Chapter Text
Middle of Nowhere, Missouri – Tuesday 1st August 2006
Meira is pretty sure that she’s just made everything worse. She chokes back the horror and guilt and fear, though, and forces herself to move. She doesn’t have time to mess about, so she lets her grace heal everything, the broken bones and the bruises and even the cut on her arm and the one on her neck where Megaera sliced her up. She leans over and checks Sam’s pulse.
Steady. Good. She leans around her seat, and checks Dean’s. Not steady, but present. Good enough. For now. John next. Too fast, especially for an unconscious guy, but also present. Thanks, Granddad. Meira thinks in relief. Then, she takes the Colt from where it’s stowed in Sam’s waistband, and gets out of the car. The Impala looks like a wreck. The roof has a great big dent right in the middle where they hit the tree, all the windows have shattered, both sides are scraped all to hell, and the entire right side of the trunk has caved in.
The truck that hit them is still on the road, but even that far away, Meira can see the figure climbing out of it and heading towards the Impala. She rounds the hood of the Impala, and sees the figure hesitate. A cold smile curls her lips, and she raises the Colt and shoots. With a crackle of energy, the demon dies, the person he was possessing collapsing in a crumpled heap.
She turns back to the Impala, praying that the rest of her family is going to hold on long enough for her to call an ambulance or something, only to freeze at the sight that meets her. John is out of the car, leaning heavily on the door to keep himself upright, but his gun is steady and aimed square at Meira. When she doesn’t react beyond standing very still, John jerks his chin at her. “Put the Colt on the ground.” He orders.
“John.” Meira says carefully.
“On the ground. Now.” John barks out, and his next breath wheezes faintly, like he’s fighting the urge to cough. Meira obeys, putting the Colt down on the torn up grass, and straightening up slowly. “Step back three paces.” John orders. Meira obeys, hands held loosely in the air so that he can see that she’s not reaching for a weapon or doing anything underhanded or sneaky.
“We don’t have time for this.” She says, flicking a glance over the rest of the car. There’s no other movement from inside the Impala, not that Meira expected there to be any, but she’d hoped.
“Shut up.” John snarls. He staggers away from the Impala, dripping blood with every step towards the Colt and Meira aches with helplessness. He stoops to pick up the Colt, and then aims that at her, too, Meira’s stomach turns over and her eyes sting with frustrated tears.
“John, I swear, I’m not your enemy. I can-”
Pain bursts bright and shocking through her thigh in time with the retort of gunfire, and Meira drops, leg giving out before her grace surges up to heal the gunshot wound her grandfather just gave her. “ Motherfucker.” Meira chokes out, feeling stupidly betrayed despite telling herself she really, really should have seen this coming. She’d known he would never trust her, but to actually shoot her, even if it wasn’t a fatal shot?
She shoves up to her hands and knees, the wound in her thigh already healed over by the time John’s shoes appear in her field of vision. She’s about to look up, to try again to get him to let her just help, but before she can so much as open her mouth, something hard cracks down on the back of her head. She drops to her elbows, vision greying out for several long seconds, long enough for John to hit her again, and this time, the world goes black.
Unknown Location – Wednesday 2nd August 2006
Meira wakes up feeling groggy and nauseous, and when she tries to flare her grace to wash the feeling away, all she gets for her trouble is a headache. Her breathing picks up, fear curdling in her gut and making her seriously consider throwing up even before she opens her eyes. “You know,” the voice startles her, and she opens her eyes, only to make a wordless sound of dismay as the light drives spikes right through her head, “I hit anybody else that hard on the head, they’d be dead in hours.”
Yeah. Meira’s going to have to be careful about that. Slit throats and broken necks are no problem, but head injuries fuck with her grace, big time. Instead of trying to open her eyes again, she takes stock with her other senses. She’s sitting up, tied to a chair very securely, her arms tied together behind it. There’s the distant sound of traffic, and the buzz of electric lights, and only one other person breathing in the vicinity. It smells dusty, and faintly metallic, so Meira isn’t surprised when, on inching her eyes open, she sees that she’s been tied up in some sort of industrial storage shed. There’s a devil’s trap over her head done in black paint, and a signum dei vivi under her feet in blood.
Meira blinks at it, wondering dizzily if it might actually hold her. It’s not designed to hold archangels, but she’s not… exactly entirely archangel. She’s angel and human as well, and the signum dei vivi, drawn in human blood willingly spilt and with all the names written correctly, will hold lesser angels. “Where’s Dean? Sam?” She asks.
