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Magic was a fickle thing. Especially when the one who taught you only gave you the gift to drag your soul down to hell.
But Alice didn’t let that stop her. She’d sent the black-eyed demon back to hell before it could ever take her soul. She paid the price for it, oh yes, but she found ways around the decay, around the weakness, around the parts of her that were always hell-bound.
Love was truly humanity’s greatest strength. Of course, there was no one to love Alice, hadn’t been in a long time. But that didn’t matter. Not when she could feast on others’ love. And the boy currently tied to the chair in her little house, his heart was brimming with love.
She saw him walking home from school one day, tall and long-legged, striding confidently down the street carrying a heavy backpack and seemingly unperturbed that his home was a seedy apartment building at the edge of town. She usually didn’t take children, but she was able to feel the boy’s love from far across the street.
In the past seven hundred years, she’d become a seasoned hunter. She could sense a loving heart from far away, but this boy—he took her by surprise. He couldn’t be older than seventeen, but the love emanating from him felt much stronger than any teenage crush. He was pretty, she realized when he turned his face in her direction when he crossed the street. Shiny, brown hair that fell into his face in that untidy modern way, fox-tilted eyes, and a pretty pink mouth. He probably left a string of broken hearts behind while his own heart would only ever beat for one.
Curiously, she followed him to his home. She watched, from the shadows, watched him alone in the small two-bedroom apartment, watched his tall silhouette move behind the curtains. He sat at the kitchen table, probably doing his homework, he heated up food on the stove and in the evening, he read and watched television.
He was alone.
No one else came home that night.
The next morning, he walked to school. After classes let out, he walked home again, read and ate, read some more, and watched TV.
Alone.
Where was the person he loved so much?
Late that evening, the phone rang, the sharp electronic noise drifting out through a cracked window. His heart pulsed and the strength of it made her salivate.
There it was.
She couldn’t hear what he was saying, his voice too quiet and muted, but when the call ended only a few minutes later, he went to bed.
Alone.
Alice smiled.
Tomorrow, she’d take the boy and whoever he loved so much would never know he was gone.
The spell was easy to cast and the boy never suspected a thing. Under the guise of a cloaking spell, she levitated him into her car and drove him home.
Back at her house, she tied him up carefully. He was still a teenager, but he was already tall and had broad shoulders. He was clearly independent and self-sufficient. He had someone to live for. And then she found the knife tucked into his boot. The silver knife. Well. Alice was certain he’d put up a fight.
She wasn’t wrong.
He woke with a start, gasping. “What—where am I?” His hazel eyes were darting around the room and he was struggling in his bonds. He was strong too, the ropes creaked under his strength and the chair wobbled a little even though it was bolted to the floor.
“Hi there,” Alice said and walked over to the boy. She wasn’t a sadist, she didn’t enjoy torturing children. She’d make this as easy as possible for him.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice calm with shock. His entire body had stilled.
“My name is Alice,” she said. “Alice Kyteler. And I am a witch.”
His eyes widened, but that was all of his reaction. Interesting.
“And what’s your name, darling?”
“Sam,” he said quietly. “What do you want from me?”
He really must be deep in shock or in denial. She’d never had a victim so calm. Considering the silver knife, maybe he knew more than her average victim.
“You carry a great love in your heart,” Alice said. “And I want it.”
“What?” Sam asked, shock finally creeping into his features.
Alice smiled. “It will power my spells. I’ve been searching for a love like yours, but it’s hard to find. Rare.”
“What do you mean?”
“It needs to be strong. Anchored in deep, forged in pain and joy, a part of you so inextricable that you cannot live without it.”
Sam shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
Alice just smiled patiently. “No, I’m not. And I have an inkling you know that I’m not.”
He swallowed, moving his shoulders and legs. Testing his bonds again. She had taken a knife from him when she’d tied him up. She picked it up from the table now and held it up. “Alone at home. Family away on a hunt, I assume.”
His jaw clenched. Right on the money. Unfortunate, but this wouldn’t take long.
“If you hurt me, they’ll kill you,” Sam said with conviction. His hazel eyes blazed with defiance.
