Supernatural: Pancho and Lefty (3/3)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Pancho and Lefty
Part Three
Colt's cabin wasn't very far from where Sam had fallen from his horse, but it was well-hidden enough that Sam never would have found it on his own. They were almost walking through the door before Sam even realized there was a structure of any kind in front of him.
"I really, really need your help," Sam was saying.
Colt hadn't said a single word in the five minutes it had taken them to walk to his cabin, but that hadn't stopped Sam from talking to him.
"My brother, he's hurt, gutshot, and I had to leave him out in the quarry. Please!"
Colt opened the door to the cabin and ushered Sam inside. Once the door was closed securely behind them, he turned around. "You must be careful around here, Winchester," he said. "The mountains have ears, and a friendly smile can hide the face of a monster."
"The vampires," Sam said. "You know about them."
"Well, of course I do, my boy. They are my closest neighbors, after all."
Sam looked around the interior of the small cabin. It wasn't much more than a shed, really, a small square structure with rough-hewn planks for walls and a thatch roof. The single room was filled with long tables covered in various gadgets and tools. The only signs that someone lived there were the bed in one corner and the small sitting area arranged around the stone fireplace in the other. "Wait, how do you live here at all? You died twenty years ago!"
Colt tilted his head and looked at Sam with an expression of disappointment. "Now surely, Sam Winchester, a hunter such as yourself should have no trouble explaining away a miniscule little detail like that."
"You're a spirit?"
Colt shook his head. He settled himself down in one of the two dusty armchairs and motioned for Sam to have a seat in the other.
"I'd say you faked your own death," Sam said as he sat down. "But you're the same age you were when you died. Or... didn't die..."
"I'm an inventor, Winchester. Think about it."
Sam put it together in his head, added the fact that he was talking to a man who'd been dead for twenty years to the fact that he'd been in the mountains looking for a wizard. "You're a witch."
"I prefer the term warlock, actually, but yes." Colt held his hand up. "White magic only, though, so there is no need to worry for my immortal soul."
"That's how you did it," Sam said with a small smile. "You command white magic. That's how you built the Colt!" He sat forward in his chair in sudden excitement. "Do you have it with you here? I could use it to save Dean!"
It was Colt's turn to blink in confusion. "Which one?"
"The Colt," Sam insisted. "The one that can kill everything."
Colt shook his head. "That's impossible, my boy. There are some things that cannot be killed."
"No, this gun really can kill anything. I've seen it."
Colt waved his hand. "It is not a matter for us to argue right now. It is a conversation for you to have at another time and in another place, with one much more powerful than I." Colt leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "Now, tell me about this gun. You say that I made it?"
Sam nodded.
"When?"
"In the fall of 1835," Sam said. "Under Halley's comet, on the night the Alamo fell."
Colt's face fell in disappointment again. "Well, now, that's not possible, either."
"What?" Sam asked. "Why not?"
"Do they not teach children anything in history class? I could haven't made anything the night the Alamo fell in 1835, because the Alamo didn't fall in 1835. It fell in March of 1836."
Sam's face fell, and all of his hopes of being able to protect Dean from the vampires until they could find a way home went with it. "So the legend is... it's wrong? You don't have it?"
"Tell me your story, Winchester," Colt said, instead of answering the question. "How do you come to be here?"
"I don't know," Sam said with a shake of his head. He pushed himself up from the chair and started pacing around the cabin. "One minute we were cleaning out a vampire nest, had them all except the leader. There was this... I don't know what it was, really. A ripple or something, and it hit us. We passed out and woke up here."
Colt pressed two fingers to his lips in thought. "Tell me, this vampire nest you were cleaning, was it approximately two miles outside of Laramie?"
"No," Sam answered. "We were in the city. In a warehouse on the east side of town."
"Oh." Colt's voice sounded almost contrite. "Well, then, it is safe for me to assume that one hundred and twenty-five years from now, Laramie will be a much larger place than what it is currently?"
Sam nodded.
"And you and your brother, you arrived here, in 1882, yesterday afternoon?"
Sam nodded again.
"I owe you an apology, young man. You and your brother."
"What?" Sam asked. "Why?"
"Time travel is a marvelous thing, but I am afraid it is not an exact science, you see. You can chose your date of origin and your destination date, but it is much harder to control your location. I've avoided that difficulty by always traveling to and from the exact same geographical location, but that does have the unfortunate side effect of opening more than those two places on the timeline."
"I'm sorry," Sam said, shaking his head. "But, what?"
"I started with farsight, which is far simpler, but I eventually learned to travel through time. Unfortunately, I have not yet managed to contain my spellcasting to only my departure and arrival times. When I open a rift, it opens across all simultaneous spots in timespace along the same axis. I thought that I had chosen a location isolated enough to prevent any potential problems, but it appears that I severely underestimated how large Laramie would become."
Sam just blinked.
"I myself returned here from 1854 yesterday afternoon. You and your brother got caught in my... blastwave, for lack of a better term."
"So it was you?" Sam asked. "You're the one who brought us here?"
Colt nodded. "Yes, almost certainly. Unless there is another time traveling warlock around these parts who I have yet to encounter. And I'm sure you'll agree that the odds of that are too remote to be worth entertaining."
Sam nodded excitedly. "So if you brought us here, does that mean... can you send us back? Can you send us home?"
"Well, I would imagine so, yes. It only takes a few moments to prepare the spell, and so long as I stay out of the way... oh, never mind me, Winchester." Colt stood up from his chair and walked toward one of the work tables which was so stacked with books that the wood sagged under their weight. He picked up one of the smaller books and opened it, then looked back at Sam over his shoulder. "You just go and fetch your brother. We'll see about sending you home."
Sam's face fell.
"What's the problem, my boy?"
"My brother," Sam explained. "He's the reason I need the Colt." He stepped forward nervously, his mind again filled with images of Dean - pale, shaky, gasping and sweating - leaning against the rocks in the quarry. "He's hurt, maybe dying. We were being chased by a posse of mostly vampires, and if they've found him..."
"Oh. Yes, that would present a problem, wouldn't it? I take it there is more to your story than you've told me."
Sam nodded slowly. "A lot more."
"Then perhaps you would care to explain it to me?" Colt picked up another spell book, an incredibly thick one, and laid it out on another table. "If I'm going to build you a gun that can kill a vampire, then we've got time for you to start at the beginning."
Dean didn't know how long he'd been there, but he knew it was longer than he'd expected to be. It wasn't that he'd thought Sam would be back before then, because he hadn't. He hoped more than anything that he'd see Sam sitting at his side soon, telling him that they were going home and it was all going to be okay, but he didn't expect it.
Because even if the wizard was real, and even if Sam did find him and bring him back, Dean expected to be dead long before then.
He'd been shot enough times in his life that he knew what to expect most of the time - the dizziness from the blood loss, the low fever from the infection that was already setting in, the pain from the wound itself. He'd never been shot in the gut before, though, so that aspect was new to him. He'd always heard that if the blood coming from a gut wound was black, the person wouldn't survive, and the blood coming out of him was about as dark as he'd ever seen.
He already felt as rough as he ever had from a gunshot wound, and even though the bleeding had slowed, it was still oozing. He knew that as the night went on, he was only going to feel worse. He'd conserved enough water from the canteen that he shouldn't have had to worry about dehydrating, but if the fever kept rising, he knew that it wouldn't really matter. He could console himself with the fact that he hadn't thrown up yet, but he figured that was just a matter of time.