“Do you really think I’d tell you that?” John demands.
Meira peeks out at him. He looks terrible. Haggard and worn and still bleeding in places. “Please tell me you took them to a hospital.” She says, giving her grace another, more determined push. Her stomach lurches, but she can feel her grace sluggishly beginning to heal the damage in her brain.
“They’re safe.” John concedes, and Meira tips her head back in short-lived relief. After all, she knows how this story goes, and given that she couldn’t even prevent one stupid car crash, she’s pretty sure she hasn’t miraculously managed to get her dad through it with less injuries than he’d had the last go around. “So.” John says, ominously, interrupting her spiralling thoughts. Meira doesn’t bother to so much as look at him, instead testing the ropes around her wrists. With grace-enhanced strength, she ought to be able to break them, but no, just like that time with the shapeshifter, she finds she can’t just tear through them. “What the hell are you?” John asks, very bluntly. Meira laughs, thick and wet and pained.
“I already told you.” She tells the ceiling.
“You offered a bullshit dodge. I want the truth.” John retorts.
Meira’s getting an awfully strong sense of deja vu. And she doesn’t have any better answers than the ones she gave John already. What the hell can she possibly say? She imagines, for a moment, telling him the truth, and nearly laughs. There’s no possible way he would believe that. But she’s also pretty sure there isn’t a lie out there that would convince him. Not one that would convince him not to try to kill her, anyway. And she really doesn’t want that, especially not right now.
God, her dad is probably dying right now, and there’s nothing she can do about it. A horrible thought occurs to her, making her stomach drop through the floor. There’s nothing she can do about it and the person who’s supposed to be doing something about it is sitting across from her. What if John is too busy interrogating Meira to make the deal? Not that she wants him to end up in Hell, even now, but she wants her dad to die even less.
“I’m someone who can save your sons.” Meira says. It’s a reckless, stupid play, but she’s pretty sure it’s the only one she’s got. She just has to hope that when the time comes, John will be more willing to deal with her than with the demon that killed his wife.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” John growls.
“Are you sure they’re safe right now?” Meira presses, and when John’s eyes narrow, she smiles. “Go check on them. Don’t worry, I’ll be waiting right here when you realise you need a miracle.” John’s jaw clenches, but then he pushes to his feet, stiff and careful, and hobbles out of the room. Meira hears a lock clunking into place as the door slams shut, and rolls her head back again to contemplate the ceiling. Please, Granddad. Please let me save him.
Unknown Location – Thursday 3rd August 2006
When John returns, he looks a little better. Someone’s clearly treated his injuries, and Meira would guess that he even managed a little sleep at some point. Which is bully for him, really, because Meira didn’t sleep a wink. Not that she needs to, exactly, not the same way a normal human does, but just because it won’t kill her doesn’t mean that she much likes being exhausted. And worry is exhausting. Spending all night worrying instead of sleeping is beyond exhausting.
“The demon is gone.” John growls at her.
Meira feels a chill go down her spine. “What?”
“I went back to the cabin.” He tells her, and Meira stares at him in horror. “The place looks like a hurricane hit it, and the demon we left trapped there is gone. You want to explain that?”
Incredulous, Meira can only manage to gape at him for several seconds. “A demon managed to find us bare minutes after we got out of there and ran us off the road, and you’re surprised that there might have been others that found him?” She demands. “Newsflash, dumbass, devil’s traps only work on demons inside them. Ones on the outside can still have enough juice to, say, tear up whatever the trap is drawn on and free their friends.”
John grits his teeth, but doesn’t argue. He glares at her furiously, breathing hard, then turns and paces up and down the small space. After two laps, he turns to face Meira again. “What did you mean?” He asks, incomprehensibly.
“About what?” Meira asks.
“About needing a miracle. What did you mean?” John presses.
Meira swallows hard, because there goes that last, fleeting hope that somehow, some way, she’d managed to change enough to save her dad, which in turn would save her grandfather. “Dean’s pulse felt weak when I checked it, back at the crash. The demon fucked him up good, and he got a pretty nasty head wound in the crash.”
John gives her a flat look, and Meira stares back, wondering what about that answer has pissed him off this time. “And you could fix it?” He demands.
