"Thanks for having us over to dinner," Carmen said to Mary. "This is great. I don't really do a lot of cooking."
"Well, you're busy at the hospital," Mary said. She admired Carmen's dedication to nursing. She had been a stay at home mother and loved it, but sometimes she wondered if she should be doing something more with her life. It seemed too late to bother now.
"Why don't you ladies relax and we'll take care of the clean up," John said.
"Oh, what's the occasion?" Mary laughed as she and Carmen headed out to the living room to talk.
"I'm not sure what was going on a few weeks ago, but you seem fine now," John said to Dean when the women had left. "I was afraid we were going to have to have you committed or something."
Dean remained silent. He didn't know what he could say. He knew he wasn't crazy, but if he explained what was really going on, that was exactly was his father would think.
"How have you and Carmen been doing?" John asked.
"Great," Dean answered truthfully. He could see why he had fallen in love with her even if he hadn't been there to do it.
"Maybe you and Sam can have a double wedding?" John prodded.
"Have you talked to Sam lately?" Dean asked. He was trying to avoid the whole marriage discussion. He and Carmen were supposed to have been together for a year, but in reality he had only known her for a few weeks. It was too early to make that kind of commitment.
"Yes. The school year ends in two weeks and they have a week off before their internships start. They're going to come for a visit."
"That's great," Dean beamed.
"Please don't take your brother on any more adventures," John admonished. He didn't want anything to derail Sam's bright future.
"No, sir," Dean responded. He meant it. He didn't want anything to go wrong with Sam.
"Glad to hear it," John said and they finished up the dishes in a companionable silence.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Two days later, Dean's cell phone rang in the middle of the night. He checked the caller ID. "Dad? Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Can you and Carmen come stay with your mother? I have to leave now and don't want her to be alone."
"Carmen's got the night shift, but I can be there in 15," Dean said, already pulling on a pair of jeans. "What's going on?"
"I'll let your mother explain. I've got to get to the airport. There's a flight in an hour. If I hurry I can catch it."
"A flight where?" Dean asked, but his father had already hung up. He finished getting dressed and rushed over to his parents' house.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"Mom, what's going on?" Dean asked as he rushed in the house.
"Jessica's dead and Sam is missing," Mary said through tears.
"What? What happened?" Dean asked, worried.
"Jessica's throat was slit and there was no sign of Sam anywhere. They think he killed her and took off."
"That's ridiculous," Dean said. Then he thought of something as he remembered Ava's fiancé, laying in bed with his throat slashed. "Was there sulphur there?"
"I don't know. Why would you ask that?" Mary asked, suddenly alert.
"No reason," Dean lied.
Mary couldn't believe she was about to ask Dean this. There was no way he could know about this stuff. But why else would he ask about sulphur? "Are you thinking a demon was involved?"
Needless to say, Dean was taken aback by the question. It was what he was thinking, but how did she know that. "How do you know about demons?"
"How do you?" she countered.
"How do you?" he insisted.
"I used to hunt them before you were born," Mary admitted.
"What?" Dean was shocked.
"I answered you. How do you know about them?"
"I'm a hunter," Dean answered simply.
"Since when?" Mary answered. She had wanted to keep both her sons from this life. She had cut ties with every hunter she had ever known so there could be no chance of exposure.
"My whole life," Dean said.
"That's impossible," Mary said. I would have noticed if my teenage son was hunting. You would have bruises and broken bones and missed school.
"A couple of weeks ago I was hunting a djinn. Do you know about them?"
"A little. I know they feed off of people by injecting them with some kind of supernatural venom which makes them dream like they're having a wish granted. The rules state that they have to actually grant a wish to their tenth victim and not feed off of them. You kill them with a lamb's blood dipped in silver."
"I guess I was the tenth victim," Dean said. He hadn't known about that, but it made sense. That's how the whole wish legend got started. "He must have read my mind for my deepest wish and it was that you never died."
"What are you talking about? I'm not dead."
"Because I wished you weren't," Dean said.
Mary processed this information. To anyone else, Dean would have seemed like a crazed lunatic. But she was raised a hunter and this explained why Dean had been acting differently lately. He was pretty much a different person. But still her son, and she loved him. And Sam. They had to find Sam fast if it was a demon.
"What made you immediately think demon?" Mary asked.
"When Sam was six months old, a demon went into his nursery. You died in a fire that it started in there. Sam has visions. My Sam does anyway. I don't know about this Sam. But it seems likely that if the demon is after him here, too, then he must have. There are a whole bunch of psychics like Sam, all born in 1983. The demon has plans for them to lead a demon army."
Mary cringed. "This demon, do you happen to know if he has yellow eyes?" she asked, dreading the answer.
"You know him?" Dean asked, astonished.