The sun had long-since set, and he hadn't heard any sounds that made him think the posse had found his location before it got dark. The vampires would have no problem tracking at night, but if they were keeping their true forms a secret from the rest of the town, then they'd probably bedded down for the night. He envied them the campfire, blankets and coffee that he was sure they had, because the temperature was dropping rapidly and his coat wasn't enough to keep the chill out.
But there was no point in thinking, because there was nothing he could do about any of it. So he leaned back against the rocks again, closed his eyes, and let himself drift off to sleep.
"Thirteen. You have to make thirteen bullets."
Colt looked up at him in confusion. "Why in heaven's name would I make thirteen bullets?"
Sam shrugged and leaned his hands against the table. "I don't know. But you did. So, that means you have to, right?"
Colt smiled. "You see, my boy? You're becoming an expert at time travel already."
"I don't want to be an expert," Sam insisted. "I just want to get my brother back and go home."
"And so you shall." Colt glanced up from his work just long enough to see the look of single-minded determination on Sam's face. "Tell me, Sam Winchester. The legend about this gun, you say that I made it for a hunter?"
Sam nodded briskly.
"Did you ever know his name?"
"No," Sam said. "A hunter on horseback is all my dad said."
Colt nodded slowly. "Then you understand that this means you'll never be able to tell anyone exactly who I made the gun for. Not even your brother."
"Why not?" Sam asked.
"Well, first, there is the small matter of Samuel Colt making a gun for a Winchester. If word of that got out, neither you nor I would ever live it down." Sam had to smile at that. "Secondly, I have to believe that there is a reason no one ever knew that hunter's name. And if you tell anyone the truth..."
"I'll change something," Sam said with a nod. "I understand."
He looked down at his watch quickly. It was already six in the morning. Colt had been working on the gun all night, which meant that Dean had been alone all night.
"Will it take much longer?" he asked. "I don't want to rush you, but Dean... it was so cold last night..."
"Oh, don't you worry," Colt said distractedly. "You said he was gutshot? A man with a wound like that can linger for days before..." Sam didn't know what Colt saw on his face when he looked at him, but he knew it wasn't good. It was definitely enough to make him reconsider his words and turn away again. "Oh. Oh, dear. Yes, well... your brother is alive, Winchester. I can promise you that. Now, as for how much longer I will be..."
Colt stood up from the table with the gun in his hands. Sam reached for it, and Colt surrendered it to him without a word. He held his other hand out, and Colt placed thirteen shiny, new silver bullets, marked with the numbers one through thirteen, in his palm.
Colt picked his coat up from the back of his chair and walked to the door.
"Let's go find that brother of yours, shall we?"
Someone was coming.
He'd hurt too much to change position during the night, he hadn't been able to shake the bone-deep chill of spending the night outside in October, and he'd long-since lost the feeling in his legs. He was a sitting duck where he was, and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do to improve his situation. He reached for his Colt; he had no plans to kill the humans that were looking for him, and he knew that the iron wouldn't do much more than piss the vampires off, but he had no plans to just sit there and let them take him.
He intended to make a stand, even if it turned out to be his last.
His hands, though, had other ideas, and his fingers refused to open the snap on his holster. He managed to wrap them around the handle of the machete tightly enough to hold it, but his arms were too weak to lift it. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the rock, and sighed.
"Pancho?"
He opened his eyes slowly, and it took him several seconds to clear them enough to recognize Jim Edwards standing in front of him.
"Damn, Pancho. You look like hell."
Jim stepped over his legs and knelt down beside him, pulled the bloody bandana away from the wound and looked at it, then winced in sympathy.
"Nasty gutshot ya got there."
"Jim," Dean finally managed to whisper. He fought to lift his right arm and batted at Jim's coat until his fingers snagged in it. "Ya gotta listen, Jim." He was gasping for every breath he took, staring at Jim's face through eyes almost too blurry to see through, and shaking so badly that his teeth clattered. "Those men. They weren't..."
"Did ya kill 'em?" Jim asked.
Dean nodded weakly. "But... not human," he said. "Gotta... gotta b'lieve me..."
"Chopped their heads off, did ya?"
Dean nodded again. "The thing... Joe's lookin'... was them..."
Jim smiled at him, and for some reason he couldn't explain, it made Dean nervous. "They were the thing in the mountains, huh? One of 'em bit you?"
Dean blinked in confusion. "Jim... gotta run..."
Instead of running, Jim bent down and leaned closer to Dean, until he could whisper in his ear. "I know what vampires are, Pancho. And I know a hunter when I smell one."
Dean tried to pull away, but only managed to turn his head in time to see the second set of teeth descend.
Sam could see the commotion from some distance away.
He couldn't see exactly what was going on, but that didn't mean he couldn't figure out who was involved. The dust that rose from the squirming mass of what he assumed was a pissed off nest of vampires, right next to the rock formation he'd left Dean hidden in, was more than enough.
He started to jump down from his horse, but Colt reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
"Get closer, Winchester."
"They've got Dean!"
"And you can't help him if they see you coming. Circle around and get above them."
Sam nodded briskly as Colt pulled his horse across in front of him, and then he followed him. As they closed in on the rocks, he had to make a conscious effort to block out the sounds he was hearing.
"I'll start the spell as soon as you're clear of the vampires," Colt said. He took hold of Sam's reins as they pulled up behind the rocks. "Good luck and Godspeed, son."
Sam grabbed a handhold on the large rock and started to pull himself out of the saddle. He turned back to Colt quickly when a thought occurred to him.
"When you send us back, will we be in the quarry? Because if we're on foot, with Dean hurt..."
"I will manipulate the spell to make certain that you return to your time in the same place you left it," Colt said. "You have transportation there, don't you?"
Sam nodded his thanks quickly, pulled himself out of the saddle, and started climbing. The angry shouts and grunts of pain got louder when he crested the rock and crouched low to walk across it. He heard the sound of a fist striking flesh before he saw it, and he straightened to his full height.
Dean was lying face-down on the ground below him, surrounded by the same ten men that had fired on them in town. So that meant at least six vampires, two men Sam didn't know, plus Jim and Joe. Sam couldn't tell which of them had punched Dean, but Joe didn't seem to have liked it, because he was standing next to Dean with his arms spread out, holding the other men back.
Sam had a clear shot at several of the vampires, but he didn't want to take a chance on firing until he knew that Dean would be able to get himself out of the way. His mind scrambled to come up with a plan, because so far, it didn't look like he was even conscious.
"This ain't happenin' out here, Silas. I'm takin' this boy back to Laramie."
"Let us have 'im!" one of the men shouted.
"We are not gonna hang him without a trial!" Joe insisted.
One of the vampires stepped forward, a tall man with light hair and light eyes, dressed in much nicer clothes than the others. From the way the others moved aside for him, Sam assumed that was their leader.
"We don't need your permission to do what we're gonna do, Sheriff," he said calmly. "There are more of us than there are of you."
"Ain't happenin'," Joe argued. He pulled his gun carefully and held it loosely at his side. "You don't have to like what I do, but you will respect it. I am the law round here, Silas, not you."
Silas chuckled and shook his head. Sam lifted the Colt and took aim on the man's forehead.
"We ain't gonna hang him, Joe," Silas said. "But we're gettin' our kinda justice one way or 'nother. If you won't give it to us, then we'll take it." He took one more step forward, and Sam decided he'd seen enough.