Meira grimaces, because, yeah, she could, but she’s going to have to kiss him to do it, and for all that she keeps telling herself it’s not exactly a kiss, more like spiritual CPR, it’s still not something she wants to think about, never mind do. But she will, if it’ll save his life. Save John’s life, in the end. “Yeah.”
“Then do it.” John growls. “And maybe I’ll start to think you might be trustworthy.”
Meira rolls her eyes. “I can’t do it from here, asshole.” She snaps, bitterly furious at the truth of that statement, because once upon a time, she could have. Could have just snapped her fingers, dramatic and showy like Pabbi, and healed her family. “You’re going to have to take me to Dean.”
“Why? What are you going to do?” John presses.
Meira stomach turns over in disgust. “I’m going to have to kiss him.” She explains, and now that it’s out there, it somehow seems even worse to contemplate. “It’s the only way I can reach his soul.”
She knows, instantly, that she’s said the wrong thing. John’s face closes off, and all the hints of desperation vanish behind a wall of suspicion Meira hadn’t even realised was beginning to crumble. “If you think I’m letting something like you anywhere near my boy’s soul, you’ve got another thing coming.” He says, and turns to go.
“John!” Meira calls in alarm. “For fuck’s sake, John, I’m not going to steal it or some shit!” She strains with everything she has against the ropes holding her, but though they creak, they don’t break, and John doesn’t look back. “Would you really rather deal with someone else? Christ, I know you don’t trust me, but demons aren’t better! John!”
The door clangs shut, the lock thunks into place, and John’s footsteps fade into the distance. Meira sits there in the dim, dusty shed, her breath coming in short, shocked gasps as the reality of her abject failure crashes down on her. Tears sting at her eyes, but she doesn’t pay it any heed, too busy trying to think through the haze of fear and failure. Biting her lip hard enough to taste blood, Meira throws all of the might of her grace against the bindings, and screams as it recoils, lashing into her soul. She ends up gasping for breath around sobs, slumped in her bindings, but that doesn’t stop her from trying again. If she can just get out then maybe she can still stop her idiot grandfather from selling his god damned soul.
She has to try.
Unknown Location – Friday 4th August 2006
“Jesus Christ!”
Meira looks up, aware she must look a wreck. She’s not even sure how long it’s been that she’s been trying to force her grace past the bindings, but the fact that it’s Sam standing in the doorway, not John, isn’t a good sign. “Sam!” She says in a rush. “Sam, where’s John?”
“He’s at the hospital, with Dean.” Sam says quickly. Meira closes her eyes, knowing that it’s too late now. If John’s at the hospital, and sending Sam away, then it’s too late. “What the…” He looks around, taking in the multiple devil’s traps, one of them painted in blood. “Meira, what the hell happened? What did Dad do to you?”
Meira can’t help but notice that, despite the concerned question, Sam isn’t actually moving to untie her. He’s skirting the edge of the signum dei vivi, not willing to step over the boundary. “I guess he decided I was too much of a risk.” She says. “I woke up here after the crash. He wanted to know how I got the demons to trust me. When I wouldn’t tell him, he fucked off.” She pauses, and then sighs. “If you’re going to pick up where he left off, can we just get on with it?” She asks bitterly.
“I’m not going to torture you.” Sam says at once.
“Then untie me.” Meira replies. “Let me just- I just want to see that Dean’s okay with my own eyes. Please.”
Sam hesitates for a long moment, and Meira’s heart spends those seconds breaking into steadily smaller and more vicious pieces. Then Sam nods to himself and takes a very deliberate step over the outer limit of the bloody sigil on the floor. Meira just smiles faintly, and doesn’t move as Sam circles her and drops to his knees to untie her hands. “Christ.” Sam says again. Probably at the mess of Meira’s wrists. She’s healed the worst of the damage, but left the superficial wounds. After all, she really doesn’t want Sam to have a reason to leave her here.
The ropes fall away, and Meira carefully gets to her feet. She aches all over, lingering and persistent, but she ignores it. She’s aware of Sam’s eyes on her as she walks towards the edge of the sigil. She’s tempted to pause, but she doesn’t want to give Sam such a large sign of her own uncertainty, so she keeps walking, as steadily as possible, and doesn’t sigh with relief when she steps over the outer boundary without trouble. There’s a prickle of awareness on her skin as she passes it, but nothing more than that. Just footsteps behind her as Sam finally moves to follow.