“They’ll have to find me first,” Alice said, unperturbed. “But we probably shouldn’t dawdle. So tell me Sam, who is this girl you love so much?”
Almost imperceptibly, he drew back. “There is no girl.”
He wasn’t lying.
“A boy then?”
It took a moment, then he paled. “No.”
“Ah yes.” She advanced on him.
He didn’t flinch, but he leaned back as much as he could against the sturdy backrest of the wooden chair. He started to struggle in his bonds again, but of course it was still no use. She put her hand on his chest, right over his heart. He was wearing a dark, washed-out hoodie, the fabric soft under her hand. But she concentrated on the feeling of what lay underneath.
She didn’t have to reach far. It was right there, love filling his heart to the brim, almost bursting out of his chest.
“You love this boy more than you have words to describe,” she said. “Because there are no words. It defies logic and sense. It’s buried so deep inside you, it’s written into your very soul.” She felt it oscillate through his entire being, and she thought she might not be far off about the soul connection. She closed her eyes, and just felt the power of it. “Your heart, if I hadn’t seen you, I would have thought it belonged to a fifty-year-old man. It has loved lifetimes already. Layers of love, joyful and sorrowful, separation and reunion, they all left marks. You must have loved this boy your whole life.”
But interwoven with all the bright love, there was a darkness there. She opened her eyes to see Sam’s jaw clench.
“And yet, your love is dark. There’s shame and guilt. Is it because he’s a boy?”
A muscle twitched in Sam’s cheek.
“No,” she mused. “No, this goes deeper.”
She studied the layers again, built into his heart from the start, growing with him as he grew, like the dark edges on the rings of a tree.
“Family,” she realized, understood why there was so much shame and guilt. “The boy you love, it’s your brother.”
Wildly, he shook his head. “No. No, it’s not like that. I love my brother, but not like that.”
“There’s no one here but you and me,” Alice said softly. “No need to lie. I don’t judge. In fact, this is going to make your heart even more delicious. It is a beautiful, twisted thing, so powerful in that cage you built around it, so it could never escape. And I want it.” She smiled. “I will set your love free, Sam, give it a purpose. Isn’t that better than locking it away forever?”
For a moment, he hesitated. “Can you—” He licked his wide lips, looking nervous for the first time. “Could you take my love without killing me?”
It was an interesting question. But not one she had time to ponder. Because there was something else in his heart besides his own love. An imprint of another’s love. His brother’s, she’d guess. The boy on the phone. The boy who left Sam alone but would undoubtedly come for him. Usually, Alice wouldn’t care. She’d be gone before Sam’s body was cold. But his brother was a hunter. He’d try to find her. It was a risk she didn’t have to take.
“I’m sorry, my spell requires the physical heart. And I do feel for you, you seem like a smart, strong, young man. You have a bright future ahead of you.” She sighed. “Unfortunately for you, I need a heart full of love, and yours, it will give me power for months. Think about it this way, by taking your heart, it will be much longer until I have to take another, so your sacrifice saves all the other, lesser hearts. And I have to admit, I will greatly enjoy eating yours.”
“Yeah, well it’s the last thing you’ll ever enjoy because my brother will find you and kill you,” he snarled.
The temptation was there, to set a trap for his brother. “Oh, wouldn’t that be lovely. To eat the heart that pairs with yours, enjoy the mirror of it.”
“What? No.” His face twisted in anguish. Fearing for his brother’s life much more than his own, of course. “No, it—it won’t be the same, and he doesn’t even love me that much.”
“No point in lying, darling. Your heart is marked, you know,” she told him.
Confusion flashed over his face.
“Oh yes, love leaves a mark. On your own heart and on the heart it receives. Your heart is marked deeply, Sam. Your brother must love you something fierce.” She leaned in again and pressed her hand to his chest. “Oh yes. His love is practically branded into your heart.”
His eyes shifted to the side and something she couldn’t quite identify flashed in them. She followed his line of sight to the side of the room, but there was nothing there, the door still ajar, her altar still untouched. For a moment, she wondered, if—
“I knew we shouldn’t have stayed in this funky town,” he said angrily. “And of course, this time it’s a blood-thirsty witch.” He leveled her with an angry glare. “We really hate witches.”