"Stop right there!"
Ten heads turned up to him in unison, but the one face he wanted to see wasn't among them. Sam stared down at the men that surrounded his brother with every ounce of hatred he had in him. The only two he spared were Jim and Joe, because he knew that they had been duped by the vampires and were probably the most innocent of all the people involved.
"Lefty!" Jim shouted up at him. "What you doin' up there?"
"Jim, you and Joe, drag D... my brother out of there."
"Why?"
"Just do it!" Sam ordered. "Do it now."
Neither of them moved to do as they were told, but Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Dean moving on the ground. He lifted his head and turned it slowly, then looked up at Sam with glassy, unfocused eyes.
"Sammy..." he gasped. "Jim..."
Jim moved forward quickly, grabbed Dean under the arms, and pulled him up from the ground. Sam couldn't see if Dean's eyes rolled back or not, but the way his head fell forward made it pretty clear that he'd passed out. Joe looked at Jim in confusion.
"What are you doin'?"
"What the man with the gun said," Jim answered. "S'not gonna hurt anything. Help me."
Jim and Joe each took one of Dean's arms, and they pulled him out of the center of the circle and closer to the rocks. While they were doing that, Silas took another step forward.
"You really want to stop there," Sam said.
Silas smiled up at him. "Ya know that gun ain't gonna stop us, hunter. And there's more of us on the way."
Sam smiled back. "This ain't no ordinary gun."
Silas's grin turned feral, and his second set of teeth dropped. He jumped toward the rock Sam stood on, and almost as if on cue, the other five vampires did the same.
Two of them descended on the two men who'd joined them on the posse, pulling them to the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, and teeth. Silas and another started climbing the rock, and the other two headed for Jim and Joe, who were standing in front of Dean with their guns drawn.
Sam pulled the trigger and hit Silas right between the eyes.
The look on his face was one of shock, and he looked up at Sam in confusion. A second later, the lightning that meant the death of something evil started flashing out from the small circle in his forehead, across his eyes, and down his neck.
The other five vampires froze as he fell. But when he hit the ground, all hell broke loose.
The vampires attacked whichever human happened to be the closest. Sam took careful aim and picked them off one at a time, starting with the one closest to him and working his way out. He dropped one that was running toward Jim, and another that Joe was unloading his gun into. He finished with the two that stood over the mutilated bodies of the two unfortunate men whose names Sam didn't know.
He took a deep breath as he watched the last one fall, and he looked up across the horizon. There was a small dust cloud moving toward them, most likely Silas's reinforcements on the way. He shoved the Colt back in his holster, jumped down from the rock, and ran over to where Jim and Joe were tending to Dean.
"What the hell, Lefty?" Joe demanded.
Sam shook his head and fell to his knees at Dean's side. "The less you know, the better, Joe. But you and Jim need to clear out. There's more on the way."
"Those things!" Joe continued. "Was they... they wasn't human, was they?"
"Not anymore." Sam checked Dean's bullet wound quickly, then pressed his hand against his forehead. Dean needed a hospital, immediately, which meant they needed to get the hell out of there, but neither Jim nor Joe had moved, so he glanced up at them. "I'm serious, Joe. Take Jim and get the hell out of here. Now."
Sam felt a light tug on his sleeve, and turned back to Dean. His eyes were half-open, and so was his mouth. He was trying to say something, but his voice was so weak that Sam couldn't hear him. And all he could see was the blood that bubbled up between his teeth and trickled out the side of his mouth.
"Easy," Sam said. He smoothed Dean's hair with one hand and wiped away the offending blood with the other. "Take it easy."
Dean's lips were still moving, and he was obviously intent on what he was saying, so Sam bent down to hear what was so important.
"Jim."
It was more a breath against his cheek than a word, but Sam understood it. His message delivered, Dean passed out again. Sam let his head hang forward, closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, and wrapped his hand around the Colt. He'd give anything for Dean to be wrong, but when he turned to face the brothers, it was obvious that he was right.
Joe was kneeling on the ground next to Sam, near Dean's feet. But Jim had pushed himself up from the ground and stood over all three of them. His teeth had already dropped.
"Jim!" Sam shouted. "Don't!"
Joe spun toward his little brother, shock and horror written plainly on his face. "God, Jimmy, no!"
But it was too late. The animal drive for blood was too strong, and Jim couldn't fight it anymore. He launched himself toward Joe and tackled him to the ground. He spun around to come back for Sam and Dean, but Sam didn't give him the chance.
"Jim." It was almost a sob that crossed Sam's lips as he pulled the trigger.
Joe was back up from the ground and moving forward fast enough that he caught Jim's body before it hit the ground.
"No, Jimmy, no!" Joe looked up at Sam, tears running down his face freely. "God damn you!"
"I'm sorry, Joe," Sam said sincerely. "I'm so sorry. He was..."
"He's my brother!"
Sam glanced back across the plain frantically. The dust being stirred up by the approaching vampires was getting closer. He grabbed Joe's arm.
"You have to get out of here!"
"Jimmy." Joe's voice broke on the name. He stood clumsily and tried desperately to drag Jim's body toward his horse. "I gotta take him back. I gotta..."
"You have to run!" Sam insisted. "There are more of them coming!"
Joe stumbled in the dirt and lost his grip on Jim's body. He forced himself to stand, wiped at the tears that streamed down his face, and tried again.
"Joe!"
"Sorry," Joe mumbled to Jim's body as it fell a second time. "God, Jimmy. I'm sorry. I'll be back for you." He pushed himself to his feet once more and dashed for his horse, jumped into the saddle and took off toward Laramie at a full gallop.
Sam closed his eyes and lowered his head. He knew that Joe wasn't going to make it back to Laramie in time. This was when he was going to turn - he'd put money on it.
But there was no more time to worry about Joe's fate, because the wind had picked up around him. True to his word, Colt had already started his spell. He lifted Dean's shoulders up from the ground, wrapped his arms around him, and pulled him close.
"Winchester!"
Sam turned his head toward the voice that called his name, and was unsurprised to see Samuel Colt standing behind him. He was taken aback, though, when he held his hand out to him.
"Give me the gun."
Sam shook his head vigorously. "No!" he said. "We need it. You don't understand. There's a demon, we can use this to..."
Colt stepped forward and put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "Yes, you could. But your brother will not be with you when you get there."
"What? Why?"
"If you take the gun with you, your father will be alive, but he will be possessed by the yellow-eyed demon. And Dean will have died on the floor of a cabin in Missouri, where he was tortured to death by that demon."
Sam looked down at Dean in his arms, pale and sweaty and dying, pulled him closer, and closed his eyes.
"Leave it with me," Colt said. "So I can leave it in my cabin for Daniel Elkins to find. So your father can take it back from the vampires. So you can have it when you need it to save them both."
Sam took a deep breath and nodded slowly. He shifted all of Dean's weight to his left arm, then reached for his holster with his right hand. He pulled the Colt out and handed it to Samuel.
"I fired seven," he said softly as he adjusted his hold on Dean. "But there are only five left when we find it."
"I am sure that someone, somewhere, will find a need to fire it one more time in the coming years," Colt said.
Colt stepped back, and Sam could hear the wind starting to rush around his ears. He glanced up at the warlock one last time.
"Thank you."
Colt nodded, and the wind grew louder.