Once outside, Meira can see that they’re in some sort of abandoned warehouse complex, and there’s a pale blue car too pristine to be part of the scenery not too far away. “Had to get a rental.” Sam explains ruefully, over-taking Meira and going to unlock the doors. “Bobby’s towing the Impala back to his yard for Dean to fix up once he’s back on his feet.”
“And- and he will be?” Meira checks, hating that her voice comes out small and frightened.
Sam pauses with the key in the lock, looking at her over the roof of the car. “Yeah.” He says seriously, offering her a smile that’s small, but entirely sincere. “It was touch and go there for a little while, but yeah, he’s going to be fine.”
Meira closes her eyes, braces one arm on the roof of the car and bows over it until her forehead meets her bloody sleeve. “Oh, thank fuck.” She breathes, even though it’s not only relief making her eyes sting. Then she shoves it all back, sniffs away the tears, and looks up again. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any water with you, do you?” She asks.
Sam’s eyes widen. “Oh, shit. Sure.” He says quickly, and abandons the front door in favour of the back. Meira climbs into the passenger seat while he’s doing that, and he passes her a canteen through the gap between the seats. “Here.”
“Thanks.” Meira says thickly, and then drinks. It tastes pure in that way Meira’s always associated with blessings, and it almost makes her laugh. But she pretends not to notice as Sam gets into the driver’s seat and takes them both to the hospital.
Kansas City, Missouri – Friday 4th August 2006
Meira knows what they’re going to find at the hospital, but it doesn’t make it any easier, watching the way Sam’s steps falter and his face falls when he nears Dean’s hospital room and finds his brother sitting on the edge of the bed, expression one of shock and badly concealed devastation. “Dean?” Sam asks, voice shaking ever so slightly. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Dean looks up, and his eyes flicker from Sam to Meira and back again. Then he swallows, and his lower lip starts trembling. Oh, god. Meira steps forward on instinct and puts a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort. “Dean?” She asks quietly.
“Dad’s dead, Sam.” Dean forces out, clipped and brisk except for the way his voice wavers.
Sam gasps and hunches slightly like the words were a physical blow. “What?” He rasps out, hoarse and uncomprehending.
“Dad-” Dean chokes out, and then can’t seem to find any more words. He shakes his head and looks away, looks down and tries to pretend his shoulder isn’t shaking under Meira’s hand. She gives in and sits next to him, putting the arm around his shoulders. Dean doesn’t move.
“What happened?!” Sam demands.
“I don’t know, Sam. He-” Dean chokes on a sound that might’ve been a laugh, or might’ve been a sob. “He said he was going to get a cup of coffee, and then he didn’t come back. I- I heard yelling, and I thought- I went to see what was going on and- and he was just lying there. There wasn’t anything they could- He was just gone.”
Sam sits down on the visitor’s chair slowly, like he’s moving through molasses, still staring at Dean with wide, pleading eyes, like he’s just waiting for the moment someone yells ‘gotcha!’ “He- he can’t be-” He stammers, shaking his head vaguely.
“He is.” Dean snaps, head coming up to glare at Sam wetly for half a second before he’s looking away again. He shrugs Meira’s arm off, and she recoils, hunching in on herself at the rejection, even though she knows she shouldn’t take it personally. Dean shoves to his feet and starts pacing, hands shaking as he clenches them into fists and then relaxes again, over and over.
Sam keeps blinking, sending tears slipping down onto his cheeks, and his breathing is ragged, but he’s not sobbing. “What-” He begins, then fades out, as if the words just won’t come. Dean turns to stare at him. Sam looks back, utterly lost. That shakes Meira almost as badly as it would seeing that expression on her dad’s face. Her uncle has always been so steady, not the heart of their family, maybe, but the bedrock. To see him like this is wrenching in a way Meira hadn’t expected. “What are we gonna do?”
Dean doesn’t seem to have an answer. Meira gives them a minute, because she doesn’t want to butt into a grief she feels she has little right to share. But when the silence stretches, and the brothers do nothing more than stare at each other in quiet, bewildered devastation, she clears her throat and steps up, because what else can she do? “We’ll go to Bobby’s. We can- we can figure out the rest of it from there.” She suggests.
Sam and Dean turn to stare at her, and then Dean nods. “Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s- That works.”
