FIC: Metaphysical (Supernatural AU, Gen, R, 7/8)
Previous Part | Master Post
New York, New York
"First thing we need to do is find a place to stay," said Dean, standing with his back against his automobile and looking over at Sam. "Someplace that grubby hands aren't going to be pawing all over Tessa. She's put on a lot of miles since Chicago. She could use a little pampering."
New York, unlike San Francisco or Chicago, was not a city of personal automobiles, but in some neighborhoods there were still a lot to be seen, tucked away in tiny cobblestone lanes and behind wrought iron gates. New York streets were not a place where Dean wanted to leave something so precious unattended.
"You need someplace that will board your automobile as well as your person," said Sam, "and I think you're not likely to find it within the city."
Dean was inclined to agree, but then this was New York. Surely he could find anything he really needed. It was the price of that anything that was more of a concern.
"I mended the tent when we were back in Akron, during that storm," he said finally, laying out what was probably their best option. "At least we know it doesn't have bedbugs."
Spring was rising, after all, and though the threat of cold and snowstorms still loomed, it wasn't what it had been even a month ago. Camping was no longer a torturous option.
"If you've ever considered a career in sales, I'd seriously suggest rethinking it right now," said Sam, leaning against Tessa as well as he surveyed the city across the river. "If the tent's greatest feature is that it lacks bedbugs, I might take my chances in the city."
"We need to stop and make a plan anyhow," said Dean. "I don't know where to start, and your visions aren't that forthcoming with the addresses. Or has that crazy brain of yours coughed up some more information when I wasn't looking?"
"I haven't had a vision since the last one you witnessed," said Sam, shaking his head. "And frankly, I don't want to."
"Figures that Dad would give you a bigger headache than most. You want me to try to get my hands on some morphine?" said Dean, watching him with a certain amount of brotherly concern. "That last one seemed like it did a real number on your head."
"I'm more worried that a dose of morphine will interfere with what the visions are trying to tell me," said Sam. "Though if you ask me afterwards, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't say no. The pain can be... indescribable."
"You can't just tell your brother you're in indescribable pain and not expect him to do something about it," said Dean. "I'll take care of it tomorrow. You should've said something, Sammy."
"I'm fine, Dean," he insisted. "And I'm sure I'll continue to be fine."
"Right up until your head splits open again," said Dean. There was no room for argument here. He wasn't going to force it down Sam's throat, but he was going to have something on hand, just in case. "Which don't get me wrong, I'm not encouraging. But it'd be nice to know where we're going. I don't think I've ever worked a job this blind before."
"It's not exactly a job," said Sam.
"It's not exactly not a job either," said Dean. "We're hunting something. That's a job. That's the job. This is the job that we did every other job to get to."
"Yes, I suppose it is," said Sam. "Look, this is New York, you can find a dozen card games just by turning your head in the right direction, each one as anonymous as the last. Win us some money and we'll get a nice hotel, someplace you can keep Tessa."
"If we're going to be stuck in New York, we might as well enjoy the amenities," agreed Dean grudgingly. "We could take in a show, see the sights."
"It's a big city," said Sam, crossing his arms. "But somewhere in it's something we're looking for."
"We're just as likely to find it at a burlesque show as anywhere, right?" said Dean, a grin creeping onto his face in spite of him. "Maybe I don't hate New York so much after all."
: : :
The Garnet Hotel was not swank, like many of those that they passed on the streets, but it was warm and clean and offered Dean a space for Tessa so long as he let their mechanic get a good look at her. It seemed, to all involved, a fair trade. But finding one person in New York, particularly a person who didn't want to be found, definitely was the proverbial needle in the haystack.
"Maybe we're not supposed to be in New York after all," suggested Sam. "There was nothing definitively tying either Pamela's information or my visions to this spot exactly."
"I know you're tired of staying put," said Dean. "Hell, I'm tired of staying put too, and you've had a lot more practice than me at it. But let's not second guess everything now. You saw Dad in you vision, Sam, and I know all too well now that they're the real deal. And besides, did you read this morning's paper? Electrical storm kicked up on the east side yesterday out of nowhere."
"Omens," said Sam, and Dean could actually see his resolve firming. "Any other incidents to back it up?"
"Unfortunately, I don't think mutilated animals are big news in New York City, so that one's out," said Dean. "No doubt in my mind what this is, though. We've seen it too much lately, Sam."
"So we keep looking," said Sam, pacing the room. "All right. We can do that."
"No," said Dean, "tonight we go out for a little entertainment. Then we keep looking. We've earned this, Sammy."
"You just want to see some women in their underthings," said Sam.
"You have no idea how long it's been," said Dean. "I should've taken Pamela up on it while I had the opportunity."
"Pamela never intended to let you so much as snap her garters and you know it," said Sam with a longsuffering sigh. "All right, we can go out but I get to pick the show. And if you've still got a hankering for female underthings after that, you can go find a kinetoscope parlor on your own and hope it has a seedy back room."
"They all have seedy back rooms, Sam," he said. "Some of them have seedy front rooms, too."
"Well, if anyone would know that, I suppose it would be you," said Sam. "Some of us have higher standards."
"All right, all right, you can pick the show. Just make it something good."
The poster outside the theater Sam chose advertised Sam Lucas as its headliner, along with the Kindle Sisters, Jack Lampkin's Magical Emporium and the Amazing Ava, the Girl who Dances with Fire.
"Acceptable?" said Sam.
"Let's just hope the Amazing Ava dances in her underskirts," said Dean, letting Sam pay for their tickets (with money, as always, from Dean's stash) and leading the way inside, straight up to the balcony and tucked up against the wall.
"I once heard of a man who can play an ocarina through his arsehole," said Dean. "Now that is something I'd like to see one day."
"This is why I get to choose the shows," said Sam.
The Kindle Sisters were cute in that precocious pre-teen way, Jack Lampkin came very close to actually drawing blood (a popular decision, from the hoots of the audience) and the resident strong man really could lift a fully attired woman with one arm, much to the chagrin of the woman from the audience who found herself in an undignified position by the end of it. But it was the Amazing Ava that really caught his attention.
"Can you tell how she's doing it?" hissed Dean in his brother's direction, watching as flashes of fire appeared around her as she danced, seeming to come out of nowhere and sometimes following her motions as she dipped and turned.