“I admire your bravery,” she said and stood, walking to her altar to finish the ritual. “But we don’t have time for this.”
“I never heard of a witch who needed to replenish her strength,” he said, tone needling. “What’s up with that?”
She kept adding the last ingredients, ignoring his attempt to stall her. “You should make peace with your fate instead of trying to distract me.” She lit two more candles and burned wicker and sage. “And I promise, I’ll be quick. It will barely hurt.”
“Just… tell me one thing.”
She couldn’t help but look at him. His voice was broken now, all his strength and bravery gone.
“The brand on my heart, my—” He licked his lips, continuing in a whisper almost too quiet for her to hear. “My brother’s love.” He broke off again and looked down at the ground, the hair falling into his face almost hiding his pleading eyes. He looked like a kicked puppy.
Alice was not a monster, she wasn’t immune to that. She’d had a daughter once, a long time ago. She walked back over to Sam.
“You want to know if it’s like yours.”
He nodded, still not meeting her eyes. His features were tense in despair. And well. She had an inkling. If she could give him a final gift, in exchange for the gift she’d take from him…
She kneeled down in front of him, placing her hand on his chest once more. She felt the imprint of his brother’s love, old and new, layered just like Sam’s. There was protection in there, admiration too, hurt, and desperate longing.
“Ah, my dear boy,” she said, looking into his pleading eyes, couldn’t help but want to give him a moment of peace before she ripped open his chest. “He loves you deeply, absolutely. A love like his, that’s unbreakable. I really should find him,” she mused. “I imagine his heart will taste just as good as yours.”
Sam suddenly grinned at her. There were dimples in his cheeks. It should look adorable, but there was something hard in his eyes that sent a chill down her spine. “Don’t worry, that won’t be hard. Well, the finding him part anyway,” he amended with a thoughtful look.
Then he suddenly moved forward, slammed his head against hers and pain exploded across her forehead.
She screamed in pain. “You little shit, you—”
She was cut off by a hand gripping the hair at the back of her head. She looked up into the angry snarl of a young man’s face, the long hunting knife already coming towards her and she raised her hands and drew on her magic for protection, but the blade sliced past her fingers, ripped her skin open, and plunged into her chest.
It burned like fire and she couldn’t breathe, pressure crashing her chest.
The hand let go of her and like a marionette with its strings cut, she fell to the ground.
The young man paid her no mind, instead rushed towards Sam and knelt in front of him.
“Sammy, fuck, are you okay?”
His hands were skittish, holding Sam’s face, stroking his head, and undoing his bonds. Then he crushed Sam against his chest and Sam wrapped his arms around his shoulders and held on.
The brother, she thought distantly, the world going fuzzy around her. It must be the brother.
A few years older, broad shoulders, short hair, handsome face flush with relief. And in his chest, a heart filled with a love as powerful as his brother’s. As bright. As dark and twisted and ashamed. Together, their hearts were intoxicating. If she could only touch them, she would be fine.
“I’m okay,” Sam panted out.
“What were you thinking,” the brother ground out, “trying to warn me off with that funky town bullshit as if I’d ever stay away when someone’s got you tied up.”
Sam hiccuped, muttered, “Dean,” putting a name to the love in his heart. “She said she wanted you too, she said—”
Dean huffed. “As if I gave a shit about that.”
Their hearts beat in sync now, loud and bright, one beat an echo of the other.
Alice’s own heart was slowing down, contracting feebly around the blade stuck in it. She lay there too weak to move. She’d waited too long to find a new heart, her magic not enough to heal the deep wound.
Sam looked at her over his brother’s shoulder, relief and pain etched into his features.
If he hadn’t distracted her so his brother could sneak up on her, she would have told him that Dean’s heart was an exact mirror to his own. His love was the same as Sam’s, so strong, so tainted.
But now he’d never know. She’d take that knowledge to the grave.
As the darkness finally engulfed her and pulled her soul from her body, dragging her down toward hell’s fiery abyss, the last thing she saw was Sam and his brother, gripping each other’s shoulders tight and looking into each other’s eyes as if nothing else in the world existed.
Alice knew love like that. And it led down just one road.
There was no way she wouldn’t see these two again.