They’re both obviously going to be useless, so Meira forces herself to ignore the tiny, quaking child at her core and deal with the practical things. She talks to the doctors about getting Dean released, about what’s going to happen to John’s body, makes arrangements for it to be moved to a funeral home up in Sioux Falls, and gets given what few personal effects he had on him at the time of his death. A wallet, a phone, and a ring of keys.
No Colt. Not that Meira expected it to be there.
But it still makes the feeling of vulnerability shivering under her skin even more acute. She can’t summon her angel blade, and now they’ve lost the Colt, which means they have no good way of killing any demon that might try to come after them. And she knows, intellectually, that this is the way it went before, and Sam and Dean lived through the time they were without the Colt, but she can’t shake the fear. Even with all this proof staring her in the face that she can’t change jack shit when it really matters, she still can’t stop the sliding sense of panic.
She can’t live like that. She can’t live with that, so she grabs up John’s phone and scrolls through his contacts until she finds the one labelled ‘Joseph’ and she hits dial before she can think better of it. After all, the Renaldi have been demon-hunters since before recorded history. If anyone can help her get her hands on something to kill demons, they’d be the ones to ask. The phone rings all the way through to voicemail, and a familiar, steady voice tells her “Tell me what you want and I’ll get back to you,” before the messaging service beeps at her to let her know it’s recording.
“Joe-” No, she’s not his great-grand-niece here. She’s a stranger, she can’t act so familiar and expect Joe to let it slide. “Joseph. I- My name is Meira. John Winchester has just gone and done something really stupid, and now we- me and his sons, I mean- We need a way to kill demons. You’re the only person I could think of who might be able to help with that. Please- please, call me back.”
She hangs up and then just stands there, trying to breathe through the storm of her emotions. The panic, yes, but also the weight of her failure, the grief and fury for and at a man she’d barely known. What sort of an idiot trusted a demon over- Well, that’s just it, isn’t it. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t, and all that. It’s Meira’s own fault that she hadn’t been able to help, hadn’t been able to convince John to let her try.
The phone in her hand starts ringing, making her startle before she brings it to her ear in a rush. “Joseph?” She checks.
“And you’re Meira Novak.” Joseph replies.
“John mentioned he’d told you about me.” Meira says, wry even through the sudden flutter of nerves in her gut. What if she couldn’t get Joe to trust her either? That would sting so much worse than having John Winchester looking at her like she’s an abomination.
“It’s a dangerous thing, claiming to be related to a Renaldi.” Joseph points out.
Meira laughs before she can help it. “Most demons want to kill me anyway, I haven’t got much to lose.” She points out dryly. Joe makes a small sound of acknowledgement, but doesn’t speak. Meira takes a breath, and lays everything out. “I want one of your special knives. Or- well, three would be better, but I’m trying not to push my luck here. I don’t- I know I’ve got no right to ask, but…”
“You’re right, you don’t.” Joseph tells her flatly, and Meira winces. “I don’t know how you know about them, but those knives are extremely difficult to make, and we’re fighting a war. We can’t spare one for the Winchesters’ petty crusade.”
Meira licks her lips. “Do you know who Azazel is?” She asks.
There’s dead silence on the other end of the phone.
“We’re-” Meira chokes on the half-lie, but presses on regardless. “We’re not part of your family, I know that, but we’re fighting the same god damned war you are, just from a different direction.”
More silence.
“Joseph?” Meira asks warily.
“Give me your number. I’ll text you an address in two days.” Joseph tells her briskly.
Meira nearly staggers under the force of her relief. “Thank you.” She breathes, and then gives Joseph her number. Joseph promptly hangs up on her, but Meira isn’t offended. She’s too relieved to be offended. Two days. That’s fine. She needs to stick around a little longer anyway, to help Sam and Dean in whatever ways they’ll let her, but she can take a little detour in a couple of days.
She feels lighter as she returns to Sam and Dean and shepherds them out to Sam’s rental. Things still look pretty bleak, no matter what angle you come at the situation from, but Meira’s managed to grab onto a couple of threads of hope, and that’s enough. She tunes the radio to a classic rock station, because that’s her choice of comfort-food for her soul, and starts driving them to Bobby’s.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota – Sunday 6th August 2006
“An’ where are you going?”
Meira freezes, feeling like a teenager getting caught sneaking out. She turns to face Bobby, who’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the jamb and watching her with an expectant expression. “Out?” She offers with a wry grin, playing up the stereotype.