"No," said Sam, sounding troubled by the fact. "There must be someone controlling the gas in the back."
"No pipes," said Dean, "and no source of ignition." He would suspect a hidden sparking device if the ignition had been, well, hidden. But even to Dean's sharp, trained eye the trick to the act was invisible.
Which was maddening because the Amazing Ava's costume was, in fact, as immodest as Dean had hoped, and the fire dance both titillating and provocative.
"You think it's worth looking into?"
"You just want to meet the Amazing Ava," said Sam.
"Consider it a perk."
They didn't stay for the airship captain's thrilling tales of adventure in the Philippine Islands, and they heard the musical stylings of Sam Lucas - just as good as Dean had always been led to believe they were - only from backstage as they hustled their way in, looking for the Amazing Ava.
"Are you allowed to be ba--?"
"I'm with the airship act," said Dean, and with his standard attire no one questioned him, the force of his personality carrying Sam along in his wake.
They found her in a dressing room, which was crowded with heavily made up girls only momentarily before every last one of them but the Amazing Ava scurried out past the Winchesters and onto the stage to perform their number.
"Unless the two of your are planning on putting on a wig and a dress, you're not allowed back here," she said as she wiped her lipstick off with a damp handkerchief.
Dean answered by closing the door behind them, which certainly got her full attention.
"I'm not as defenseless as I look," she said, shoulders square and facing them down.
"That's just the thing," said Dean. "We don't think you're defenseless at all, Ava. If that is your real name."
"No, Mr. and Mrs. Ava named their daughter 'Amazing'," she said dryly. "Five more seconds and I scream."
"No, wait," Sam interrupted. "Look, we just want to ask you a couple of questions, and they're the sort of questions that you might not want to have overheard."
"Two seconds."
"How do you start the fires?" said Sam.
At that, she just smirked and stopped her countdown. "I don't give away the secret to my act," she said. "Even the producers of the show don't know how I do it, so I don't know why you think I'm going to tell you."
"Yes, I'll bet they don't know," said Dean. "I'll bet they don't know because you're not using gas or electricity or any other scientific means in your fire dance, are you, Ava? You're doing it yourself." And with a tap to his temple as he said it, he made it clear just what 'yourself' was supposed to mean.
Sam knew they'd hit their mark when her expression closed down and her eyes grew guarded. "Who are you?"
"So we're right, then," said Dean. "Don't worry, we're not going to tell your boss."
"The other guy said you people were going to leave me alone," she said. "He said he got what he needed."
Sam felt himself go very, very still, barely able to turn his head to look at his brother. "What other guy?" said Dean finally. "Did he give you a name? Can you describe him to us?"
"No, I'm done, get out," she said. "Get out before I scream. There's a strong man out there who's just aching to do more than lift housewives on stage."
"No, wait," said Sam. "Wait, we're not... I have abilities too. I get visions. And I know a boy who's telekinetic. We're not here with bad intentions, I promise you."
"Then why so curious about my previous callers?" she said. She might not have necessarily believed him, but at least it was enough to keep her from screaming. "You sound more interested in him than me."
"We might be," said Dean frankly. "Please, what did he look like?"
"I don't know," she said. "Tall, slim, clean-shaven, brownish hair? It was a couple of years ago, and he was never particularly distinctive."
Sam hadn't realized he was hoping for one description in particular until hers didn't match his father. But then, if it hadn't been their father, then who?
"Was there anything about him, anything at all, that was memorable?" She was clearly uncomfortable with the questioning, but she hadn't yet let out the threatened scream so they persisted.
"There was one thing," she said, "but it was probably a trick of the light."
"Did it look like his eyes went black?" said Dean.
"No, not black," she said. "A gold or a yellow. It was the oddest thing."
Well, that was a new one on Sam, and apparently on Dean, too. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, and the man just another hunter noticing the same things they had. But then what hunter would promise that no others would ever bother her? Or maybe the eyes meant it was something they hadn't encountered before.
"This is going to sound like a strange question," said Sam, "but did you lose your mother when you were small?"
"How did you know that?" she said warily. "She died saving me from a fire when I was a baby."
Sam was increasingly coming to believe that a fire wasn't what they were truly saved from. Or maybe that they hadn't, in the end, been saved in time at all.
"The same thing happened to me," he said finally, as Dean stood a little taller, looked a little more watchful. "To us."
"So what am I supposed to do now?" she said. "Why did you have to tell me all of this? What does it mean?"
"We don't know," said Dean. "We don't know what it means. And you shouldn't do anything, you should just keep on doing what you do exactly how you do it. We need to go."
"Yes, I think you do," she said, swallowing hard.
"Oh, and the man you met, the one who told you he and his people were going to leave you alone?" said Dean. "Don't believe them, Ava. Be careful, all right?"
: : :
Dean intended to talk to Sam about everything as soon as they were out of the theater, finding a convenient eatery to sit in instead of taking the time to go back to their hotel, but the moment they exited they saw her. And this time she saw them, too, vanishing around a corner almost as instantly as she had appeared.
"Sam, did you...?"
"Meg," he said, and was even quicker than Dean to sprint across the street to the corner. When they arrived, though, she was completely out of sight.
"Doesn't want us to follow this time."
"Which means we must," said Sam. "The human body she's borrowing has limitations. She must be nearby still; she can't have simply vanished."
It certainly didn't seem that way, but his reasoning was sound, and so they scoured the street, looking in every doorway, on every balcony, in every alleyway, until Sam caught a glimpse of her ahead and tugged Dean in the right direction.
"Where the hell is she going?"
"I think she knows we've spotted her," said Sam, tilting his head back and looking up.
"We're not near the airship terminal," said Dean without looking. "I know we're not."
"No, but I think she's heading for the one place she thinks you'll no longer be willing to follow." Dean looked up then, and saw what Sam saw, what he should've seen all along. The tallest building on the street. The tallest building in the whole damn city.
"No, Sam," he said, feeling a phantom ache in his ankle and his chest just at the thought.
But his feet were still moving, drawing him towards it, following that distant bob of uncovered blonde hair far ahead of them on the street. The last place he wanted to go was that building, but for this he would. For this he'd scale it, right to the top.
