Journal of John Winchester (Supernatural)

November 25

Today, in a town called Blue Earth, Minnesota, I met a crazy priest who brought Mary to me. His name is Jim, but what he did wasn't like any church ritual I've ever seen, and I doubt he learned it in a seminary. He cut himself, and his blood turned into fire, but it didn't burn him. And then the fire turned into Mary. Mary... She said my name. I think she said some other things too, but hearing her voice say my name again . . . I can't describe what that was like. But it only lasted a few seconds and then she turned into a . . . I don't know. Like the Black Shuck, a devil dog. A hellhound. It spoke to me, and said, "Soon you will come to me." After it was gone, Jim looked at the hellhound's tooth. There are numbers on it: 1127. Mary died at 11:27, according to the police report. H and Jim agreed that the numbers were some kind of coordinate carved into the tooth, but what does it mean? Written in blood: In olden times in the West people used to say "I put my hand and seal" on a document when signing it. In the East this was literal in some cases. The emperor of Japan in ancient days "signed" important documents by dipping his hand in blood and putting a full bloody handprint on the page. In the history of pacts with the Devil, people were supposed to sign their names in blood. I have seen a couple of alleged pacts from earlier centuries and neither, as far as I can tell, was signed in blood, though they do bear signatures of people. Blood undoubtedly stressed the seriousness of the signing. You were giving away your soul. "The Blood Is the Life."