Bobby snorts and pushes away from the doorjamb, crossing the living room to join her by the front door. “Yeah, I figured that much out for myself, thanks.” He grumbles. “You mind being a little bit more specific?”
Meira sighs and looks away. It stings less, coming from someone she doesn’t know as well, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting at all. And she’s not sure what to say, how much of the truth to tell. Renaldi secrets aren’t hers to tell, after all, never mind her persistent issues with how much of her own history she can dare to reveal.
“If you’re going out to chat up some demons, someone oughta know where you are, in case you get yourself into trouble.” Bobby says, startling Meira out of her thoughts. She looks at him in shock, and Bobby snorts at her. “You’re keeping secrets, any fool can see that, but so far as I can tell, you care about those boys, and that’s enough to earn you a little good will in this house.”
Meira smiles, a little wetly, because it’s so good to hear those words that she’s feeling a little choked up. “No, I’m- Not demons.” She says finally. “I, uh… The Colt’s missing.” She points out with a shrug. “I’m going to meet with a hunter who might be able to help me get my hands on something similar.”
“You know of something else that can kill demons?” Bobby asks incredulously.
Meira shrugs, then nods. “It’s… a difficult ritual, with some pretty rare components, but as long as money and time are no obstacle, then making a demon-killing weapon isn’t that hard.”
Bobby’s eyebrows fly up. “If you know people that can make something like that, I’d sure as hell like to meet them.” He says, considering. “There room for one more?”
Meira hesitates, but she can’t think of a reason to say no. And she kind of wants Bobby and Joseph to meet, wants to be there to see it, because her family is broken and scattered and non-existent right now, and having even such disparate pieces of it coming together sounds awesome. “Sure.” She says finally. “You fancy driving? I was planning to hotwire a car.”
Bobby gives her a look for that, but goes and grabs his keys and leave a note for Sam and Dean. The moment he gets the door open, Rumsfeld perks up from where he’s lying on the porch and gives a quiet whuff of greeting. Bobby leans down and scratches him behind the ears as they pass, and then climbs into his truck. “So where’re we going, then?”
“Sioux City.” Meira tells him, and he nods and starts the engine.
“So why don’t you want to tell Sam and Dean about this little trip o’ yours?” Bobby asks once they’ve been driving in silence for a while.
Meira huffs a bitter little laugh. “You want that list in alphabetical or chronological order?” She asks. Bobby shoots her a look that tells her exactly how unimpressed he is with her sass, and she sighs again. “I’m not about to go spilling secrets that aren’t mine, but right now, Sam and Dean wouldn’t just trust my word on this, they’d ask questions I don’t feel comfortable answering, and when I refused to answer, they’d take it as more confirmation they can’t trust me. Then they’d want to come with me, to make sure I’m not doing something nefarious, and… I’m just not up to that, okay? Let me pretend they don’t think I’m evil for a few more days, alright?”
“They don’t think you’re evil.” Bobby protests.
Now it’s Meira’s turn to give him an unimpressed look. “They think I could be.”
Bobby rolls his eyes at her. “You’re keeping secrets, girl.” He reminds her again. “They don’t know what to think because you won’t tell ‘em whatever it is you’re holding back. It’s a pretty far jump from ‘secretive’ to ‘evil’.”
“John seemed to make the leap just fine.” Meira mutters resentfully.
Bobby snorts. “John Winchester was a paranoid bastard. Of course he did. You telling me you think those boys are just like their dad, huh?” He asks sceptically. Meira looks over at him, unable to keep from smiling at the derisive look on his face. It warms her through, after a whole week of dealing with John, of dealing with Sam and Dean and John all together, to know that someone else can see what she sees.
“No.” She agrees finally, looking back out of the windshield. “No, Sam and Dean are better men than their father by a pretty wide margin, in my opinion. But they don’t think that.” She goes on, smile falling away. “They trust their dad’s judgement, and he thought I was more evil than a demon. So, you know, forgive me if I’m not eager to have two of the people I care about look at me like they’re just waiting for me to sprout fangs and horns.”
“Keeping more secrets isn’t going to help with that.” Bobby points out. “You could try telling them whatever it is you’re keeping from them.”
“Maybe.” Meira says, even though she’s pretty sure they can both tell she means ‘hell no’.