If Meg thought it would stop him from catching up with her, from trapping her and extracting every bit of information about her father out of her, then she had sorely underestimated him.
"I can go alone--"
"Like hell you can," said Dean, practically snarling the words out. "If she wants to play that game, then we'll play it with her. All she'll be doing is trapping herself. You've still got that diagram that Bobby gave us?"
"For the seal of Solomon?" said Sam. "It never leaves my person, Dean."
"Good," he said. "I think we might finally have the chance to use it."
If it worked the way Bobby said it would, then Dean was going to have some fun with it. And if it didn't, well, they'd find out before they tried it on the big man himself.
"Do you think she was at the theater looking for Ava?" said Sam, grabbing Dean's sleeve again so they didn't get separated by the carriage heading up the street and right at them.
"It all adds up, doesn't it?" said Dean. "Maybe her daddy didn't really want you after all. Maybe he just wanted someone like you."
"Or maybe he wants a complete set," said Sam. "I hope Ava takes our advice."
"Whether she does or she doesn't, we have bigger problems right now," said Dean.
The Singer Building stood head and shoulders above the rest of the street, looking impossibly tall when Dean looked up from the base of it. They hadn't been wrong. Meg, or someone who looked just like her, had vanished inside the doors not far ahead of them. But Dean forced his feet forward, through those doors and towards the unmanned and completely automated elevator.
She knew they were behind her. If she didn't know they were behind her, she wouldn't have come here. Dean knew that, and yet somehow still, in the back of his mind, he hoped they were arriving with the element of surprise.
"What do you think the odds are that she stopped at the mezzanine?"
Sam just looked at him and pressed the switch to call the elevator, and Dean hoped that no one arrived to check for identification. He hadn't gone to the theater prepared for this kind of pursuit, after all. It seemed a little absurd, to be standing in pursuit of someone, but while the stairwell was only a few feet away, scrambling up forty-some-odd floors, while feeling more productive, would ultimately just slow them down.
The forty-sixth floor - the last they could reach by elevator - was deserted when they reached it. The offices had long since closed for the day and Meg, too, was nowhere to be found.
Well, he hadn't expected her to be waiting for them, after all, but the quiet was eerie. Especially a quiet highlighted by the whistle of wind from outside the windows, whipping over the viewing balcony that wrapped around the floor. With his head, he motioned for Sam to take one direction while he took the other, but while Sam rounded the corner quickly, Dean hadn't gone more than a dozen steps before he felt something impact with the base of his skull and drive him to his knees.
"Sometimes the old ways are the best ways," came Meg's voice from behind him as Dean struggled not to see stars. "That was so much more satisfying than just pushing you around."
"Satisfy this," muttered Dean, swinging one of his legs out and catching her ankle, bringing her down to the floor as well. Not as satisfying as exorcising her back to hell, but satisfying enough.
He flipped himself over onto his back, still waiting for his vision to clear, and managed to catch her scowl as she had to pick herself up as well. And further up the dim corridor behind her, Dean caught sight of Sam returning to investigate the commotion. He tried to tell him with his eyes, in the quick look he dared himself, that he had this under control, that Sam should set the trap.
He didn't know if the message was received or not, but when he looked back again Sam was gone.
Meg didn't bother with swinging a brick at his head this time, going straight to the mind mojo, sliding him back across the floor. But not before Dean had time to slip the holy water out of his coat and splash some in her direction, keeping her from pushing him very far.
"Where are your friends this time?" he said.
"Oh, they're around," she said, but if they were around here, they'd have shown their faces by now. "How's that ankle, Dean? Still holding up, is it?"
"The ankle's fine. How's your face?"
"As lovely as ever."
"Let me see what I can do about that," said Dean, shaking his head one last time and struggling to his feet as she shook off the impact of the holy water. "There's more where that came from."
"Is that all you've got?" she said. "If it is, this is going to be child's play, Dean. You go over the railing and Sammy comes with me."
"If I go over the railing Sammy isn't going anywhere with you," said Dean, "and you know it. Was that supposed to scare me?"
"Did it work?" she said. "Are you trembling? You look as though you're trembling, Dean."
He was, but so slightly he was sure it wasn't visible, not even to a demon like Meg. He wasn't going over the railing. He wasn't going near the railing. And Sam wasn't going with her, no matter what it took.
Not that he thought that's what they were doing here. Demons lied, and they never stopped.
"Only with anticipation," he said, struggling to his feet on an ankle that remembered the pain of an earlier fall, from a much greater height. "You have no idea what you're in for."
"Oh, I think I have an idea," she said. "Where's your little brother, Dean?"
"Right here," said Sam, slamming the back of her head with the butt of his full-bore scattergun, pulled from the folds of his coat. He took her arms and Dean took her ankles and they'd moved her halfway up the corridor before she managed to push them both away from her, landing on her feet and whirling on Sam. He was ready with the holy water, catching her shoulder and neck with it. "How badly do you want me?"
"Why Mr. Winchester," she said, "had I know you were so forward the day we met I mightn't have answered your questions at all."
"Was that you, that day?" said Sam. "Did I meet you, or did I meet the girl who had that body before you?"
"I don't think I want to answer that," she said, taking a step forward for every step that Sam took back. "I don't think I want to answer any of your questions at all."
"Oh, you'll answer our questions," said Dean. "No matter what it takes."
"I think that's something that's going to take a lot more than you have to give," she said.
Suddenly she stopped, right as they reached the corner of the outside corridor, and looked up at the ceiling. Just a couple of steps further around that corner would have brought her into the trap Sam had hastily scrawled on the ceiling with a piece of chalk.
"Oh, that's precious," she said. "I want to take that home with me to show the family."
"You're not going anywhere," said Dean, standing blocking her way in one direction while Sam blocked the other.
"Oh, I think I am," she said, and in one smooth motion to the side, completely unanticipated, she crashed the glass window and landed on the terrace outside. Immediately the wind came whistling into the building, scattering bits of glass everywhere and making the sharp fragments still attached to the window frame shake under its force.
She'd left him with no choice. Dean was going out.
Meg hadn't gone far; that body was broken and bleeding, held together by force of ill will alone. One hand on the railing, wind whipping her hair, she looked back at Dean with a twisted smile on her face.
"I've got a secret," she sing-songed at him through cracked lips.