Sam could see the ripple forming in the air in front of them, and he held Dean as tightly to his chest as he could.
"Don't worry, Sam," he heard Colt shout over the roar of the wind. "Everything that happened here was meant to be. Your future isn't changed; it's safe."
Sam bent down across Dean, sheltering his face from the rocks and dust that the wind whipped up and swirled around them. He closed his eyes and buried his face in Dean's hair.
"I gotcha, Dean," he whispered. "I'm taking you home. And I'm not letting go."
When the vortex slammed into them, Sam didn't let go.
When Sam opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the warehouse above him, the first thing he thought to do was let out an enormous sigh of relief.
His second thought was that he shouldn't have been staring up at all. He should have been laying across Dean, because they would have landed in 2007 in the same position they'd been in when they left 1882. But Dean wasn't in his arms anymore, and that wasn't right. He sat up quickly and saw Dean lying on the floor next to him. But they weren't alone.
"Joe," he breathed.
Josiah Edwards was sitting cross-legged on the floor at Dean's side, just looking down at him. Sam knew they'd both been unconscious when they arrived, and they would have been totally defenseless for several minutes at least. But he hadn't hurt them.
Why not?
Sam pulled his legs up and started to stand. Joe pulled out a knife - Dean's silver knife, Sam noticed, the one they'd traded to Jim for their clothes - and pressed it lightly against Dean's neck, and he froze in place.
"Sit down, Lefty," Joe said.
Sam did as he was told, but he didn't relax. Every nerve was on edge, every muscle primed to react if Joe made one move to actually hurt Dean.
"Joe, please."
"Who are you?" Joe's voice was devoid of all emotion, his whole demeanor a stark contrast to the rage he'd attacked Dean with - what would have been to Joe - only moments before.
"I don't..."
"It's a great song and all, but after a hundred and twenty-five years, I think I deserve to know who you really are."
"Winchester," Sam said. He brought his hand to rest against the handle of the machete under his coat, ready to draw it if he needed to. "Sam Winchester. And my brother, Dean."
Joe didn't move or speak, and Sam couldn't help but notice how eerie the silence was. The floor of the warehouse was still littered with the headless bodies and disembodied heads of the vampires he and Dean had killed there, but Joe didn't seem to notice them at all. He just sat, staring down at Dean while holding the knife against his throat, but he didn't seem eager to kill him anymore.
"I recognized you," Joe finally said. "Soon as you walked in here, I knew it was you. Tried to stay out of it, stay away from it, but the damn... the bloodlust is too powerful. I can't stop it." Joe almost smiled, but to Sam, he just looked sad. It was not an emotion that Sam had often seen on any vampire, and definitely not one that he'd expected to see on that one. "More than a century I been tryin' to find you. This ain't exactly how I wanted it to go."
Joe was still looking down at Dean, and the knife hadn't moved, but his face had softened considerably. Sam thought he looked regretful, almost wistful, but he didn't have time to worry about that. He had to get Dean out of there.
"I helped you save him."
Sam swallowed hard and nodded his head. "Yes, you did."
"I helped you save yer brother," Joe's voice was hardening, and Sam's grip on his machete handle tightened. "And you repaid me by killin' mine and lettin' 'em drag me off and turn me into a monster!"
They moved almost in unison. Joe leaned forward with the knife, pressing it deeper into the skin on Dean's throat, while Sam leaped to his feet, pulled his machete, and held it against Joe's neck.
"Get away from him," Sam commanded.
Joe didn't move, and for a second looked like he was considering pressing harder.
"Damn it, Joe, don't make me do this," Sam said.
"I know it's not really yer fault. I'm the one couldn't save him," Joe said sadly. "I was supposed to. My baby brother was a vampire, and I didn't even know. For months, at least. Maybe years." Joe looked up with at Sam, bloodshot eyes full of pain. "How d'ya not notice yer own brother's turned into a monster?"
"I don't want to kill you."
"Ya did five minutes ago!" Joe argued, but he still didn't move away from Dean.
"Five minutes ago, I didn't know you. Now I do." Sam surprised himself by admitting it, but once he had, there was no taking it back. And it was true. The urge to kill the vampire was strong, but the desire to not kill the man that Josiah Edwards had been was stronger. "Five minutes ago, I hadn't talked to you, or had a beer with you. Five minutes ago, you hadn't risked your life to save my brother. Now you have."
Joe looked up at him, and Sam could see the telltale streaks of red around his eyes, the extra row of teeth that had descended over his normal ones, and he couldn't deny what was sitting right in front of him. Joe was a vampire, had been one for a hundred and twenty-five years. Could who Joe Edwards had once been really make a difference in what he had become?
"It was his blood they used," Joe said. "When they turned me. Wasn't even five minutes after you was gone, they caught up to me. Held me down on the ground and made me drink my own brother's blood."
"I'm sorry." And he was, sincerely.
"The first thing I did when I woke up was kill them. All of 'em. With my bare hands. Ripped their heads clean off. But it wasn't enough. Because Jimmy was still dead, and I shoulda been but wasn't. But do ya know what the worst part was?"
Sam shook his head slowly.
"Realizin' I can't die when there's nothin' else in the world I wanna do."
This was the Josiah Edwards that Sam knew. This was Joe, who loved his little brother, followed him wherever he went, and gave everything to protect him. He understood why Dean had wanted so badly to warn Joe about what was coming for him, and why Dean had taken such a quick liking to him.
"Please, Joe, just... put the knife down, okay? Move away from him."
Joe shook his head slowly and looked back down at Dean. "If I cut him, you'll take my head off, right?"
"Yes," Sam answered truthfully. "I will."
"Do I have to cut him? Or will ya do it just on me askin'? Cause I really like Pan... Dean, here. Done saved his life once. Seems kinda foolish to go hurtin' him any worse'n I already have." Joe tilted his head and looked at the blood on Dean's shirt. "I'm guessin' that's my bullet in him, ain't it?"
Sam nodded slowly.
"Well, then, get to choppin' already!" Joe said. He laid the knife down on the ground next to Dean's leg, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "All the killin' and the... eatin'. Drinkin' innocent people. Hated myself every damn time, but I couldn't stop. Been livin' like this for a hundred twenty-five years, waitin' for the day somebody'd fix it. I'd'a done it myself, but ya know how hard it is to cut yer own head off?"
"No," Sam said softly.
"Well, it ain't that easy, let me tell ya."
"No, Joe, I mean... no." Sam pulled the machete away from Joe's neck and let it hang loosely at his side.
Joe looked back up at him, red-rimmed eyes wide in confusion. "Ya want me to cut 'im?"
"No," Sam said again quickly, shaking his head. "Don't hurt him. But I'm not going to kill you."
"Why not?" Joe demanded as he pushed himself to his feet. "S'what you do, ain't it? Yer a hunter, right? You kill the monsters? Well, here I am! Kill me!"
"No." His voice was growing stronger every time he said it.
"I shouldn't'a outlived him!"
"I'm not going to do it."
"Damn you!" Joe reached for the silver knife again.
"Help me, Joe."
"Help you what?" His hand stopped before it reached the knife, and he looked up at Sam in suspicion.
"Help me get Dean out of here and to a hospital."
"An' why'd I wanna do that?"
"Because you like him," Sam said with a small smile. "Because you couldn't save your brother, but you can help me save mine. Because you're not a monster, you're a good man. And because I know someone who can help you."