Sioux City, Iowa – Sunday 6th August 2006
The address Joseph had texted her before dawn that morning turns out to be a park, small and not very well tended, but there’s a jungle gym in one corner with a couple of kids playing, and an open space where a bunch of teenagers are loitering, and a little tarmac path that sees the occasional jogger or dog-walker. The path has a couple of benches positioned strategically along it, and Joseph is sitting on one of them, wearing a black leather jacket despite the August heat.
Meira can’t help but smile when she spots him. He looks so freaking young. God, he can’t be more than fifty right now, fifty-five, maybe. And by most people’s counts, that would probably still be called old, but Meira remembers him eighty-five and worn thin with age. Right now, he looks positively sprightly in comparison. He catches her eye and nods in greeting, getting to his feet as she and Bobby stroll closer. “I wasn’t aware you were planning to bring friends.” Joseph says coolly, one eyebrow arching.
Meira shrugs ruefully. “He insisted.”
“I asked.” Bobby corrects grouchily, and then holds a hand out to Joseph. “Bobby Singer.”
Joseph inclines his head as he shakes the offered hand. “Joseph Renaldi.”
Bobby’s eyebrows rise. “I’ve heard that name.” He says.
Joseph smiles faintly. “And I’ve heard yours.” He acknowledges, then pulls a flask out of his coat pocket. “Holy water.” He explains, pouring a drop out onto his hand to demonstrate that it’s not harmful to humans, then holding it very pointedly out to Bobby. He takes it with a roll of his eyes and takes a swig, before passing it to Meira. She does the same, and hands it back. Joseph puts it away again and then gestures to the bench. “Please, sit.”
They sit, and Joseph settles on Meira’s other side, so that she’s tucked in between the two older men. She slouches a little, letting herself relax in their company. “So.” Joseph says after almost a full minute of silence. “You want one of our knives.”
“Yeah.” Meira confirms. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t getting kind of dire.”
Joseph hums thoughtfully for a moment. “No, you wouldn’t.” He agrees finally. “Because, somehow, you know what war we’re fighting, even though you’re not one of ours.”
“War?” Bobby asks sharply.
Joseph doesn’t bother to answer, just looks at Meira, clearly expecting a response from her. She shrugs, because it’s not like she can explain how she found out. Joseph is clearly happy to wait her out, though, so she casts about for something, anything, that isn’t a lie. “I don’t have to be one of your people to want to help.”
“True.” Joseph acknowledges, turning to look out at the park, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between them. “But you’re not here to help us, you’re here asking for our help.” He points out, and Meira nods because that is true. “This is not a good time to be asking for one of our weapons, you know.” He tells her. “It’s been nearly a century since we were able to create any more, and in all my years, I’ve never seen the demons as active as they have been this year.”
“You’ve noticed it too, huh?” Bobby asked grimly. “Well, then you’ve probably noticed that the Winchesters are smack in the middle of all of it.”
“They are one of the favoured targets, yes.” Joseph muses. “But not the only one. And we need help, too.” He concludes grimly. He straightens and turns to look at Meira again. “You mentioned the name of a Prince of Hell on the phone. Tell me everything you know, and one of our knives is yours.”
“A what?!” Bobby exclaims.
“The yellow-eyed demon.” Meira tells him. “His name is Azazel.”
“The scapegoat demon?” Bobby asks.
“You know your biblical lore.” Joseph says approvingly. “Yes.”
“And he’s a Prince of Hell?”
“The last of the Princes.” Joseph states. “And perhaps the most powerful demon to have walked this earth in millennia.”
“Balls.” Bobby swears fiercely, pulling his hat off to run a hand back over his hair.
Silence falls as Meira marshals herself. She’s going to have to give Joseph some solid information, but she doesn’t want to say anything in front of Bobby that would raise his suspicions. She doesn’t want to lose the one tentative ally she’s still certain she has. “When he was trying to track Azazel, John Winchester found a pattern of demonic omens.” She begins carefully. “Every twenty-two, twenty-three years he resurfaces, and goes after six month old babies.”
“Goes after.” Joseph says flatly.
“He doesn’t kill them.” Meira confirms grimly. “He’ll kill the parents if he can, but not the babies. The pattern goes back as far as John could find reliable records, every twenty to twenty-five years like clockwork. I- I suspect he’s been doing it for at least a thousand years.”
“How the hell do you figure that?” Bobby demands, quiet and horrified.
