Chapter One: The End of the Beginning

Eyes. Sinister, impossibly black eyes. And they were staring right at me, Marley Walker wondered, sliding a small brass key into her front door's deadbolt. It could have just been an illusion, right? A trick of her imagination? It's late, after all, and I'm tired. Over her shoulder, she took a quick glance at the quickly darkening, but empty, street, and shrugged into her home, shutting the door promptly behind her, locking it again. Marley inhaled, realizing that she had been holding her breath since she had passed the menacing man on the street only a moment ago. She had never seen this man before, not even once, which is odd, because she always took the same route back to her house from the gym. Every day. At seven p.m. It seemed odd that their paths had never crossed before that short second of eye contact.

The stare he'd laid on her made her feel strangely insecure and paranoid, which wasn't a range of emotions Marley was often met with. Now looking around the interior of her modern-esque two-story home, her heart returned to a normal pace and the stress of that encounter faded away, seeming to peel and slip off like an oily second skin. Come on, Marley, they were probably just contacts, she tried to reassure herself, but it was to no avail. She knew the man's, or what had appeared to be a man's, murky gaze was no farce. That was the upside to her ability. Marley could know any piece of information that she wanted, as long as it was or had been, at her simple whim. Unless, of course, it dealt specifically with the supernatural. Ironic, right?

This inborn ability to absorb and understand knowledge without as much as a snap of the finger had began a couple of months ago, after her twenty-second birthday. This instant grasp of everything but the supernatural also made Marley amazingly proficient at anything she tried, so at first, the power seemed like a blessing, but over the months, it had only made life ever-increasingly boring.

Boring, that is, until Marley's brother, Cameron, "invited himself" to move into her home after he'd been dumped by his girlfriend of four years because of his addiction to what he referred to as "escorts". That incident occurred a week before this day, and Marley let Cam do as he pleased. He kept well enough to himself at first, considering he didn't have a job or any friends in Jefferson City. She almost pitied him, but found herself lacking in the sympathy department whenever she had to clean up his messes or drag him up the stairs into bed after each of his weekly nights at the bar. Looking away from the clock she'd been staring at while in her train of thought, Marley noticed that Cam wasn't, for once, downstairs drinking, though the kitchen light was still on. This concerned her immediately, and before even thinking of the possibilities, the ability-run portion of Marley's brain told her what she had feared. Cam's dead, upstairs, it informed her, in a stoic version of her own thought voice. How it had happened was fogged behind a familiar veil, the same that prohibited her from accessing any knowledge of the supernatural, which meant that the man she'd seen on the street probably had something to do with this, granted he was what she thought he was.

Throwing her keys onto the side table in the entryway where she stood, Marley quickly bolted up the stairs and ran into the guest room, throwing on the lights as she entered. Nothing about the room seemed amiss, save for maybe the open window, which allowed an appropriately icy breeze to snake into the room, catching her skin and sending waves of goose bumps to the surface. Though unnecessary, she tiptoed to the edge of Cam's bed, then Marley whispered his name sadly and sighed. She placed her hand lightly on his body, which was covered still by the sheet, and felt no warmth. A bad taste filled her mouth at the moment of contact, a taste like iron, like blood, and an image of the man's black eyes filled her mind for a split second, then left as soon as it had come, taking with it the foul taste staining her tongue.

Marley relaxed after a moment and began to pull the covers from her brother. His now very pale and very clammy face was revealed, boasting open, bloodshot eyes and a clenched jaw. Curious yet tinged with lingering apprehension, she continued to peel away the sheet, and knew what she was looking for when his bare chest was uncovered, showing five circular marks on his chest. They were brownish, like burn marks, and their arrangement resembled that of fingers that had been pushed against him forcefully. The skin within those spots seemed dry and crusty, yet delicate like old yellowed paper. Marley's palm flew to her mouth and her eyes narrowed in disbelief. Cameron, her brother who she'd seen just this morning shoveling heaps of cereal into his mouth, was now gone, just like that. Though she'd known that he'd passed before looking at him, the sight of her only sibling, her only family left in the world, her anchor, her normalcy, now gone, created a cold feeling in Marley's stomach, a dark, swirling pit that raged quietly like churning black seas before a storm. Tears welled up in her eyes, and they spilled over, a small cry escaped Marley's lips and she knelt next to the bed, firmly planting her face between her crossed arms on the sheets. Sobs shook her frame and she grieved for the loss of the last of her family, the brother who'd loved her, supported her, saved her from a sin-filled house so long ago. She wished she'd been more forgiving of his mistakes, that she'd listened to him more when they'd spoken; she wished she'd done more for him in his final hours. But this wasn't any natural death; it was something she could avenge, something she could make right.

Flashbacks of times spent with an old friend flew through Marley's mind along with a million other thoughts, but through all the commotion, she still managed to calmly call 9-1-1 and inform the authorities of the situation, of course leaving out the part about the man with the black eyes and all the superfluous information not to be dealt with by the police. Really, though, she just wanted Cam's body away and at rest, as she'd seen what could happen if he wasn't to be taken care of properly.