Epilogue
Part Three
Colt's cabin wasn't very far from where Sam had fallen from his horse, but it was well-hidden enough that Sam never would have found it on his own. They were almost walking through the door before Sam even realized there was a structure of any kind in front of him.
"I really, really need your help," Sam was saying.
Colt hadn't said a single word in the five minutes it had taken them to walk to his cabin, but that hadn't stopped Sam from talking to him.
"My brother, he's hurt, gutshot, and I had to leave him out in the quarry. Please!"
Colt opened the door to the cabin and ushered Sam inside. Once the door was closed securely behind them, he turned around. "You must be careful around here, Winchester," he said. "The mountains have ears, and a friendly smile can hide the face of a monster."
"The vampires," Sam said. "You know about them."
"Well, of course I do, my boy. They are my closest neighbors, after all."
Sam looked around the interior of the small cabin. It wasn't much more than a shed, really, a small square structure with rough-hewn planks for walls and a thatch roof. The single room was filled with long tables covered in various gadgets and tools. The only signs that someone lived there were the bed in one corner and the small sitting area arranged around the stone fireplace in the other. "Wait, how do you live here at all? You died twenty years ago!"
Colt tilted his head and looked at Sam with an expression of disappointment. "Now surely, Sam Winchester, a hunter such as yourself should have no trouble explaining away a miniscule little detail like that."
"You're a spirit?"
Colt shook his head. He settled himself down in one of the two dusty armchairs and motioned for Sam to have a seat in the other.
"I'd say you faked your own death," Sam said as he sat down. "But you're the same age you were when you died. Or... didn't die..."
"I'm an inventor, Winchester. Think about it."
Sam put it together in his head, added the fact that he was talking to a man who'd been dead for twenty years to the fact that he'd been in the mountains looking for a wizard. "You're a witch."
"I prefer the term warlock, actually, but yes." Colt held his hand up. "White magic only, though, so there is no need to worry for my immortal soul."
"That's how you did it," Sam said with a small smile. "You command white magic. That's how you built the Colt!" He sat forward in his chair in sudden excitement. "Do you have it with you here? I could use it to save Dean!"
It was Colt's turn to blink in confusion. "Which one?"
"The Colt," Sam insisted. "The one that can kill everything."
Colt shook his head. "That's impossible, my boy. There are some things that cannot be killed."
"No, this gun really can kill anything. I've seen it."
Colt waved his hand. "It is not a matter for us to argue right now. It is a conversation for you to have at another time and in another place, with one much more powerful than I." Colt leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "Now, tell me about this gun. You say that I made it?"
Sam nodded.
"When?"
"In the fall of 1835," Sam said. "Under Halley's comet, on the night the Alamo fell."
Colt's face fell in disappointment again. "Well, now, that's not possible, either."
"What?" Sam asked. "Why not?"
"Do they not teach children anything in history class? I could haven't made anything the night the Alamo fell in 1835, because the Alamo didn't fall in 1835. It fell in March of 1836."
Sam's face fell, and all of his hopes of being able to protect Dean from the vampires until they could find a way home went with it. "So the legend is... it's wrong? You don't have it?"
"Tell me your story, Winchester," Colt said, instead of answering the question. "How do you come to be here?"
"I don't know," Sam said with a shake of his head. He pushed himself up from the chair and started pacing around the cabin. "One minute we were cleaning out a vampire nest, had them all except the leader. There was this... I don't know what it was, really. A ripple or something, and it hit us. We passed out and woke up here."
Colt pressed two fingers to his lips in thought. "Tell me, this vampire nest you were cleaning, was it approximately two miles outside of Laramie?"
"No," Sam answered. "We were in the city. In a warehouse on the east side of town."
"Oh." Colt's voice sounded almost contrite. "Well, then, it is safe for me to assume that one hundred and twenty-five years from now, Laramie will be a much larger place than what it is currently?"
Sam nodded.
"And you and your brother, you arrived here, in 1882, yesterday afternoon?"
Sam nodded again.
"I owe you an apology, young man. You and your brother."
"What?" Sam asked. "Why?"
"Time travel is a marvelous thing, but I am afraid it is not an exact science, you see. You can chose your date of origin and your destination date, but it is much harder to control your location. I've avoided that difficulty by always traveling to and from the exact same geographical location, but that does have the unfortunate side effect of opening more than those two places on the timeline."
"I'm sorry," Sam said, shaking his head. "But, what?"
"I started with farsight, which is far simpler, but I eventually learned to travel through time. Unfortunately, I have not yet managed to contain my spellcasting to only my departure and arrival times. When I open a rift, it opens across all simultaneous spots in timespace along the same axis. I thought that I had chosen a location isolated enough to prevent any potential problems, but it appears that I severely underestimated how large Laramie would become."
Sam just blinked.
"I myself returned here from 1854 yesterday afternoon. You and your brother got caught in my... blastwave, for lack of a better term."
"So it was you?" Sam asked. "You're the one who brought us here?"
Colt nodded. "Yes, almost certainly. Unless there is another time traveling warlock around these parts who I have yet to encounter. And I'm sure you'll agree that the odds of that are too remote to be worth entertaining."
Sam nodded excitedly. "So if you brought us here, does that mean... can you send us back? Can you send us home?"
"Well, I would imagine so, yes. It only takes a few moments to prepare the spell, and so long as I stay out of the way... oh, never mind me, Winchester." Colt stood up from his chair and walked toward one of the work tables which was so stacked with books that the wood sagged under their weight. He picked up one of the smaller books and opened it, then looked back at Sam over his shoulder. "You just go and fetch your brother. We'll see about sending you home."
Sam's face fell.
"What's the problem, my boy?"
"My brother," Sam explained. "He's the reason I need the Colt." He stepped forward nervously, his mind again filled with images of Dean - pale, shaky, gasping and sweating - leaning against the rocks in the quarry. "He's hurt, maybe dying. We were being chased by a posse of mostly vampires, and if they've found him..."
"Oh. Yes, that would present a problem, wouldn't it? I take it there is more to your story than you've told me."
Sam nodded slowly. "A lot more."
"Then perhaps you would care to explain it to me?" Colt picked up another spell book, an incredibly thick one, and laid it out on another table. "If I'm going to build you a gun that can kill a vampire, then we've got time for you to start at the beginning."
Dean didn't know how long he'd been there, but he knew it was longer than he'd expected to be. It wasn't that he'd thought Sam would be back before then, because he hadn't. He hoped more than anything that he'd see Sam sitting at his side soon, telling him that they were going home and it was all going to be okay, but he didn't expect it.
Because even if the wizard was real, and even if Sam did find him and bring him back, Dean expected to be dead long before then.
He'd been shot enough times in his life that he knew what to expect most of the time - the dizziness from the blood loss, the low fever from the infection that was already setting in, the pain from the wound itself. He'd never been shot in the gut before, though, so that aspect was new to him. He'd always heard that if the blood coming from a gut wound was black, the person wouldn't survive, and the blood coming out of him was about as dark as he'd ever seen.
He already felt as rough as he ever had from a gunshot wound, and even though the bleeding had slowed, it was still oozing. He knew that as the night went on, he was only going to feel worse. He'd conserved enough water from the canteen that he shouldn't have had to worry about dehydrating, but if the fever kept rising, he knew that it wouldn't really matter. He could console himself with the fact that he hadn't thrown up yet, but he figured that was just a matter of time.