“Because I spoke with Megaera a little.” Meira tells him, and leans forwards, elbows on knees, so that she doesn’t have to look at either of them as she tells them what she realised in that little shack in the woods where Azazel cornered them. “She told me she’d forgotten her original name. That- It takes a hell of a long time to lose such a fundamental cornerstone of your identity, even if you factor Hell into the equation. And Azazel called her his daughter.”
“Demons don’t have familial ties.” Joseph says lowly, but it’s not a denial, it’s just a prompt for more information.
“Which is why I think he- he meant that she was one of the children he’d… I don’t know what he does, exactly-” That’s a lie, but Meira can’t justify knowing the truth. “But I think Megaera was… was once upon a time a very, very long time ago, like Sam. One of the kids that Azazel went looking for on their six month birthday.”
“How many kids does it single out, each time?” Joseph asks sharply.
Meira thinks back, tries to remember what her dad had told her about the showdown Uncle Sam had been dragged off to, tries to remember all his stories that had involved Azazel’s special children. There was Sam and Max. A girl that had been taken early. Twins. Another guy and girl they met at the showdown. “I’m not sure.” Meira admits. “Half a dozen? Probably more.”
“If you’re right, that’s hundreds of kids.” Joseph tells her. “That’s an army.”
Meira huffs a dark laugh. “Hell already has an army.” She points out. “They don’t need to search out kids over and over again to make an army, they just need to let humans get on with corrupting themselves. There’s got to be something about these kids that makes them special, that makes them targets . That makes Azazel want them specifically . He wouldn’t call them his children if they weren’t more important than just canon fodder.”
“But you don’t know what.” Joseph states more than asks.
“Not yet.” Meira lies, leaning back to offer him a cocky grin.
Joseph eyes her for a long moment, then snorts. He reaches under the bench and retrieves a dark backpack. From inside it, he withdraws a plain wooden box about half the size of a shoebox. “This,” he says, holding the box out to Meira, “was made on the nineteenth of May, 1910. The day the earth passed through the blade of the Queen’s Scythe.”
Meira gapes at him, hands frozen in the act of taking the box.
“The what?” Bobby asks.
“Halley’s Comet.” Meira says. “That’s a… rough translation of a very, very old name for it. Holy shit , and you’re giving it to me?”
“You’re hunting a Prince of Hell.” Joseph tells her sternly. “You will need one of the strongest weapons we have if you hope to kill it.” Hesitantly, Meira takes the box. Joseph nods and stands, slinging the backpack over one shoulder. “If you find out anything else of note, get in touch.” He instructs.
“I will.” Meira agrees.
Joseph walks away without another word.
Bobby and Meira sit in silence on the park bench for a long while afterwards, just letting everything settle. Then Bobby clears his throat. “Well, let’s have a look, then.” He says gruffly, and Meira sucks in a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, then fumbles the box open. Inside is a simple dagger without a cross-guard, the hilt wrapped in simple dark leather, and the blade carved with an Aquarian star just below the hilt, followed by a line of ancient symbols denoting a blessing. Even though the hilt is all wrong and the blade is the wrong shape, it’s almost the right colour and without a cross-guard Meira can almost fool herself into thinking it’s an angel-blade.
“I don’t recognise those symbols.” Bobby remarks, sounding surprised and a little put out.
Meira grins. “It’s a blessing. ‘Knowledge be my blade, compassion my shield.’”
“Ain’t blessings supposed to invoke god?” Bobby asks, but he doesn’t sound sceptical, just curious.
“That only works if you believe God has the power to smite demons.” Meira tells him.
“O’course he does, he’s God.” Bobby retorts.
Meira acknowledges and dismisses that with the same motion of her head. “Sure, but does the weapon work because God wills it, or because you believe that God wills it?” She asks. Bobby squints at her, and Meira grins again. “You can bless a weapon in the name of God, or Allah, or Yahweh, or Buddah, or the Universe, or the elements, or the truth, or your own soul. As long as you believe, truly and completely, that it will work, why shouldn’t it?”
Bobby doesn’t look impressed. “And you’re saying that this knife will kill demons because it’s blessed by knowledge?”
Meira shrugs. “Isn’t that how you manage to kill things other people would call unkillable?” She prompts. “Because you know how?”
Bobby opens his mouth, pauses, then grunts. “Fine. Point made.” He acknowledges. Then he claps his hands to his thighs and stands up. “Let’s get back before those boys start worrying like idjits.” He says, and Meira scrambles to follow.