This chapter is dedicated to GrammarDemon, who was kind enough to bing-read this entire story, and leave copious reviews to kick my ass back into writing gear. I know it's been a while, but I have not abandoned this tale and I am determined to finish it! Thank you to everyone still with me, and to those of you who just got here. :)
"Tell us a story."
I spoke around the unlit cigarette between my lips, and I spoke to Mystery.
She was sitting beside Dean on the end of a queen sized bed. Her hair was damp and combed straight, her eyes accented in a fresh coat of black makeup. The swells of her breasts were covered with a turquoise bra, her pelvic area protected by black panties, and the rest was skin and ink and attitude. Her eyes narrowed at me, as sharp and as bitter as a Minnesota winter, then suddenly relaxed so her lips could curl up in an insincere smile.
"Gee, we're all real sorry we got you mixed up in this shit show," she said.
"Hell's Most Wanted risking their hides to come pick your ass up isn't sorry enough?" I replied with matched frostiness. Mystery stared me down like she was trying to will me to burst into flames.
"No, she's right," Sam stepped in. He pulled a chair out from under the plywood desk in one corner of the shit motel room, dragged it across the sad, cigarette-burned carpet. He parked it between the bed and my post against the wall, and straddled it as he fixed his trademark puppy-eyes at the nearly-naked damsel. "We're really sorry we got you caught up in this. Right?"
He turned an expectant gaze on Dean. Dean hardly noticed, his focus almost entirely on his first-aid set-up; a bottle of whisky, two washcloths, a hooked needle, and fishing line.
"Mmhmm," he replied in an absent hum as he threaded the needle.
Sam rolled his eyes, then turned his gaze on me. I lit my cigarette, folded my arms across my chest. His face fell into annoyed disappointment before his brow folded into a wordless question: what's wrong with you?
Residual church holiness residue. Torture paranoia. The wrongness that ripped through the air with its claws and bore down on the back of my neck with its fangs.
Take your fucking pick.
Freya nudged me with her muzzle, then sat, almost on my foot, and leaned into me. Protecting. Whether it was she or I who was supposed to be the protector, I couldn't tell.
I stroked her head between her ears, but she didn't relax it against me like I half expected her to. She startled at my touch, and, though she allowed it, kept a watchful eye on the door, on the window. On Mystery.
"I can really feel the love," the damsel said with sarcastic enthusiasm.
"I'm gonna dab the infected ones," Dean announced to Mystery, warning. "And then I'm gonna stitch that up." He motioned to a sizeable gash that had been torn into her side, right across an intricate tattoo of Yggdrasil, the Norse Tree of Life. Mystery nodded indifferently. Her gaze wandered, a mask of boredom covering her anxious search of protection. She relaxed when she spied the salt scattered along the door and windows in tight lines, and the barely-visible trap painted on the ceiling at the back of the room.
"So, um." Sam began, then abruptly paused. He smiled slightly to himself. "I'm sorry, we don't actually know your name. We've, uh." Chuckle. "We've been calling you Mystery."
"That's as good a name as any," she replied, casual but delighted. "Let's stick with that."
"Okay then," Sam said. "Mystery. Can you tell us–"
"A story?" she cut him off, shooting me a scowl. "About my time at Camp Crowley."
Dean patted a whiskey soaked washcloth along one of her abrasions. Her expression didn't waver, and she did not hiss at the sting of alcohol dancing on an open wound.
"You don't have to talk about it now if you don't want," Sam assured with gentle empathy.
"I took off when he painted the third floor red," she swiftly launched into her tale, more or less telling Sam to fuck off with his sympathy. "I was halfway to the marina when Crowley caught up with me. Had me locked in a basement in an abandoned asylum. Insert lengthy torture scenes where Crowley is either trying to pry information I don't have out of me or he's just bored." She flashed Sam an insincere grin.
Dean dabbed another wound with alcohol, and another. Mystery continued to not flinch or gasp. Sam caught her lack of response, and his brows knitted in curiosity.
"Is there anything else you can tell us?" he asked, trying – and failing – to avoid laying the empathy on too thick.
"Not really," she said with a shrug. "I was pretty much strapped to a plank of wood the whole time." Impervious. She sounded utterly unmoved to her time in the king's custody. Sounded. But when she looked at me, no matter how icy or thorny her eyes appeared, there was that wisp of darkness. That tale she did not want to tell.
"Although sometimes I got a break and they chained me to a bed," she added as an afterthought. "Good times."
"What about your escape?" I asked. I pulled myself into an upright position and took the smouldering cigarette from between my lips, flicking ash to the floor. I exhaled a plume of smoke and, in that same breath, said with a skeptical voice; "How did you give Crowley the slip?"
Mystery shot me a look that could kill as Dean knelt in front of her, using caution as he approached.