The sun had long-since set, and he hadn't heard any sounds that made him think the posse had found his location before it got dark. The vampires would have no problem tracking at night, but if they were keeping their true forms a secret from the rest of the town, then they'd probably bedded down for the night. He envied them the campfire, blankets and coffee that he was sure they had, because the temperature was dropping rapidly and his coat wasn't enough to keep the chill out.
But there was no point in thinking, because there was nothing he could do about any of it. So he leaned back against the rocks again, closed his eyes, and let himself drift off to sleep.
"Thirteen. You have to make thirteen bullets."
Colt looked up at him in confusion. "Why in heaven's name would I make thirteen bullets?"
Sam shrugged and leaned his hands against the table. "I don't know. But you did. So, that means you have to, right?"
Colt smiled. "You see, my boy? You're becoming an expert at time travel already."
"I don't want to be an expert," Sam insisted. "I just want to get my brother back and go home."
"And so you shall." Colt glanced up from his work just long enough to see the look of single-minded determination on Sam's face. "Tell me, Sam Winchester. The legend about this gun, you say that I made it for a hunter?"
Sam nodded briskly.
"Did you ever know his name?"
"No," Sam said. "A hunter on horseback is all my dad said."
Colt nodded slowly. "Then you understand that this means you'll never be able to tell anyone exactly who I made the gun for. Not even your brother."
"Why not?" Sam asked.
"Well, first, there is the small matter of Samuel Colt making a gun for a Winchester. If word of that got out, neither you nor I would ever live it down." Sam had to smile at that. "Secondly, I have to believe that there is a reason no one ever knew that hunter's name. And if you tell anyone the truth..."
"I'll change something," Sam said with a nod. "I understand."
He looked down at his watch quickly. It was already six in the morning. Colt had been working on the gun all night, which meant that Dean had been alone all night.
"Will it take much longer?" he asked. "I don't want to rush you, but Dean... it was so cold last night..."
"Oh, don't you worry," Colt said distractedly. "You said he was gutshot? A man with a wound like that can linger for days before..." Sam didn't know what Colt saw on his face when he looked at him, but he knew it wasn't good. It was definitely enough to make him reconsider his words and turn away again. "Oh. Oh, dear. Yes, well... your brother is alive, Winchester. I can promise you that. Now, as for how much longer I will be..."
Colt stood up from the table with the gun in his hands. Sam reached for it, and Colt surrendered it to him without a word. He held his other hand out, and Colt placed thirteen shiny, new silver bullets, marked with the numbers one through thirteen, in his palm.
Colt picked his coat up from the back of his chair and walked to the door.
"Let's go find that brother of yours, shall we?"
Someone was coming.
He'd hurt too much to change position during the night, he hadn't been able to shake the bone-deep chill of spending the night outside in October, and he'd long-since lost the feeling in his legs. He was a sitting duck where he was, and he knew it, but there was nothing he could do to improve his situation. He reached for his Colt; he had no plans to kill the humans that were looking for him, and he knew that the iron wouldn't do much more than piss the vampires off, but he had no plans to just sit there and let them take him.
He intended to make a stand, even if it turned out to be his last.
His hands, though, had other ideas, and his fingers refused to open the snap on his holster. He managed to wrap them around the handle of the machete tightly enough to hold it, but his arms were too weak to lift it. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the rock, and sighed.
"Pancho?"
He opened his eyes slowly, and it took him several seconds to clear them enough to recognize Jim Edwards standing in front of him.
"Damn, Pancho. You look like hell."
Jim stepped over his legs and knelt down beside him, pulled the bloody bandana away from the wound and looked at it, then winced in sympathy.
"Nasty gutshot ya got there."
"Jim," Dean finally managed to whisper. He fought to lift his right arm and batted at Jim's coat until his fingers snagged in it. "Ya gotta listen, Jim." He was gasping for every breath he took, staring at Jim's face through eyes almost too blurry to see through, and shaking so badly that his teeth clattered. "Those men. They weren't..."
"Did ya kill 'em?" Jim asked.
Dean nodded weakly. "But... not human," he said. "Gotta... gotta b'lieve me..."
"Chopped their heads off, did ya?"
Dean nodded again. "The thing... Joe's lookin'... was them..."
Jim smiled at him, and for some reason he couldn't explain, it made Dean nervous. "They were the thing in the mountains, huh? One of 'em bit you?"
Dean blinked in confusion. "Jim... gotta run..."
Instead of running, Jim bent down and leaned closer to Dean, until he could whisper in his ear. "I know what vampires are, Pancho. And I know a hunter when I smell one."
Dean tried to pull away, but only managed to turn his head in time to see the second set of teeth descend.
Sam could see the commotion from some distance away.
He couldn't see exactly what was going on, but that didn't mean he couldn't figure out who was involved. The dust that rose from the squirming mass of what he assumed was a pissed off nest of vampires, right next to the rock formation he'd left Dean hidden in, was more than enough.
He started to jump down from his horse, but Colt reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
"Get closer, Winchester."
"They've got Dean!"
"And you can't help him if they see you coming. Circle around and get above them."
Sam nodded briskly as Colt pulled his horse across in front of him, and then he followed him. As they closed in on the rocks, he had to make a conscious effort to block out the sounds he was hearing.
"I'll start the spell as soon as you're clear of the vampires," Colt said. He took hold of Sam's reins as they pulled up behind the rocks. "Good luck and Godspeed, son."
Sam grabbed a handhold on the large rock and started to pull himself out of the saddle. He turned back to Colt quickly when a thought occurred to him.
"When you send us back, will we be in the quarry? Because if we're on foot, with Dean hurt..."
"I will manipulate the spell to make certain that you return to your time in the same place you left it," Colt said. "You have transportation there, don't you?"
Sam nodded his thanks quickly, pulled himself out of the saddle, and started climbing. The angry shouts and grunts of pain got louder when he crested the rock and crouched low to walk across it. He heard the sound of a fist striking flesh before he saw it, and he straightened to his full height.
Dean was lying face-down on the ground below him, surrounded by the same ten men that had fired on them in town. So that meant at least six vampires, two men Sam didn't know, plus Jim and Joe. Sam couldn't tell which of them had punched Dean, but Joe didn't seem to have liked it, because he was standing next to Dean with his arms spread out, holding the other men back.
Sam had a clear shot at several of the vampires, but he didn't want to take a chance on firing until he knew that Dean would be able to get himself out of the way. His mind scrambled to come up with a plan, because so far, it didn't look like he was even conscious.
"This ain't happenin' out here, Silas. I'm takin' this boy back to Laramie."
"Let us have 'im!" one of the men shouted.
"We are not gonna hang him without a trial!" Joe insisted.
One of the vampires stepped forward, a tall man with light hair and light eyes, dressed in much nicer clothes than the others. From the way the others moved aside for him, Sam assumed that was their leader.
"We don't need your permission to do what we're gonna do, Sheriff," he said calmly. "There are more of us than there are of you."
"Ain't happenin'," Joe argued. He pulled his gun carefully and held it loosely at his side. "You don't have to like what I do, but you will respect it. I am the law round here, Silas, not you."
Silas chuckled and shook his head. Sam lifted the Colt and took aim on the man's forehead.
"We ain't gonna hang him, Joe," Silas said. "But we're gettin' our kinda justice one way or 'nother. If you won't give it to us, then we'll take it." He took one more step forward, and Sam decided he'd seen enough.
