The Impala's tires shrieked as it slid to a stop in Bobby Singer's junkyard, the smell of hot rubber lingering in the night air. I coasted in behind them, my 350Z humming like a satisfied predator after a kill.
Dean was already out of the car by the time I killed the engine, arms wide like he was about to sell me a set of steak knives.
"Step right up, folks! Witness the majestic pain in my ass with bonus dragon wings!"
I flipped him off just as the wings flared out behind me, nearly decapitating a row of rusted lawn ornaments. An old metal rooster pinwheeled off a hubcap mountain.
"Careful," Sam muttered, ducking beneath one of the obsidian membranes. "Those things molt?"
I smirked, willing them to retract. The scales slid under my skin like retreating shadows, with a sound that could only be described as biological sandpaper.
"Not unless you want to wake up exfoliated by dragon dandruff."
Bobby emerged from the house with a shotgun, muttering curses like they were a second language. "One night. One goddamn night without supervision, and y'all turn into a damn kaiju convention."
Lena held up a mason jar of silvery-gray ash. "We brought you a souvenir."
"Great. I'll knit it a sweater." Bobby lowered the shotgun but not the scowl.
We shuffled into the war room, which still smelled like stale coffee and motor oil. Maps, books, and enough arcane crap to start our own occult antique shop covered the table. I dropped into a chair and laid it all out.
"So, turns out dragons—sorry, Drakons—are real, rude, and vulnerable to being stabbed with blood-soaked bone claws. Who knew?"
Dean tossed a beer at my head. I caught it mid-air with a flick of Telekinesis, the bottle hovering inches from my nose.
He grunted. "Dick."
Sam skimmed through one of Bobby's tomes, eyes flicking back and forth. "You understand what's happening to your body, Marcus? This isn't just some stat boost. Your physiology is changing. Wings. Scales. That kind of adaptation shouldn't be possible."
"Sam," I said, cracking the beer open with a claw. "I'm way past normal. I've got ghost telekinesis, Wendigo strength and speed, and now dragon lungs. I'm basically a walking comic book."
He didn't look amused. "Yeah, and comic books end in tragedy more often than not."
Bobby leaned forward. "What about the armlet? You said they were trying to awaken a vessel?"
"Yeah." I gestured toward Lena, who was poking at the maps. "That part gets fuzzy. But the moment I torched those Drakons, something… shifted."
Right on cue, Lena froze.
Her hand went to her chest.
A deep red glow pulsed from beneath her shirt—low, rhythmic, like a second heartbeat. Like something buried inside her was suddenly paying very close attention.
Dean recoiled. "Uh… your chest is glowing. That normal?"
"No," she said flatly. "It's been doing that ever since Marcus sucked up those upgrades."
Sam's brows furrowed. "It's reacting to the power. The Drakon energy must've been connected to Kharon's ritual."
Lena looked at me, eyes sharp. "You might've just hijacked his ascension plan."
I tilted my head, smirking. "Good. Let the bastard know his Uber just got stolen."
Then, just to be petty, I flipped off the glow pulsing beneath her collarbone.
"Fuck you, Kharon."
The stone heart flared once—so bright it cast shadows across the wall—then went dark. The light didn't fade. It stopped. Cut off like a switch.
Silence fell.
Dean blinked. "Did you just middle-finger a god into submission?"
I took a swig of beer. "Seems like it."
Bobby pinched the bridge of his nose. "We are all going to die."
That night, sleep proved elusive. Between the wings, the heat, and the growing pressure behind my eyes like something was trying to crawl out, I gave up and climbed onto the roof of Bobby's house. The air was cold enough to bite, but my dragon-enhanced blood didn't care.
I stretched out the wings slowly, feeling the weight of them settle across my shoulders like a leather coat laced with bricks. They caught the moonlight in ripples, dark and gleaming.
Every time I got a new power, it came with side effects. Speed made me restless. Telekinesis strained my focus. The bone morphing made my skeleton ache like a 90-year-old grandpa during a thunderstorm.
But the wings?
They made me feel like I was being hunted.
A creak behind me. The attic window slid open, and Lena stepped out barefoot, her movements as quiet as smoke. She sat beside me without a word, hands in her lap.
"You too, huh?" I asked.
She nodded. "Sleep's overrated."
We stared up at the stars. Somewhere, a coyote yipped. Maybe even it was smart enough to stay away tonight.
"I felt something," she said quietly. "When you killed those Drakons. Like… a tether snapped. Kharon lost control of something. And it terrified him."
I didn't answer right away. The weight of what I'd taken—it sat on my chest like a lead vest.
"Power's funny," I finally said. "You crave it when you don't have it. You fear it when you do."
She looked at me, her stone heart flickering like embers. "If it comes down to it… if Kharon takes me over…"
I met her gaze. Steady. Sharp.
"I'll stop you."
Not rescue. Not cure. Not empty promises wrapped in hope.
Just truth.
She nodded, accepting it without protest. Because that's what hunters did—we made peace with worst-case scenarios before breakfast.
Across the veil of reality, in a place where time warped like a melting clock, the obsidian statue cracked again.
This time, it wasn't stone beneath the fracture.
It was flesh.
Muscle.
A jaw clenched behind the mask of eternity.
Kharon stirred in the dark, coalescing from shadow and fury.
"Prepare the final vessel," his voice slithered.
And the dark things moved. Wings like shrouds. Eyes like dying stars. Hunger made flesh.
Because Kharon had lost something important.
And Marcus Hale had taken it.
But gods don't forget.
And Kharon?
He never forgives.