My assignment after witnessing them break the cosmic pact didn't change. Get in good with Hunters. Learn from witches. Prepare for whatever was coming.
The first part of it was sitting in on Mick talking with Mary. Ketch had told him my idea, and Mick had agreed. Between the three Winchesters, Mary was the best candidate. Ketch had other business to attend to anyways.
So I sat a few booths away, Karma sitting quietly beside me as I listened to Mick make his opening pitch. "Let me paint you a picture, of a world without monsters, or demons, or any of those little buggers that go bump in the night. Of a world where no one has to die because of the supernatural. Of a new world, a better world." It was one he'd said before, I could tell. It sounded rehearsed and practiced, almost as though it was designed for a business meeting instead of Hunters.
It was good, but it was like promising a skeptic that God was real. They would want about five tons of proof before they even considered the possibility of considering the offer. I was actually surprised when Mary offered to listen.
Then again, she was from a different time, a time with less organization and options; a time where monsters had killed her and her parents. I could see how she'd be more willing to listen.
Ketch, on the other hand, was a little surprised. I realized that he hadn't expected to get that far. "As you've seen, we have the technology to track two Hunters, your sons, and help you find them. We can easily make sure that they're not looked for now that they're safe as well, for starters."
"You're talking about my sons." She said. "Not about your picture. Tell me how you plan to get rid of vampires and demons and werewolves and all the other supernatural creatures."
"A marriage of technology and magic." He answered. "For example, we have weapons that can irradiate the blood of a vampire and force a demon out of its host without the need of an exorcism. If you include the symbols and spellwork we have all across London," work that I had helped update. "Then we currently have a completely creature-free city."
"I'd like to see some of these symbols and weapons that you're talking about." She said. I walked over to the booth, sliding an iron dagger off of her person as I did.
"I believe that's my cue." I said, sliding in to the booth next to Mick. Karma followed suit, finding herself a comfortable spot to sit near us. Mick wasn't quite certain as to what I was doing intervening, but Mary… Mary looked as though I had just come back from the dead. In all fairness, I probably had for her. "Hi. I believe you know who I am."
"You're… You're her." She said. "You're the angel's fiancée. You're supposedly dead. Or at least, he isn't certain now."
"I figured." I muttered. "Look, I can show you whatever you want to see, and I can vouch that the Men of Letters are legit." I grabbed a napkin off the table, hiding her blade in my jacket still. I waved a hand over the napkin, and watched as it folded and tore itself in to a simple symbol, a basic one for vampires. Wouldn't give you a location or number, but it let you know one was within 50 feet of said symbol. "If a vamp gets close to you, this will send a pulse back to its matching symbol or to the person it's bound to, caster's choice." I pulled her knife out next, watching her surprised expression for a moment.
"That was in my pocket." She commented.
"Magic." I muttered, wiggling my fingers with a small smile. "Iron is good, yeah, but if you want something to hurt, you do this." I paused for a moment, glancing around. "You know, this is a knife, I should probably make sure people don't see us." I snapped my fingers, creating the same bubble I normally had around when it was me, T.J., and Karma (she was sitting outside, waiting patiently. I'd summoned her after watching Castiel… you know).
"What did you just do?" Mary asked.
"We're pretty much invisible right now." I answered. "Which is good because most people tend to have a negative reaction to a knife on the table. Now here's my question," I grasped the hilt, keeping the blade on the table. "What monster do you want to kill with this?"
"Vampires." She said, no hesitation. "You made a symbol like that, you can do more against them, can't you?"
"Oh yeah." I agreed. "Easy." I focused on the blade itself. Iron, yes, but easy to enchant. I closed my eyes, imagining the symbols I wanted on it as I worked. Lighting the insides on fire would be the easiest one. I remembered the symbols from T.J.'s blade. I could see it in my mind, see the different designs become etched in to the hilt and blade.
I could hear Mary's breath hitch slightly as I worked. Once I was done, I opened my eyes, proud of what I'd done.
"The hilt will now pulse a little if a vampire comes within fifty feet of you." I explained, offering her the hilt. She took it warily. "And if you use it to stab a vampire, it'll burn them from the inside out. Not nearly as good as the weapons we have that irradiate their blood," I commented. She inspected the blade, looking closely at the markings on it. "But it'll work in close quarters, or if you want to throw it and know you won't miss. You'll need to embed the blade, though. A scratch will hurt like hell, but it won't kill."