"Yeah, I'll just bet you do," he said. "And that's exactly what we intend to get out of you."
"Oh?" she said, raising seared eyebrows. "You want to know my secret?"
"We want to know all your secrets," said Dean, leaning in close to snarl in her face. "And we will, with a little time and pressure."
"I'll save you the trouble," she said, leaning even closer, close enough to whisper. "Here's my secret, Dean. You're on the wrong coast.."
"We're what?" he said, wide-eyed, leaning away from her again.
She smiled that same smile again, twisted and cruel, then before Dean could so much as make a grab at her blouse she was leaning back over the railing and tumbling thirty-five stories to the rooftop below.
Dean rushed the railing and stared at her crumpled, unmoving body until he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder.
"What did she say?" he asked, squeezing hard. "Dean, what did she say?"
"She said we have to go," said Dean, finally stumbling back from the railing. "We need to get out of New York, Sam."
"Not that I'm not keen to get out of the city, Dean, but demons lie," said Sam, letting go of him so they could move back towards the safety of the building. "She might just want to get rid of us."
"No," said Dean, shaking his head. "Getting us here to this city, that was messing with us. Dad's nowhere near New York City, Sam, not now, maybe not ever. He's not even on this coast!"
"You don't know that," said Sam.
"No, but you do," said Dean. "God damn it, I should have listened to you, listened to your doubts. Your vision, it never was of this city."
"It was impossible to tell, Dean," said Sam, "we couldn't have-- damn it!"
Sam swore so infrequently that Dean took particular notice when he did. "What, what is it?" he said. "Sam?"
"There was something... in the vision, in the back of my head... if I'd only realized sooner."
"Realized what, Sam?" said Dean, raising his voice over the sound of the wind.
"The building I saw, the reason I thought it looked familiar. It wasn't because I'd seen it on a picture or a postcard, Sam, it's because it's outside of San Francisco. That's where we need to go. That's where we're going to meet Dad."
They were on the wrong coast, and who knew how much time they'd wasted chasing after Meg, when their real target was going in the other direction all along.
Riverton, Maryland
Sam understood just how determined Dean was to cross the country when they drove through the night, barely speaking, stopping only to top up the water while they could, lest they run out at any inopportune place. He knew they couldn't keep up this pace once they got further west, but Dean seemed determined to make the best time he could while the roads were still good.
Sam managed to get a little sleep while they were on the road, but the dawn light reflecting off the front-end gauges woke him before long, and he stretched as best he could within the confines of the automobile.
Dean was still silent and grim, and Sam was content to wait and watch the scenery pass by until Dean wanted to break the silence.
"Just tell me you don't think we're going to be too late," said Dean finally, out of the blue. "Tell me this whole mad trip isn't in vain."
"I don't know, Dean," said Sam, "but I have the feeling that Dad isn't there yet. I think he's still on the road, just like us, and Tyr is a great horse, but he doesn't have the stamina Tessa has. And you know dad, there's no way he's leaving him behind."
"Right," said Dean. "Yes, you're right. If he headed west right after Chicago, though, he would long since have arrived in San Francisco."
"If he headed west straightaway," said Sam. "He's following the same signs and omens we are. And I checked, Dean; there were no indications he should go to San Francisco - or anywhere in California - during the time we were heading for New York. None at all. More likely he headed down to Tennessee or Arkansas; I don't know if it's anything, but there were some indications that something was going on down there just this past week."
"Then it's a good thing we're heading through that way," said Dean, eyes on the road and hands clenched so hard around the steering wheel his knuckles were white. "I can't believe they fooled us that way. Drawing us right to the wrong coast!"
"It wasn't a wasted trip, Dean," said Sam, but he too felt the frustration of that detour, and of this entire hunt, beginning to wear down on him. "We learned things in New York that we didn't already know."
"I hate feeling like they're leading us around by the nose, Sammy! They're always a step ahead of us, both them and Dad."
"Well, we've got the advantage of knowing where we're going now," said Sam, "and I'll bet they don't know that. We can prepare, Dean. We'll be ready."
"We'd better be," said Dean, and drove a little faster.
Lawrenceburg, Tennessee
There was still snow on the road, a light dusting, but it was nothing compared to what they would've encountered if they'd tried to travel any further north. The northern route was the more familiar, the more used, but the southern route, this time of year, was the faster.
"We should stop for the night soon," said Sam, "unless you're heading somewhere particular. You need sleep, Dean."
"Don't you know where we are?" said Dean.
Sam squinted at the landscape, but at sunset with a layer of snow all over it didn't ring any bells.
"No, I guess you wouldn't," said Dean. "He was still up in Blue Earth when you left for school, wasn't he? We're no more than five miles from Pastor Jim's church, Sammy. Hot meals and warm beds for the night. "
After the past few days, Sam had to admit that sounded heavenly, and he didn't care if that meant he'd been spoilt by his years in Palo Alto. There was such a thing as driving yourself so hard you were no good to anyone, and if Dean drove his automobile off the road because he wasn't getting enough rest they would never make it to San Francisco in the first place.
"I haven't seen him in years," said Sam. "He sent me a letter once, though. At school. Just to see how I was getting on."
"Huh," said Dean, his gaze not even flickering towards Sam. Sam had always wondered how Jim Murphy had known where to find him, since Sam certainly hadn't had the opportunity to tell him, but he thought now he knew just how it had happened. "Well, you two were always close."
"When I was a kid," agreed Sam. "He was always there when...."
"Dad wasn't?"
"Dad never understood me," said Sam. "Pastor Jim always did. I wish we hadn't lost touch."
It was his fault, he knew that, but at the time he'd been so determined to cut ties, before he realized what an impossible task that really was. And by the time he did, it was hard to go back.
"I bet Dad would understand you now," said Dean quietly. Sam bet his father would understand him all too well now. He knew he understood his father far better than he ever thought he would.
Pastor Jim's church was the centerpiece of a tiny, nameless village, small enough to look suspiciously upon the arrival of strangers and large enough to notice they'd arrived. They were met at the steps of the church by a man in a black suit, hair disheveled and expression somber.
"What's your business here?"
"Hey," said Dean, raising his hands to protest his innocence. "It's okay, we're old friends of Pastor Jim Murphy. We were passing through and wanted to pay him a visit."