"I'm gonna…" He cleared his throat. "The one above your…?"
Mystery glanced down at him and offered a sly smile, maintaining eye contact as she slipped her bra a little further down than was necessary. I could only imagine the coyote grin that was probably plastered on Dean's face as he leaned forward, closer than he needed to be, and gently dabbed the slice that interrupted her infinity tattoo. I rolled my eyes.
"Who's name used to be here?" Dean asked as he patted the wound a few more times than needed.
For a split second, Mystery froze.
"Ulric," she replied, dazed, like she'd taken a nasty blow to the head. "My brother. Twin, actually."
"You two get matching tattoos?" he casually teased.
"No," she replied, collected, casual, the moment of chagrin stuffed back into the darkest regions of her soul. "But mostly because it's generally frowned upon to tattoo a corpse."
Dean paused and shot a quick glance up at her.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, embarrassed but understanding.
"Everyone's got that someone, don't they?" she said with a shrug of almost convincing indifference. "That person who writes your contract as a hunter in blood."
Silence swept a winter wind through our bones, and we all bowed our heads as the memories surfaced in the aftermath.
Mary.
Dean took up the whiskey bottle and drew it to his lips. The amber liquid sloshed against the clear glass as he tilted it back, and he took a long, hard pull. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cleared his throat.
"While I'm down here, I'm gonna stitch that up," he said, nodding to the gash on her side as he reached around her for his threaded needle. He re-soaked his whisky rag and applied the alcohol to the laceration, its jagged aura temporarily rising above the tobacco and mildew.
A guttural whine rumbled in Freya's throat. She turned pleading eyes up to me, begging me to take her away from that place. To take all of us away from that place. I gathered the final hits of my cigarette deep into my lungs and pinched out the smouldering cherry between my fingers.
"While he's down there, maybe you could tell us that story where you escaped from Crowley," I said, my words all smoke and impatience, and I folded my arms across my chest.
"Honestly?" she said as she dipped her upper half back on the bed, propping herself up on her elbows for Dean to get a cleaner view of the damage. "It was utter dumb fucking luck."
We all watched as Dean pierced her flesh with the hooked needle, and we all watched her not react. Sam arched a curious brow at her, and if she noticed, she didn't care.
"How so?" Sam pressed, his attention split evenly between past and present; what had happened and why Mystery seemed unaffected. Ears open, eyes on every aspect. Taking everything in like the professional killer I raised him to be.
"First of all, demons are idiots," she said, turning her head down to watch Dean patch her up. "Second, after Crowley finally grasped the concept of me not knowing anything useful about the three of you, security on me started to relax pretty fast."
Wrong.
"If he knew you didn't have what he was after, why didn't he let you go?" Sam questioned.
"Or kill you?" I added flatly.
Mystery's lips displayed a sarcastic smirk, but her eyes were far away.
"He liked me," she said, distant, almost dreamy (in a nightmareish sort of way). "By which I mean he enjoyed torturing me." She paused, letting her gaze fall to Sam. "I was his toy. His-" The next word died before it reached her lips, and she swallowed it. Smile. "Demons really seem to like me for some reason."
"Out of curiosity," Dean spoke up, his eyes focused on his steady hands, pushing the hook in, pulling fishing line through, repeat. "How exactly did Crowley torture you?"
"Dean!" Sam quickly scolded, throwing his hands up. Dean returned his brother's disapproval with a brief what? expression before turning back Mystery.
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Dean assured her. He tied off the last of the stitches and looked up into her eyes. "It's just, I've been pouring whisky in your wounds, and I just put fifteen stitches in you and you haven't even flinched. I'm just curious how someone who can't feel pain can be tortured."
Mystery smiled the smile of her namesake, peppered it with falsity, and shot it at Dean.
"That is entirely irrelevant at the moment," she replied, cold. "In fact, it's irrelevant always. Can I put my pants on now?"
"I gotta do the other side," Dean replied, getting to his feet to reposition himself on her left. Mystery groaned and rolled her eyes.
"The escape?" I pressed, testy and tense. Like hearing her story would somehow alleviate the growing discomfort Freya and I shared.
"I'm gonna let you guys in on the actual deets, but in the future, if anyone asks, be vague and pretend like I actually Houdini'd my way out of there," she said, flustered, but whether it was the prod into her personal life or easily slipping through Crowley's fingers, I don't know. "So, the other day after a fun little torture session, the demon in charge of putting me back in my 'room' didn't quuuuuuuite secure my cuff."
Wrong.
"When I came to and realized it wasn't locked, I got up and went to the door. No one was guarding it—"
Wrong.
"— so I open it and peek down the hall. Not a demon in sight."
Wrong.
"I snuck around for a bit, keeping low, but after a while I realized I was the only one there."
Wrong.
"It was like they all just got up and left." Mystery peeked down at Dean to monitor his progress. "I found the front entrance and all my shit was there."