"Wow." She muttered, looking over at me. "You… You're serious. And you're alive." She said. She looked over at Mick for a moment. "I want to speak with her alone." She requested, motioning to me.
"I'll go outside and make a few calls." He said slowly, looking from me to her. I nodded as reassuringly as I could to him. I let down the bubble, moving so Mick could leave the booth as Mary quickly slid her newly upgraded blade away. Once Mick was out the door, Mary took a deep breath.
"You're alive." She said. "Putting aside all the magic and Men of Letters and crap, you're alive." She shook her head. "You're actually alive."
"Yeah." I muttered.
"Castiel is looking for you."
"He is?"
"Yes!" She almost shouted the word. "He's been torn looking for you and my boys and Kelly and," I cut her off after Kelly.
"Wait. You mean Kelly, antichrist mom Kelly?"
"Yes." She said.
"Shit." I muttered. "What happened?"
"Why are you worrying about Kelly?" Mary asked. "There are people looking for you. Good people that care about you and miss you."
"And there are things you don't know." I said. "About me. About what's happened."
"Then tell me." She stated. It wasn't a demand for her, just a way of moving from point A to B.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because in all honesty, you'll either like your sons less or you'll hate me." I answered. "Probably both. Either way, it's not a fun story, nor is it short."
"I've got time." She said.
"That's not what I'm here to talk with you about." I argued.
"No, but I'd still like to know." She pointed out. "And if I would be working with you, I would like to know a bit about you."
"There's no guarantee we'll be working together."
"I think we will be." She said. "I don't know them. I'm not certain about trusting them."
"You don't know me." I reminded her.
"No, but my boys did." She said. "And they trusted you a lot. If they trust you, I trust you."
"I'm a witch." She only raised an eyebrow at the statement.
"A boy I saved a long time ago died recently." She said. "And I learned that he had two kids, one of which is a witch herself, and she's an alright person." Huh. Must've been the twins Ketch was talking about. "I'm willing to work with you, Kylie. I'm probably even willing to work with them." She threw her thumb back at the door, where Mick was outside on the phone. "But I want to have some questions answered. I want to know why you chose them, and who you are as a person."
"Why?" It was strange. This wasn't something I was used to, someone wanting to get to know me specifically, based on what they'd heard about me. She wasn't just looking me up on the internet or asking a bunch of questions about me to other people. She wanted me to tell her what I wanted to tell her.
"You're here for a reason." She answered. "And let people believe you were dead for a reason."
I sat back, thinking for a minute. "Alright." I agreed. "If I do this, are you in?"
"Yes."
"Then what do you want to know?"
Mick stayed outside until we both walked out, maybe two hours later. In those two hours Mary and I talked about, well… everything. I asked her questions about her life. She asked me plenty of questions. We both just kind of… talked.
She accepted me being a witch. She didn't look abhorred by the decision, didn't say it was a bad one. When I asked her why, her answer cut me deep. "Because I made a hard decision too, a long time ago, that hurt a lot of people later on."
"What happened?"
"I made a deal with Azazel." That was all she sounded willing to say about it. I didn't question further. I knew the story. The Men of Letters had the whole book series in their records, published and unpublished.
But we talked. She handed me a pair of sunglasses she had and I waved my hand over them, making her able to see Karma. She took them off almost immediately after seeing my dog. "That was sitting next to you in the diner?" She asked. "That was the dog you were talking about?"
"Yep."
"I… I don't know about that." She stated. "I'm not certain how I feel about that."
"Most people aren't." I assured her. "Want to see her do tricks?"
"Maybe later." She stuffed the sunglasses in her pocket. "How do I… Distinguish your hellhound from others?"
"She'll probably be a little smaller," I admitted. "But she'll be attacking other hellhounds, if that situation comes up, so no worries on that."
"Alright, then." She muttered. "And these guys, the Men of Letters… They let you keep a hellhound around?"
"They're not thrilled either." I said. "But I donate ingredients from her that are hard to get otherwise, and she doesn't kill any of them or go inside, so the people who do know tend to have less of a problem."
"Not everyone in the Men of Letters knows you have a hellhound for a pet?"
"Of course not." I let out a short laugh. "They'd kill her if they knew!"
"Alright then." She thought for a second. "So they're not as strict and rigourous as they claim?"