"Old friends, you say?" he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Since we were kids," said Sam, trying to see past him into the church, wondering what this was all about. "We used to stay with him sometimes, up in Blue Earth. I've been away at university."
His expression cleared a little at that, though not entirely. "Well, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, then," he said, "but his funeral was yesterday."
"The...." Dean began, staring in obvious disbelief. "Pastor Jim is dead? When? How?"
"We don't know what happened," he said. "We found him with his throat cut on the sanctuary floor." Then, finally, he offered his hand. "I'm sorry for the less than warm welcome, but it's been a terrible week here. My name's Jimmy. I served as Jim's secretary, when he required one."
"Jim and Jimmy," said Dean, and almost smiled. Jimmy did smile, though it was a bittersweet one.
"That's what the congregation used to say," he said.
"Well, I'm Dean and this here is Sam. Winchester," he said. "This is just so hard to believe. I knew Jim before I even learned how to read. I can't believe someone would want to hurt him that way."
It was bait, Sam knew that, but at the same time there was a certain sincerity to it. If anyone were to survive the evils of the world, it should've been Jim Murphy.
"I saw the... the body," said Jimmy, lowering his voice. "I know the horrors or mankind are myriad, but the way his blood was drained like that... it's hard to believe it was human."
"Well, like you said, mankind is capable of terrible things," said Sam, and wondered if they'd have the chance to check for traces of sulfur, or if it was already too late. "I'm sorry for your loss. You must have been close."
"He was a true friend and a faithful man of God," said Jimmy sorrowfully. "He'll be missed by all of us."
"He'll be missed by a lot of people," said Dean, and Sam knew he was thinking not only of themselves but of the vast network of hunters across the continent. "I hope whoever or whatever did this will be made to pay."
"God saw what happened here," said Jimmy. "Somehow, in some way, justice will be served."
"Do you mind if we spend some time in the church?" said Sam. "In some way, I believe he's still here."
"Of course," said Jimmy. "Wait, you said your last name was Winchester?"
"We did," said Dean, his attention captured. "Did another Winchester pass through here recently?"
"Not that I'm aware of," he said, "but Jim had me post a letter to a Winchester just the day before he passed. A John Winchester, if I recall correctly."
"Pastor Jim sent Dad a letter?" said Sam. "Do you happen to know what it was about?"
"No, I'm afraid it was a private correspondence," he said. "Signed and sealed before it ever passed into my hands. Jim was adamant it be posted as soon as possible."
"Where?" said Dean urgently. "Where did you post it to? What address?"
"Now that I recall," said Jimmy. "It was care of a saloon in Nebraska, which did at the time strike me as unusual."
"Harvelle's Roadhouse, I presume," said Dean, giving Sam a look that was easy to interpret. It was no mystery where they were headed next.
"The very same," he said. "I take it you're familiar with it?"
"Well, the letter was addressed to our father," said Dean. One thing didn't have to do with the other, but it was as good an explanation as any. "I guess we'd better catch up with him. It sounds like something important."
Sam nodded slowly and swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't suppose you know of anyplace nearby where we might hire a room for the night?" he said. "We'd counted on staying with Jim."
"I think if the pastor were with us he'd insist you do just that," he said. "His house has been sitting empty since his passing, and if you'd be willing to give the place a little life again, if only for one night, I think the congregation would insist you stay as well."
"That's very kind of you," said Dean. "It'd be... nice to feel close to him, this one last time. Thank you." Sam nodded his agreement and let Dean do the talking. All his thoughts about a reunion with the man who, for a time, had been like a father to him, and this was what it came to. Too late even for the funeral.
The demon was going to pay, no matter what it took.
Memphis, Tennessee
"What, did everyone decide the other side of the Mississippi looked prettier today?" said Dean, standing up in his stationary vehicle and looking at the mess of wagons and buggies in front of him. "If they'd just let me go I could've beat the train across."
"And if you hadn't, Dean?"
"I could've gotten out of its way, no problem," said Dean. "You haven't even seen my rockets yet."
"I will concede that you drive the finest automobile on the road," said Sam, "and I will caress every inch of her if you ask it of me, but I won't believe there are rockets hidden in her tubes and valves somewhere."
"I wouldn't call them hidden," said Dean, remaining standing as he impatiently watched the train go by. "They're just not perfected yet, that's all."
"What does that mean, exactly, 'not perfected'?" said Sam.
"I haven't quite worked out a steering mechanism yet," he admitted. "Or brakes."
"Dean?"
"Yes, Sam?"
"Don't use the rockets."
"I wouldn't have to if they'd let us on the bridge," said Dean. "There's plenty of room for me to drive alongside the train. I've been in tighter situations."
"I seem to remember being in a tighter situation with you," said Sam. It felt like a hundred years ago though, the locomotive race at Jericho Station. Jessica had still been alive. Sam had still been a university student.
It was at Jericho Station that he'd first met Meg.
"So what do you say, do you think they could stop us if we tried?"
"I think they'd stop us at the other side," said Sam, "and you wouldn't have to worry about your lack of a braking system. You might give the papers something to write about though."
Dean tapped his fingers against the top of Tessa's windshield and glared at the slow-moving train. Or what Sam was sure he considered a slow-moving train; all things considered, Sam thought it was going at a respectable speed.
"Just a few more minutes," said Sam, but the words seemed to do more to incite Dean than soothe him. "Just think about how far it would be to drive north to the next bridge, and waiting out the train won't seem so bad."
"Next time I have time to tinker with her, I'm adding a paddling system strong enough to handle the Mississippi."
"Tessa is an amazing automobile, Dean, but she can't be all things," said Sam. "Look, you can see the end of it now."
"I'm going to run down these buggies," said Dean, finally sitting back down again. He'd left Tessa running; all he needed to do was let the throttle out and they were on their way. Which, as soon as the train had passed and traffic had been signaled, he did, shooting out past half the people in front of him and onto the bridge.
"Don't actually kill anyone," said Sam dryly. "We can't afford the delay."
"Don't I know it," said Sam, but he didn't actually relax until they were safe on the other side and on their way again.
Sloan, Arkansas
The language Dean used when they blew out a tire just outside the border of Oklahoma Territory was startling even for Sam, who'd spend most of his life with his brother and father.