Wrong!
Sam and Dean picked up on this and exchanged a knowing look.
"That's not suspicious at all," Dean muttered, sarcastic. "Sounds more like they let you go."
"Ya think?" Mystery acknowledged. "I grabbed all my shit and got the fuck out of there. Dug the tracker out of my phone. Did you the courtesy of making sure I wasn't being followed before calling you."
But you are being followed.
But how?
Didn't matter how. All that mattered was leaving.
"We need to go," I said, standing upright as I unfolded my arms. "Get dressed. We can finish patching you up in the van."
"I'm almost done," Dean said distantly, brushing off my urgency, but not altogether abandoning it.
It was the spark in a room filled with a gas made up of every goddamn minute of that evening. My son's continued lackadaisical approach to my commands blew that room apart, and the flames licked my eyes until they were black. A deep, bullish exhale fumed out my nose, my fists clenched. Jaw tightened.
"You might think you're not being followed," I said, stern words uttered in a husky growl. "But you are. We need to figure out how, but we can't do it here. So." I jabbed my arm out, pointed to the door. "Get. The fuck. In the van. Or I will drag you out." I paused to rapidfire commanding, burning looks at Sam and Dean. "All of you."
Dean pretended to ignore me, but his hand became hurried in the task he was so adamant to finish, and Sam. Sam rolled his eyes.
"Jesus Christ," muttered Mystery. She batted Dean aside and stood up. "Do I at least have time to put some pants on?"
Rhetorical. Bordering on challenging. So confident I was all bark and no bite.
Don't you fucking do it, you sonuvabitch. She's innocent.
I watched through narrowed eyes as she sauntered to her backpack, which was sitting upright at the head of the bed. I watched as she unzipped the sack and dug deep, shifting an assortment of items and clothing to one side, then the other. I watched her withdraw a rolled-up pair of dark blue jeans, watched her unfurl them with a casual flick of her wrist, watched the coin as it became dislodged from its hiding spot in the folds of denim and sailed, glistening and free, across the room.
The coin was foreign, and old. Not just old. Ancient. Stamped upon the uneven face was the image of a horse in mid jump over the letters CVN. The back bore a C and an A, followed by what looked like a wheat stalk, and the letter M. Time dripped from its crude, rust gold pores, swollen with ancient stories. Tales of olde, and songs of magic.
It landed with a muted thud in the carpet between Dean and the door, and absorbed all sound in the room. We stared at it with nauseating fascination, like it was a bomb, and one wrong move could detonate it. Coins like that, they were used for two things; museum displays, and witchcraft. When we turned our wide eyes and arrhythmic heartbeats to Mystery, it was clear she understood this. What was made even more clear was the matter of the coin's ownership… and it was not hers.
Mystery jammed her legs one at a time into her jeans, and yanked them up as fast as she could before diving for a shirt. Dean ceased all order and shoved everything into the duffel without care. Sam stood with an abruptness that toppled his chair to the floor with a dull thud. Instinct drove his hand to his chest where his demon blade usually was, then his hips and the butt of his jeans until his fingers made confirmation his weapon was still with him. His long legs took him to the desk in two hurried strides where he drew out Mystery's confiscated crowbar, which had been hidden underneath. At first he held it extended, like he was passing it to her, then tossed it in an effort to treat her as the equal her demeanor demanded (or maybe it was because he, all six feet and four inches of professional muscle and mind, was actually a little more scared of Mystery than he was of demons). She caught it in one hand as she pulled her boot up with the other, and Dean cocked a half smile.
"Is it wrong that kind of turned me on?" Dean asked no one in particular, his voice low but not quiet, his eyes on Mystery as she slung her weapon over one shoulder, and her backpack over the other. Sam scoffed a humouring half-laugh as his brother shouldered the duffle.
"This is neither the time nor the place," I scolded, anxious to hit any backroad anywhere out of town.
That was when the wires in the walls began to hum. When the lights dimmed and brightened in ominus and rhythmless flickers. My eyes cast up at the fixture on the ceiling, hoping against hope for an honest to god electric malfunction, but no. That wasn't it, not by a long shot. Freya lifted her rear and stood just an inch above my side, wary, protective. Angry.
"Christ," Dean said, rolling his eyes as his head tilted to the side. "You don't need to get pissy about it."
A growl came from low in Freya's throat, and she sunk down on her haunches.
"That's not me," I said with a heavy tone, and I my kurdish knife free, ready to feed it.
A savage wind screamed outside the door, and the world beyond the curtain and the window blackened, too dark even for night. Then, as suddenly as it came, it stopped. And the quiet that followed was horrible. It wasn't the calm before a storm; it was too quiet for that. It was the unsound Death made before battle. The silent call for blood.
And tonight, the blood it shrieked for was ours.