"No, they're actually pretty on the ball about that." I corrected. "I just… I'm kind of determined in a few aspects, and different in enough others that they're willing to acquiesce to one or two things that would be otherwise frowned upon."
"What other things?"
"I do a lot of work improving their security." I explained. "The setup they have is brilliant, though. If a vampire, werewolf, demon, wendigo, rugaru, anything specifically non-human walks around the city, a different symbol is activated and, in turn, lights up a dot on a map of the city back in London. Those will tell you where one has been. With my upgrades, it locks on to the signature of who passes through, and keeps them lit up as a small dot for the next few hours."
"Wow." She muttered.
"They've got to be replaced every so often so that they don't wear down," I admitted. "Design flaw. I'm working on a more long-term solution that wouldn't directly tie itself to me and feed off of me, but… yeah." I shrugged.
"How do you and… and Karma," she glanced over at where she had last seen said dog. "Walk around without setting off alarms?" In response, I lifted up a small necklace I wore, with a Chinese caricature on the front. It looked like a dime store trinket, mostly because it originally had been, but it was inconspicuous and easy to work with.
"This is the key to the magic doors." I joked. "I needed a way to make sure we could walk around without setting off anything. In this case, if I'm wearing the right symbols with the right words said and the right ingredients used," I flipped it over, revealing the engravings I'd done myself on the backside. There were a few directly embedded in the Chinese word as well, but those were harder to see and not really worth showing. "Like this here, I become invisible to the wardings." I reached down to pet Karma for a second. "She has a collar with the same designs, but you can't really see it on her."
"And the Men of Letters, they enabled you to do all of this?"
"Yeah, they did." I nodded. "I wasn't really able to do anything here in America, wasn't really ever able to implement any of these. I've had the ideas for a while, I used to doodle them on my college work." I laughed a little at that.
"You went to college?"
"For a little while."
"What made you leave?"
"This." I motioned around me. "The life. Hunting. Keeping people safe. Lucifer. I just… I couldn't stay and pretend I was normal anymore when I was doodling complex marriages of math and science together like this," I rubbed the charm for a minute before hiding it back under my shirt. "Without even thinking about it. I'm not normal. Not anymore. I know that. And now, I'm alright with it. I feel like I'm finally doing some good with what I have, you know?"
"You feel as though you're doing good with what you thought was bad." She said slowly.
"Yeah." I nodded. "Finally. I've heard so many times that what I chose was wrong, you know? And heard so many people threaten me and promise to kill me because they thought me being a witch was wrong and… and like I betrayed them."
"I still can't believe that my boys would do that." She said. "They're good people. And Castiel," I shook my head before she could finish.
"Castiel is loyal to them." I said. "It doesn't matter what he may or may not say. His loyalties would be torn and eventually…" I shook my head. "He'd chose them, no matter what. In the end, he'll always chose them."
"He misses you." She said. "More than you can imagine."
"If he knew everything, now," I shook my head. "He wouldn't. He'd hate me."
"You don't know that."
"Wouldn't you?"
"If Castiel made the same choices you did," she asked in response. "Would you hate him?" I thought on it.
"No." I knew that for certain. "I love him. I'd be pissed, incredibly pissed, but if I'd thought he was dead and all of the sudden he was there again," I pursed my lips for a moment. "I wouldn't believe it. I'd think I was dead and that he was there in my own Heaven."
"Don't you think that he would feel the same?" She asked. Before I could answer, though, Mick walked back in.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I just received a call about Miss Kylie having an assignment." He said. "Have the two of you reached a decision?"
I looked over at Mary, and after a moment she nodded. "Yes. I believe we have." She said. "What can I do?"
"Excellent!" Mick clapped his hands together, and threw a twenty on the table. "In which case, I believe that you and I have talking to do. Kylie," Mick nodded at me. "Ketch will meet you at the hotel with instructions." I stood up next to Mick, and Mary took a second to write something down on a napkin before standing as well.
"Call me." She requested. "If you ever want to talk. Besides, I feel as though I may end up needing some backup in this." She handed me the napkin, and I smiled.
"I can do that." I agreed. A second later I was gone, and maybe a mile or so away from where the hotel was. Karma was by my side, standing and wagging her tail. "Come on, Karma." I said, smiling an actual, real smile. I was out in the street, in public, and for the first time I felt comfortable and even confident being in America as I was – a witch. I didn't feel the need to disguise myself. Not anymore. I reached down and scratched that spot she liked behind her ear. "Let's get to work."