"C'mon baby," he said when he was done with his tantrum, stroking her glossy paint. "You wouldn't do this to me here, would you? It's three miles to the nearest town, and God only knows how long to get a replacement tire here."
"I don't think sweet talking her is going to work this time," said Sam regretfully, already putting his things together for the walk back the way they'd just come. "We might as well get going while there's still light."
"Oh no," said Dean. "I'm not leaving my baby here unattended."
"Then what would you suggest we do?" said Sam. "Wait and hope that the next rainstorm brings spare tires falling from the sky?"
"As convenient as that would be," said Dean, "no. I'll stay with her and you head back into town."
"To do what?" said Sam. "I haven't the first clue what you'll need to fix Tessa."
"All right," said Dean, stroking his automobile again. "You stay with her and I'll go back into town. If I'm lucky they'll have a spare in Little Rock. If I have to go any further afield, we could be here for days, Sammy. We don't have time to be here for days."
Sam wasn't particularly pleased to be left on his own in the wilderness, but he had a veritable arsenal at his disposal so it wasn't as though he was going to be helpless and alone. Dean would actually be the more vulnerable.
"Wear your warm boots," he said instead of explicitly agreeing. "If you catch cold we'll be delayed even longer."
"I don't need to be told to wear my warm boots," said Dean, but nonetheless he grumbled as he changed into them, and packed up what things he'd need for the walk. "I'll be back tonight no matter what, Sammy."
"Dean, don't be foolhardy. If it's dark, just pass the night in town."
"No, I'll be back tonight," he insisted. "Take care of her, Sammy. And yourself."
"It's nice to know which you put first," said Sam, but he gave Dean a smile and a wave as Dean headed off down the dirt road and then settled in for a long wait. At least he still had daylight, and his father's journal to thumb through while he had this time to himself.
Sam had started keeping a journal of his own back in Nebraska, after Jess, after he realized that this was his life again and it was possible it always would be. So far, though, it was filled only with notes about demons: how to find them, trap them and banish them. That, and a handful of pictures from the road, of Dean and Bobby and Pamela and Tessa and those few other things that caught his eye. Maybe, for him, that was what his journal really needed to be - a record of his entire life, and not just one piece of it.
He read the first pages of his father's journal for what had to be the tenth time, because those first pages of the journal somehow had more of his father and less of the hunter in them. It was his father as Sam didn't remember him, aching, confused, vulnerable, angry at the world and terrified of it at the same time. Terrified for his sons. Desperate to avenge his wife.
Now, after Jess, Sam finally understood a lot of what his father went through back then, and Sam didn't have two small children to somehow care for on top of everything else. He might not understand all the choices his father made, but he understood why he made them now.
It was long after dark when Dean returned, stubborn bastard that he was, trekking along the open road with only a single, hand-held lantern to light his way.
"Told you I'd be back," he said, the smile on his face looking strained as he sat down at the fire Sam'd built up.
"So what's the news?" said Sam, just to get it out there. Good or bad, he just wanted to know.
"Next train from St. Louis," said Dean, kicking up some dirt with his boots. "Day after tomorrow."
"I'll bet you had some choice words to say about that," said Sam as he watched Dean warm his fingers and toes.
"Almost got myself kicked out of the telegraph office," said Dean, chuckling humorlessly. "Probably for the best that I had a three-mile walk in the cold to cool off."
"Should've stayed in town," Sam muttered, but it wasn't as though it was a surprise that Dean had stuck by his declaration and returned to Sam and Tessa in the dark. "A day and a half might not make any difference at all."
"Or it might make all the difference," said Dean. "Not that it matters the slightest bit now, since we have no choice in the matter. Tessa's not going anywhere without a new tire, which means neither are we. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."
: : :
Dean was still snoring by the dying fire when Sam woke shortly after dawn, face down in his cocoon of blankets with his latest dime novel half buried under his arm. Sam made the coffee, strong and black, and picked up the newspaper that Dean had brought back with him from town.
It was another hour before Dean woke, time for Sam to make breakfast and read the paper from cover to cover. Fortunately in that order, because after reading the paper he didn't much feel like eating.
"Sammy?" he mumbled.
"Right here," said Sam, checking to make sure there was still coffee. "Do you have any plans for today?"
Dean had barely blinked his eyes open yet, so the look he turned upon Sam was fairly confused. He didn't even try to answer until the entirety of the question finally sank in.
"I thought I'd do some tinkering," he said. "Tune up Tessa. Clean the weapons."
"We haven't used anything since New York."
"And we were in enough of a hurry to get out of the city that I wasn't very thorough," said Dean, finally sitting up and stretching his upper body, shivering in an undershirt that was thinning and yellowing with age.
"You could do that," agreed Sam, picking up the paper and folding it in half to hand it over. "Or we could do this."
"What's this?" said Dean, taking the paper and shaking it open. "What am I looking at, Sammy? I stole this from the telegraph office. I haven't read it yet."
"Obviously," said Sam, then just sat and waited. It was on the front page, after all. It wasn't going to take long.
"People are being eaten," said Dean.
"Well, people are being mostly eaten, anyway," said Sam. "They found some pieces."
"Plenty of wild animals who'd be happy to eat a piece of you if they're hungry," said Dean. "Sounds like the local wildlife got a taste for people."
"Keep reading," said Sam.
He knew when Dean got to the important part by the sharp intake of breath. "They found human bite marks," he said.
"On the flesh and on the bones," said Sam. "I can only imagine the extraordinary restraint that must have taken to not use that as the headline."
"So what are you thinking?" said Dean. "Wendigo?"
"That would be my first guess," said Sam. "And my second. I know we're short on transportation right now, but if you'd be willing to leave your precious Tessa for a little while, one of the bodies was found near here, right by the border."
"Bodies?"
"Okay, a hunter found a leg," said Sam. "But it was pretty fresh."
Dean was clearly torn between wanting to stay with his most precious possession and wanting to fill this day with a hunt to feel less like they were cooling their heels while their goal got further and further away from them.
"No more than a couple of miles," said Sam. "Tessa's got as many protective symbols on her as you know."
"It's not the supernatural I'm worried about," said Dean, giving his automobile a longing gaze. "But what would Dad think of us if we didn't even check it out? I'll get the crossbow and the flare gun."