"Stop right there!"
Ten heads turned up to him in unison, but the one face he wanted to see wasn't among them. Sam stared down at the men that surrounded his brother with every ounce of hatred he had in him. The only two he spared were Jim and Joe, because he knew that they had been duped by the vampires and were probably the most innocent of all the people involved.
"Lefty!" Jim shouted up at him. "What you doin' up there?"
"Jim, you and Joe, drag D... my brother out of there."
"Why?"
"Just do it!" Sam ordered. "Do it now."
Neither of them moved to do as they were told, but Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Dean moving on the ground. He lifted his head and turned it slowly, then looked up at Sam with glassy, unfocused eyes.
"Sammy..." he gasped. "Jim..."
Jim moved forward quickly, grabbed Dean under the arms, and pulled him up from the ground. Sam couldn't see if Dean's eyes rolled back or not, but the way his head fell forward made it pretty clear that he'd passed out. Joe looked at Jim in confusion.
"What are you doin'?"
"What the man with the gun said," Jim answered. "S'not gonna hurt anything. Help me."
Jim and Joe each took one of Dean's arms, and they pulled him out of the center of the circle and closer to the rocks. While they were doing that, Silas took another step forward.
"You really want to stop there," Sam said.
Silas smiled up at him. "Ya know that gun ain't gonna stop us, hunter. And there's more of us on the way."
Sam smiled back. "This ain't no ordinary gun."
Silas's grin turned feral, and his second set of teeth dropped. He jumped toward the rock Sam stood on, and almost as if on cue, the other five vampires did the same.
Two of them descended on the two men who'd joined them on the posse, pulling them to the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, and teeth. Silas and another started climbing the rock, and the other two headed for Jim and Joe, who were standing in front of Dean with their guns drawn.
Sam pulled the trigger and hit Silas right between the eyes.
The look on his face was one of shock, and he looked up at Sam in confusion. A second later, the lightning that meant the death of something evil started flashing out from the small circle in his forehead, across his eyes, and down his neck.
The other five vampires froze as he fell. But when he hit the ground, all hell broke loose.
The vampires attacked whichever human happened to be the closest. Sam took careful aim and picked them off one at a time, starting with the one closest to him and working his way out. He dropped one that was running toward Jim, and another that Joe was unloading his gun into. He finished with the two that stood over the mutilated bodies of the two unfortunate men whose names Sam didn't know.
He took a deep breath as he watched the last one fall, and he looked up across the horizon. There was a small dust cloud moving toward them, most likely Silas's reinforcements on the way. He shoved the Colt back in his holster, jumped down from the rock, and ran over to where Jim and Joe were tending to Dean.
"What the hell, Lefty?" Joe demanded.
Sam shook his head and fell to his knees at Dean's side. "The less you know, the better, Joe. But you and Jim need to clear out. There's more on the way."
"Those things!" Joe continued. "Was they... they wasn't human, was they?"
"Not anymore." Sam checked Dean's bullet wound quickly, then pressed his hand against his forehead. Dean needed a hospital, immediately, which meant they needed to get the hell out of there, but neither Jim nor Joe had moved, so he glanced up at them. "I'm serious, Joe. Take Jim and get the hell out of here. Now."
Sam felt a light tug on his sleeve, and turned back to Dean. His eyes were half-open, and so was his mouth. He was trying to say something, but his voice was so weak that Sam couldn't hear him. And all he could see was the blood that bubbled up between his teeth and trickled out the side of his mouth.
"Easy," Sam said. He smoothed Dean's hair with one hand and wiped away the offending blood with the other. "Take it easy."
Dean's lips were still moving, and he was obviously intent on what he was saying, so Sam bent down to hear what was so important.
"Jim."
It was more a breath against his cheek than a word, but Sam understood it. His message delivered, Dean passed out again. Sam let his head hang forward, closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds, and wrapped his hand around the Colt. He'd give anything for Dean to be wrong, but when he turned to face the brothers, it was obvious that he was right.
Joe was kneeling on the ground next to Sam, near Dean's feet. But Jim had pushed himself up from the ground and stood over all three of them. His teeth had already dropped.
"Jim!" Sam shouted. "Don't!"
Joe spun toward his little brother, shock and horror written plainly on his face. "God, Jimmy, no!"
But it was too late. The animal drive for blood was too strong, and Jim couldn't fight it anymore. He launched himself toward Joe and tackled him to the ground. He spun around to come back for Sam and Dean, but Sam didn't give him the chance.
"Jim." It was almost a sob that crossed Sam's lips as he pulled the trigger.
Joe was back up from the ground and moving forward fast enough that he caught Jim's body before it hit the ground.
"No, Jimmy, no!" Joe looked up at Sam, tears running down his face freely. "God damn you!"
"I'm sorry, Joe," Sam said sincerely. "I'm so sorry. He was..."
"He's my brother!"
Sam glanced back across the plain frantically. The dust being stirred up by the approaching vampires was getting closer. He grabbed Joe's arm.
"You have to get out of here!"
"Jimmy." Joe's voice broke on the name. He stood clumsily and tried desperately to drag Jim's body toward his horse. "I gotta take him back. I gotta..."
"You have to run!" Sam insisted. "There are more of them coming!"
Joe stumbled in the dirt and lost his grip on Jim's body. He forced himself to stand, wiped at the tears that streamed down his face, and tried again.
"Joe!"
"Sorry," Joe mumbled to Jim's body as it fell a second time. "God, Jimmy. I'm sorry. I'll be back for you." He pushed himself to his feet once more and dashed for his horse, jumped into the saddle and took off toward Laramie at a full gallop.
Sam closed his eyes and lowered his head. He knew that Joe wasn't going to make it back to Laramie in time. This was when he was going to turn - he'd put money on it.
But there was no more time to worry about Joe's fate, because the wind had picked up around him. True to his word, Colt had already started his spell. He lifted Dean's shoulders up from the ground, wrapped his arms around him, and pulled him close.
"Winchester!"
Sam turned his head toward the voice that called his name, and was unsurprised to see Samuel Colt standing behind him. He was taken aback, though, when he held his hand out to him.
"Give me the gun."
Sam shook his head vigorously. "No!" he said. "We need it. You don't understand. There's a demon, we can use this to..."
Colt stepped forward and put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "Yes, you could. But your brother will not be with you when you get there."
"What? Why?"
"If you take the gun with you, your father will be alive, but he will be possessed by the yellow-eyed demon. And Dean will have died on the floor of a cabin in Missouri, where he was tortured to death by that demon."
Sam looked down at Dean in his arms, pale and sweaty and dying, pulled him closer, and closed his eyes.
"Leave it with me," Colt said. "So I can leave it in my cabin for Daniel Elkins to find. So your father can take it back from the vampires. So you can have it when you need it to save them both."
Sam took a deep breath and nodded slowly. He shifted all of Dean's weight to his left arm, then reached for his holster with his right hand. He pulled the Colt out and handed it to Samuel.
"I fired seven," he said softly as he adjusted his hold on Dean. "But there are only five left when we find it."
"I am sure that someone, somewhere, will find a need to fire it one more time in the coming years," Colt said.
Colt stepped back, and Sam could hear the wind starting to rush around his ears. He glanced up at the warlock one last time.
"Thank you."
Colt nodded, and the wind grew louder.
