Mary Singer's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Mary Singer pressed her palm to the bunker's steel door and felt it shudder. She was Bobby's niece, and this warded sanctuary was hers to protect now. Dean's family had come to her for safety, and she had promised it. But the marks she'd painted along the walls flickered like dying coals. Something outside was clawing at her wards, and they were losing. Dean stepped up beside her, jaw tight, a knife already in his fist. "That's a hellhound," he said. "Maybe three. They followed the dagger here." He didn't look at her like she was a witch. He looked at her like she was a kid guarding a door. Mary adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses. Her hands were shaking. "My wards weren't built for this. Whatever your family dragged in woke something old." She could hear it now through the metal, a low triple growl, three throats snarling as one. Claws scraped stone. A seam of light near the ceiling split and went dark. "Then we run," Dean said. "No." She pulled a bundle of moonlight flowers from her coat. The blossoms glowed silver in her palm. "These bloom under a witch's own moon. My uncle taught me the old summoning." She crushed the petals and smeared the paste across the floor in a wide circle. The glow spread outward, feeding the failing marks on the walls. The growling stopped. Then the door boomed. A dent punched inward, steel folding like paper. Mary knelt inside her circle and spoke words she'd only practiced in secret. Her voice cracked. If this failed, the hellhound came through, and Dean's family died behind her. The silver light rose off the floor and gathered. Shadow poured into shape. A sleek black cat stepped out of the dark, tall as a wolf, her eyes burning cold blue. She turned her luminous head toward the buckling door and hissed. "Go," Mary whispered. The shadow cat sprang through the widening gap. Outside, the triple snarl became a shriek. Mary heard tearing, a thud, then silence. Her familiar padded back through the ruined door, blood black on her claws. The wards on the walls flared bright and held. Dean lowered his knife. He looked at Mary, then at the cat curling beside her. "Okay," he said slowly. "You're the real thing." Mary let out a breath. Her wards were whole again, and for one moment she felt worthy of the name Bobby left her. Then the shadow cat stiffened. Her ears flattened. She stared past the broken door into the dark, tail lashing. Mary followed her gaze. The dented steel door would never seal now. The hellhound was dead, but her only defense against whatever came next was a hole where a door used to be. And somewhere out in the night, something bigger had heard the fight end. She closed her eyes and whistle a high pitch note, summoning the very first hellhound, Cerberus himself. “Hey, cerby…. We kind of have a problem….” She said to him and the hellhound growl softly.