"Just the flare gun and the pistols, Dean," said Sam. "I'm not carrying the crossbow two miles when we don't even know if we're going to encounter anything, and especially when the flare guns will do the job just as well."
"You used to like the crossbow," said Dean, "especially when we set the bolts on fire." But he didn't argue the point and when he crossed to Tessa to dress and gear up, he returned with only the smaller weapons. "All right, douse the fire, Sammy. If we're going to do this, we might as well do this."
Sam poured Dean a tin cup of coffee and handed it over before cleaning up their campsite, stowing everything in the cargo compartment of Tessa and letting Dean seal her up and lock her down.
"If there's so much as a scratch on her when we get back--"
"You've left her alone in far more vulnerable places before," Sam reminded him. "She hardly looks abandoned. I don't think anybody will make that mistake."
The border between Arkansas and Oklahoma Territory wasn't clearly marked, there wasn't a signpost or a fence to mark the spot, but when you got too far on one side or the other, you'd eventually know it. They were off the road, but there were trails through the woods and narrow paths through the open fields, and not much to get in the way of their steady march towards the area where a man had been devoured within the past couple of days.
"Do you hear that?" said Dean, peering through the edge of the trees along the path. Just when they thought they were on to something, too. Sam didn't hear anything, but he did see a thin cloud of dust to indicate something was approaching.
"Whatever that is, it's not a Wendigo," he said.
"Not unless Wendigo suddenly ride motorcycles," said Dean as the dust cloud moved closer. "She's beautiful."
Sam assumed he meant the motorbike, long and gleaming with pipes and valves running up the sides and just a faint trickle of steam from the back. He knew they sat at least partly atop a boiler in Tessa, but he wasn't certain he could imagine riding astride one without some serious concern.
The man wore heavy trousers and a cotton shirt with a beaded leather coat overtop, his hair plucked but for a single scalp-lock. He stopped the motorcycle at the base of the gentle hill that Sam and Dean were atop, and was clearly waiting for them. It was not difficult to guess that either they'd strayed onto Cherokee territory, or they were about to.
"Hello," said Dean, waving a hand in greeting. "Our automobile broke down on the road. about two miles back that way."
"Do you need any help?"
Dean shook his head. "Wasn't something I could fix myself so we're waiting on a part now. We thought we'd stretch our legs for a while."
"You'll want to be careful in these woods," he said, nodding at the trees behind them. "Even in daylight. There have been some incidents."
"We saw that in the newspaper," said Dean, and even made a brief motion to show him before remembering they'd left it back in Tessa. "You'll probably want to be careful too. Something that can devour a person like that is not something anyone would want to encounter."
"And yet you're here," he noted.
While it would have been impolitic to note that they had come armed and prepared for anything, Sam didn't doubt that he already knew that. They certainly were making no attempt to hide the pistols, at the very least.
"We can take care of ourselves," insisted Dean.
"You think you can take care of this problem so that no one else will get hurt," he said, seeing right through Dean's bluster, sincere though it was. "You should go back to your automobile."
"And ignore the fact that people are being hurt?" said Dean. "That's just not the sort of men that me and my brother are."
"I can see that you believe that," he said, fingers tight on the handlebars of his motorcycle and looking at them with a steely gaze, "but you don't know what you're getting into."
"Don't we?" said Dean, meeting that gaze without flinching. "Will you think I'm crazy if I tell you I think there's a Wendigo somewhere in these woods?"
He shook his head, and looked back over his shoulder to where there were now three more men approaching on horseback. Then he looked hard and long at each of the Winchester boys in turn.
"It's not Wendigo," he said finally, "it's Nun'yunu'wi. And not your concern."
"If it's killing people and eating them then I think it is our concern," said Dean. "We've dealt with this kind of thing before."
"Oh, you know how to defeat Nun'yunu'wi, do you?" he said. "You think you know better than we do?" Dean looked back at Sam, but Sam wasn't able to offer anything he didn't already have. "Go about your business, Hunter. We have this one in hand."
Dean knew when to push ahead, but he also knew when to back down, and he didn't need any subtle hints from Sam to do it.
"Good luck then," he said, instead of making any argument, respect for a fellow hunter - in spirit if not in name - in his voice. "I hope you get it."
He nodded his acknowledgment and looked back down the path. "Do you want an escort for your return?"
"Thanks, but we know the way," said Dean, then pointed it out with one arm. "Two miles back that way, if you need us."
"Thank you," he said, with a respect equaling that Dean had given him, "but we've been preparing for this. It should be over tonight."
Dean gave him another wave, which Sam echoed this time, before buttoning his coat and heading back up the hill on the path they'd come from, heading back to camp once again.
: : :
"So is there any mention of Nun'yunu'wi in Dad's journal?" said Dean as he built up the fire again. It would be getting dark soon; the air was already starting to feel a little chillier and they had another night to spend outdoors. Maybe Dean would actually bother to get the tent out this time.
"Yes, actually," said Sam, frowning as he read the entry. "Not much; he only heard of it by legend and not experience. It's also known as the Stone Man and... wow, he wasn't wrong that we weren't equipped to deal with this one, Dean."
"What do you mean, not equipped?" said Dean. "Okay, maybe flare guns wouldn't have gotten the job done, but--" He stopped as Sam thrust the journal in front of him to read the entry himself. It didn't take long. "Okay," he said, swallowing hard. "Maybe we could've found another way, but not that one."
Where would they even find... well, Dean wasn't going to dwell on how one asked that question, in polite or impolite company.
"So what do you think?" he said as he passed the diary back again. "Beans and rice for dinner?"
"As long as you're making it," said Sam. "I made breakfast."
"I didn't even eat breakfast."
"That's not my fault," said Sam. "I also made the coffee."
"You did make the coffee," Dean was forced to concede. Not that he hadn't been planning to make supper for both of them in the first place, but sometimes a token argument was just called for.
"What time does the train get in?" Sam asked him, closing and wrapping the leather-bound book again and stashing it away inside the vehicle.
"Eight a.m. on the nose, or so I'm informed," said Dean. "Apparently the train is never late."
"Never believe anyone who says a train is never late," said Sam. "All that means is they've never really had to rely on one."
