Under the Crossroads

Prologue

Even with her eyes firmly closed, Jen Frew could tell the lights had been turned on in the musty basement where she was sitting. Slowly, she opened her grey eyes until they were barely slits, letting in as little light as possible so she could adjust. She had been asked to wait here while her . . . ‘hosts’ could decide what to do. However, that was well over an hour ago and she had apparently dozed off. Letting them believe she was still sleeping, she observed her surroundings in the light.

Starting from the left side, Jen could make out a rickety old staircase with an old workbench made out of iron – mostly rusted by now – sitting in front of it. She could barely make out a few tools, one of which was a saw, and it wasn’t quite determinable whether it was rust or blood on the blade. Knowing so much about these people, Jen guessed it was the basement of a fellow hunter, not her hosts. As her eyes traveled to the right, she spotted three pairs of shoes standing approximately twenty feet away from her. Judging by the make and size of these footwear, all of them were male. She had met two, so she could only wonder to whom the third pair belonged.  She observed closely as one set, probably older from the slower pace, walked back up the stairs before the other two headed her way.

“Hey!”

Jen jerked as she feigned being startled awake. “Wh-wh . . . huh?”

“Didn’t realize we took that long. You dozed off on us while we were gone.” A small smirk danced across his lips as Dean Winchester seemed to plop down in the chair sitting on the other side of the table in front of Jen. Sam, quiet and brooding as ever, leaned against a support beam, his arms crossed casually as he observed her.

Jen wasn’t surprised at their behavior. After all, why would two of the most widely-known hunters in the world trust someone like her? “Oh,” she chuckled, suppressing a small yawn. “Sorry . . . it was a pretty long flight.” Her slightly thick French accent seemed to slip out as she stretched her arms and beautiful, shiny, black feathery wings a bit.

“I’m sorry . . . can you not do that, lady?” asked Dean, pointing straight at the majestic pair of wings. “No offense, but they’re kinda weirding me out.” Even from across the small wooden table separating them, Jen could almost see the way his heart was almost jumping out of his chest and the little hairs on his muscular arms stand to attention as the goosebumps seemed to wash over him.

Jen hid her smile masterfully; she loved the idea of creeping out a Winchester. “Oops, sorry.” She waved her right hand and her wings seemed to evaporate as they vanished from sight. “Better, gentlemen?”

Sam glanced nervously back and forth from where Jen’s wings had once been to her beautiful but blank expression. “A little . . .”

Jen suppressed a small grin as she recalled the first time she and John Winchester had met. “Your father reacted the very same way when he first saw my wings. Of course, he had known me for quite a while so he didn’t have to . . . make sure I wasn’t some other supernatural being out to get him and Bobby.”

“Sorry about that,” Sam apologized, almost sounding sincere. Maybe he really was sincere; it was rather difficult for Jen to tell, since she had heard so very little of it throughout her lifetime. “When Ellen mentioned an old friend of Dad’s was coming to help us, we were expecting . . .”

“Someone without wings?” I interjected in sarcastic helpfulness.

“Someone more human,” Dean corrected. “What made you decide to help us? Especially now? Why not two years ago when we were trying to find our dad?” He sounded extra infuriated, which Jen didn’t blame him for. If someone could have showed up soon enough, her mother wouldn’t have died when she did.