Sam could see the ripple forming in the air in front of them, and he held Dean as tightly to his chest as he could.
"Don't worry, Sam," he heard Colt shout over the roar of the wind. "Everything that happened here was meant to be. Your future isn't changed; it's safe."
Sam bent down across Dean, sheltering his face from the rocks and dust that the wind whipped up and swirled around them. He closed his eyes and buried his face in Dean's hair.
"I gotcha, Dean," he whispered. "I'm taking you home. And I'm not letting go."
When the vortex slammed into them, Sam didn't let go.
When Sam opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the warehouse above him, the first thing he thought to do was let out an enormous sigh of relief.
His second thought was that he shouldn't have been staring up at all. He should have been laying across Dean, because they would have landed in 2007 in the same position they'd been in when they left 1882. But Dean wasn't in his arms anymore, and that wasn't right. He sat up quickly and saw Dean lying on the floor next to him. But they weren't alone.
"Joe," he breathed.
Josiah Edwards was sitting cross-legged on the floor at Dean's side, just looking down at him. Sam knew they'd both been unconscious when they arrived, and they would have been totally defenseless for several minutes at least. But he hadn't hurt them.
Why not?
Sam pulled his legs up and started to stand. Joe pulled out a knife - Dean's silver knife, Sam noticed, the one they'd traded to Jim for their clothes - and pressed it lightly against Dean's neck, and he froze in place.
"Sit down, Lefty," Joe said.
Sam did as he was told, but he didn't relax. Every nerve was on edge, every muscle primed to react if Joe made one move to actually hurt Dean.
"Joe, please."
"Who are you?" Joe's voice was devoid of all emotion, his whole demeanor a stark contrast to the rage he'd attacked Dean with - what would have been to Joe - only moments before.
"I don't..."
"It's a great song and all, but after a hundred and twenty-five years, I think I deserve to know who you really are."
"Winchester," Sam said. He brought his hand to rest against the handle of the machete under his coat, ready to draw it if he needed to. "Sam Winchester. And my brother, Dean."
Joe didn't move or speak, and Sam couldn't help but notice how eerie the silence was. The floor of the warehouse was still littered with the headless bodies and disembodied heads of the vampires he and Dean had killed there, but Joe didn't seem to notice them at all. He just sat, staring down at Dean while holding the knife against his throat, but he didn't seem eager to kill him anymore.
"I recognized you," Joe finally said. "Soon as you walked in here, I knew it was you. Tried to stay out of it, stay away from it, but the damn... the bloodlust is too powerful. I can't stop it." Joe almost smiled, but to Sam, he just looked sad. It was not an emotion that Sam had often seen on any vampire, and definitely not one that he'd expected to see on that one. "More than a century I been tryin' to find you. This ain't exactly how I wanted it to go."
Joe was still looking down at Dean, and the knife hadn't moved, but his face had softened considerably. Sam thought he looked regretful, almost wistful, but he didn't have time to worry about that. He had to get Dean out of there.
"I helped you save him."
Sam swallowed hard and nodded his head. "Yes, you did."
"I helped you save yer brother," Joe's voice was hardening, and Sam's grip on his machete handle tightened. "And you repaid me by killin' mine and lettin' 'em drag me off and turn me into a monster!"
They moved almost in unison. Joe leaned forward with the knife, pressing it deeper into the skin on Dean's throat, while Sam leaped to his feet, pulled his machete, and held it against Joe's neck.
"Get away from him," Sam commanded.
Joe didn't move, and for a second looked like he was considering pressing harder.
"Damn it, Joe, don't make me do this," Sam said.
"I know it's not really yer fault. I'm the one couldn't save him," Joe said sadly. "I was supposed to. My baby brother was a vampire, and I didn't even know. For months, at least. Maybe years." Joe looked up with at Sam, bloodshot eyes full of pain. "How d'ya not notice yer own brother's turned into a monster?"
"I don't want to kill you."
"Ya did five minutes ago!" Joe argued, but he still didn't move away from Dean.
"Five minutes ago, I didn't know you. Now I do." Sam surprised himself by admitting it, but once he had, there was no taking it back. And it was true. The urge to kill the vampire was strong, but the desire to not kill the man that Josiah Edwards had been was stronger. "Five minutes ago, I hadn't talked to you, or had a beer with you. Five minutes ago, you hadn't risked your life to save my brother. Now you have."
Joe looked up at him, and Sam could see the telltale streaks of red around his eyes, the extra row of teeth that had descended over his normal ones, and he couldn't deny what was sitting right in front of him. Joe was a vampire, had been one for a hundred and twenty-five years. Could who Joe Edwards had once been really make a difference in what he had become?
"It was his blood they used," Joe said. "When they turned me. Wasn't even five minutes after you was gone, they caught up to me. Held me down on the ground and made me drink my own brother's blood."
"I'm sorry." And he was, sincerely.
"The first thing I did when I woke up was kill them. All of 'em. With my bare hands. Ripped their heads clean off. But it wasn't enough. Because Jimmy was still dead, and I shoulda been but wasn't. But do ya know what the worst part was?"
Sam shook his head slowly.
"Realizin' I can't die when there's nothin' else in the world I wanna do."
This was the Josiah Edwards that Sam knew. This was Joe, who loved his little brother, followed him wherever he went, and gave everything to protect him. He understood why Dean had wanted so badly to warn Joe about what was coming for him, and why Dean had taken such a quick liking to him.
"Please, Joe, just... put the knife down, okay? Move away from him."
Joe shook his head slowly and looked back down at Dean. "If I cut him, you'll take my head off, right?"
"Yes," Sam answered truthfully. "I will."
"Do I have to cut him? Or will ya do it just on me askin'? Cause I really like Pan... Dean, here. Done saved his life once. Seems kinda foolish to go hurtin' him any worse'n I already have." Joe tilted his head and looked at the blood on Dean's shirt. "I'm guessin' that's my bullet in him, ain't it?"
Sam nodded slowly.
"Well, then, get to choppin' already!" Joe said. He laid the knife down on the ground next to Dean's leg, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "All the killin' and the... eatin'. Drinkin' innocent people. Hated myself every damn time, but I couldn't stop. Been livin' like this for a hundred twenty-five years, waitin' for the day somebody'd fix it. I'd'a done it myself, but ya know how hard it is to cut yer own head off?"
"No," Sam said softly.
"Well, it ain't that easy, let me tell ya."
"No, Joe, I mean... no." Sam pulled the machete away from Joe's neck and let it hang loosely at his side.
Joe looked back up at him, red-rimmed eyes wide in confusion. "Ya want me to cut 'im?"
"No," Sam said again quickly, shaking his head. "Don't hurt him. But I'm not going to kill you."
"Why not?" Joe demanded as he pushed himself to his feet. "S'what you do, ain't it? Yer a hunter, right? You kill the monsters? Well, here I am! Kill me!"
"No." His voice was growing stronger every time he said it.
"I shouldn't'a outlived him!"
"I'm not going to do it."
"Damn you!" Joe reached for the silver knife again.
"Help me, Joe."
"Help you what?" His hand stopped before it reached the knife, and he looked up at Sam in suspicion.
"Help me get Dean out of here and to a hospital."
"An' why'd I wanna do that?"
"Because you like him," Sam said with a small smile. "Because you couldn't save your brother, but you can help me save mine. Because you're not a monster, you're a good man. And because I know someone who can help you."
Epilogue