She returned downstairs and turned on the porch light in preparation for the officers that had been dispatched. The taste of blood returned to Marley's mouth and she winced, seeing the black eyes again, and the apathetic tone of her ability spoke in her mind. It left a note on the kitchen counter by the sink.Without looking at the note or even walking into the kitchen, she knew what it said: "Found you. He was just a bonus." What evil words... I'll kill him, Cam, for you… she thought, feeling itching tears finally coming on and the shock slipping away. The thought of that malicious creature having penetrated into her home sent an all-new wave of shivers down Marley's spine. Why me? Why now? I thought this was behind me. Her mind turned back to the black eyes, and she remembered. The fire.

So, she'd done some delving into her history, discovering that it wasn't only she and Cam who had survived the same kind of house fire. In fact, she'd found a few different articles regarding the same tragedy in different states. Since she lived in Lawrence, and one of the articles concerned a very similar fire in that area, Marley decided she'd first investigate that incident, since it was so close and wouldn't interfere with her studies, as if she would have to study anyway. She had come up with the plan, after beginning more hands-on research, that if anybody had questions, she could always just use the cover that she was looking for a new house to move into by herself since she was in college. So, on Spring Break, Marley drove into town, finding the old Winchester house almost immediately, as her power saved her from having to stop to ask for directions. A sign out front of the house said it had been recently sold, but the interior was still empty, so she decided to take a look around for whatever reason, probably hoping to find something that was similar between this house and her childhood home, something to connect them with so she didn't feel as crazy as she looked breaking into this random house so far away from her home. Making sure the new occupants weren't inside, Marley entered the mysterious connection to her past.

After finding nothing but a few traces of sulfur in the ceiling of the nursery, which seemed odd yet Marley thought nothing of it, she gave up her search and walked outside again, sulking to her car. Just as she opened the driver's side door, a man had suddenly sneaked behind her and pinned her to the car. Though she couldn't see him, she immediately knew who it was.

"John Winchester?" although she already knew, Marley asked the name to keep suspicion down. She didn't want to scare him away this early in the game. John spun her around roughly, looking her in the eyes, then took a flask out of his coat pocket, popped the cap, and dripped some of the clear liquid on Marley's face. "What's that supposed to be, holy water?" She laughed nervously, hearing in his thoughts that it was exactly what she'd "guessed". For a moment, John looked embarrassed then took a step back, clearing his throat. A warm but apprehensive smile played its way across his lips and into his eyes, which crinkled at the corners.

"Sorry about that, can't be too careful. Have we met?" he asked pleasantly, and Marley smiled back at him calmly. She shook her head and took another glance back at the Winchester house.
"This is going to sound crazy, but," she perused his memory, finding treasure troves of knowledge, seeing that he was a hunter of the supernatural and that all the things that she'd only ever heard of in legends existed, "-with your background I think you'll be more understanding than most."

She'd explained to him about the similarities between the two of them, specifically the house fire. However, when she'd gotten to the part about her "talent", he'd suddenly turned reluctant to listen further, so she had to coax him out of his trepidation with tidbits of information from his past that only he or his friends and family would know. After a couple minutes, she'd finally cracked his shell, and he told her about his children, Sam and Dean, and how Sam had also been six months old when their house burned down and how the fire had taken John's wife, Mary. But he'd said it wasn't an ordinary fire; a demon caused it. Probably the same demon that burned down Marley's house when she was just a baby.

Their conversation lasted nearly an hour there on that street in Lawrence and eventually John decided it was time to leave and continue his life on the road. Marley insisted that she would go with him, but he refused, said he worked alone, and she told him she didn't care, that he was stuck with her. Marley thought she'd be more reluctant to up and leave her normal life to help somebody, who'd be considered a stranger to her, hunt ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and a plethora of things the average populace thought were just fairy tales. As it turns out, however, in this direction, she felt useful, like she could really help people, and undo the evil people like her mother had left on the world. Before they left Lawrence, Marley had John drive her to her adopted parents' house where she left a note stating she'd gone on a road trip with some friends from college (even though she didn't have any; her prestige had made her intimidating to her peers) and wouldn't be back for a while. So for a few months the two of them traveled together, and she helped in the hunting as best as she could, realizing the veil that stood in the way of her ability's grasp of the supernatural. John tried to help her get past it, even giving her a deck of cursed cards to practice with, but the efforts seemed useless after a while. Finally, on that last day of her break from college, John dropped her off at a new house back in Jefferson City. He said he'd paid for it with another one of his fake names and that it was a parting gift, though he left her with a warning that it probably wouldn't be a smart idea to go back to Lawrence. After hunting, he'd said, it could be putting her family in serious danger.

"Seriously, no need to thank me," John laughed as he tossed Marley the keys to her home. "Consider it reparations for that talent of yours. And if you ever run into my boys, tell 'em I'm alright." Marley beamed at the man as he tipped his head to her. He drove away in his big black truck and she turned to the new two-story white beach-style house, absolutely puzzled at how she would try to live a normal life from here on out.

Ding-dong. Marley jumped from the noise. The cops, right. Marley shook away the nostalgic memories of John and stared at her hands for a second, remembering the predicament she was in. Tear swelled up her eyes again but this time she let them escape. She walked to the front door and opened it full-swing. "Evening officers. Come on in."