out. The thrashing and crunching drew closer and louder until the bushes and the trees spat out a thin woman with aquamarine hair.
Mystery. Her long hair was oily and snarled, her mascara pooled under her eyes and streaked down her face like black watercolor. She was dressed in the same outfit she had been wearing when we first met, but it was rumpled and torn, and crusted with blood and sweat. A legion of cuts marred her intricate tattoo work, parading around her arms and her chest, with one stray that had lashed at her face across her left cheek. She clutched the strap of a tired looking black backpack in her left fist and, clenched even tighter in her right, she held a crowbar.
Sam and Dean looked to me for a reaction, and relaxed when my expression confirmed she was who we were waiting on, and, more importantly, that she was not a demon. They lowered their weapons as Mystery marched at me with a fire in her blue eyes. She dropped her backpack to grip the crowbar with both hands, and, as she closed the gap between us, she raised it above her head.
"You son of a bitch!" she growled, and brought the blunt object down, intent on cracking my head open. I reached out and caught the instrument with my left palm. I could feel my eyes go black as we stared each other down, and what I saw when I looked into her eyes was not fear, but raw anger.
I closed my hand around the bar, intent on ripping it from her grasp. And then I noticed the burning sensation in my palm. I looked up in time to watch smoke rise between iron and flesh and had no choice but release my grip. Mystery swung the crowbar back for inertia, and drove it against my shoulder.
Sam and Dean were on her before she could get another strike in, each picking her up by an arm and lifting her as they carried her back. Mystery kicked her feet like she was peddling a bike and thrashed her upper body with a force that surprised both Sam and Dean. They set her down before they dropped her, but didn't let her go until Dean had wrestled the crowbar from her grasp.
I tried to blink the blackness from my eyes, and found it more difficult a task than normal. Between the contact with iron, the assault and the church, the demon part of me was choking for air.
Not here, I commanded myself. Not fucking now.
The blackness receded as Dean held Mystery back in a half hug.
"Woah, there," he said. "Settle down."
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Mystery fumed. She gave up her struggles, but refused to give up her temper. Instead she backed off a step and puffed out her chest as her eyes locked on me. "Crowley took me prisoner because of you! Look what he did to my tattoos!"
"Wait… what?" Dean said, thrown off by her priorities.
"Do you have any idea how much time and money went into these?" Mystery questioned. She gave her destroyed ink a baleful look. Sam and Dean exchanged a hesitant look.
"Are you… okay?" Sam asked haltingly. Mystery shot him a scowl to end all scowls, and Sam — the professional monster hunter who had almost a full foot and at least a hundred pounds of pure muscle on her — shrunk back.
"Right," he said. "Um. I'm-"
"Sam," Mystery cut him off. "Yeah. Gathered that by the sound of your voice." She paused to look at Dean. Her eyes softened at his appearance. "Which makes you Dean." The venom returned when she fixed her gaze on me. "And you are not who you said you were, John."
"I was trying to keep a low profile," I told her, rubbing the spot where the crowbar had struck me.
"How's that working out for you?" she sneered, sarcastic and rhetorical.
"Not as well as it was," I replied anyway, adding an exaggerated grin. Mystery sneered before she tried to compose herself by drawing in a deep breath.
"We gonna do this or what?" she asked without enthusiasm.
"Do what?" Dean asked with furrowed brows. Mystery made a broad gesture with her left arm.
"Play damsel in distress," Mystery replied with an eye roll. She pointed to herself. "Damsel." She pointed at the three of us. "Knights. White…" She pointed at the vehicle parked behind me, and her face fell into puzzled amusement. "Minivan?" Her tone fluxed from annoyed to amused when she spied the van parked some yards behind us. She fought hard against a smile and lost to a grin. "A fucking minivan?" she laughed. "Seriously?"
Dean flushed and pursed his lips.
"I thought you guys drove an Impala?"
"We do," Dean said quickly. "This is just… a long story. Come on, damsel," he quickly said. He scooped up her backpack and slung it around his shoulder. "Let's get you to a castle."