"Ain't that the truth," agreed Dean, "but whether it's eight or quarter past, I'll still head back into town as soon as I'm up."
He did set up the tent after they finished eating, but only as an alternative if the temperature dipped down beyond what they could bear. The night was clear, the moon not full but bright, and the temperature was mercifully hovering somewhere above freezing. They'd certainly spent the night out in worse.
"Do you want to sleep in shifts tonight?" Sam suggested after seating himself next to the fire and accepting the bowl of just-barely-warmed food that Dean passed over.
"I'm not going to sleep well out here knowing that thing might be on the loose," said Dean, staring into the fire as the sky got darker and darker. "I'm not keen on being eaten by something I can't shoot. I'll take first watch." For all the good it would do them, since apparently they were ill-equipped to tangle with it.
"I'll be up for a while anyway," said Sam with his mouth full, scarfing down everything Dean gave him. "Feeling a little restless."
"Yeah, I want to get on the road again too," said Dean. "Like an itch."
"You've never stopped, have you?" said Sam. "You've never stopped moving, not really."
"I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I did," said Dean. And it wasn't that he'd never had dreams of a home, of a place to call their own, but he was old enough to know that it could never have lived up to what he built it up as in his mind.
"But when it's all over, what are you going to do?"
"You say that like it'll ever be over," said Dean. "How can it be over? It's over when my life is over."
"You know what I mean, Dean. When the demon is gone, what are you going to do? Because we are going to get him. We are. And then what happens? Do you go back on the road?"
"Sam," he said, the clenching around his heart making even his words come out tight. "It's all I know."
"It doesn't have to be," said Sam. "You could stay with me."
"Or you could stay with me this time," said Dean. "What do you want to go back for, huh? What's there for you anymore, Sammy?"
"I don't mean Stanford," said Sam. "It doesn't have to be Stanford. It could be anywhere, Dean."
Dean swallowed and looked down at his own dinner. "Sure would make it easier to look out for you," he said finally. "You didn't make that easy this last while. Before... you know."
"Things got complicated," said Sam. As if 'complicated' could even begin to express how messed up things in their family had become. "Dad had his crusade and you had... I'm still not sure I understand what you had."
Like the choice to separate had been Dean's, and not Sam's.
"I know you were too young to remember that first year, Sammy, but I do," said Dean after a long silence, looking up at the stars. "That first year we didn't do much but ride the rails with Dad. Boy did he get hell from some of the boys for having us with him. Saloon after saloon and church after church until he found someone who could give him what he was looking for."
"Sometimes I wish they never had."
"Yeah, well sometimes I do too," said Dean. Sometimes he wished this whole mess had never fallen on them, but they hadn't had much choice in the matter. "I know you and Dad have your differences, but he tried, Sammy. He tried. And so did I."
Sam shook his head, but it wasn't disagreement. Dean knew the difference between disagreement and frustration, even now. "You raised me more than he did, Dean, and we all know it."
"Because he needed me to, Sam. He knew what you needed, and it was me," said Dean. "We'd be on a freight train in the middle of Tennessee and 'Hold onto Sammy' he'd say. 'Hold on tight.' And I never let you go, Sam. I never let you go, even when I could hardly get my arms around you anymore. I never let you go until you went away and made me."
"Dean...."
"You made me do it, Sam, and it just about killed me," said Dean. "So you want to know what I'm going to do when we get this demon? I don't care, as long as you don't make me let you go again."
"Dean...."
"Yeah, you said that already," said Dean, pinching back any sign of tears. He was not going to cry, not even when it was just his brother and him in the dark. "But hunting is what I do, Sam. There are always going to be things out there that need hunting."
"We'll figure something out," said Sam. "I don't want to go back to life without you either."
"Good," said Dean, and ate a mouthful of cold beans, and even though he knew that wasn't all there was to be said, for now it was enough.
At first light Dean went back into town to pick up his shipment from the train, and by noon they were on their way again, traveling the marked road through Oklahoma Territory and onward, heading west.
Next Part | Master Post
New York, New York
"First thing we need to do is find a place to stay," said Dean, standing with his back against his automobile and looking over at Sam. "Someplace that grubby hands aren't going to be pawing all over Tessa. She's put on a lot of miles since Chicago. She could use a little pampering."
New York, unlike San Francisco or Chicago, was not a city of personal automobiles, but in some neighborhoods there were still a lot to be seen, tucked away in tiny cobblestone lanes and behind wrought iron gates. New York streets were not a place where Dean wanted to leave something so precious unattended.
"You need someplace that will board your automobile as well as your person," said Sam, "and I think you're not likely to find it within the city."
Dean was inclined to agree, but then this was New York. Surely he could find anything he really needed. It was the price of that anything that was more of a concern.
"I mended the tent when we were back in Akron, during that storm," he said finally, laying out what was probably their best option. "At least we know it doesn't have bedbugs."
Spring was rising, after all, and though the threat of cold and snowstorms still loomed, it wasn't what it had been even a month ago. Camping was no longer a torturous option.
"If you've ever considered a career in sales, I'd seriously suggest rethinking it right now," said Sam, leaning against Tessa as well as he surveyed the city across the river. "If the tent's greatest feature is that it lacks bedbugs, I might take my chances in the city."
"We need to stop and make a plan anyhow," said Dean. "I don't know where to start, and your visions aren't that forthcoming with the addresses. Or has that crazy brain of yours coughed up some more information when I wasn't looking?"
"I haven't had a vision since the last one you witnessed," said Sam, shaking his head. "And frankly, I don't want to."
"Figures that Dad would give you a bigger headache than most. You want me to try to get my hands on some morphine?" said Dean, watching him with a certain amount of brotherly concern. "That last one seemed like it did a real number on your head."
"I'm more worried that a dose of morphine will interfere with what the visions are trying to tell me," said Sam. "Though if you ask me afterwards, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't say no. The pain can be... indescribable."
"You can't just tell your brother you're in indescribable pain and not expect him to do something about it," said Dean. "I'll take care of it tomorrow. You should've said something, Sammy."
"I'm fine, Dean," he insisted. "And I'm sure I'll continue to be fine."
"Right up until your head splits open again," said Dean. There was no room for argument here. He wasn't going to force it down Sam's throat, but he was going to have something on hand, just in case. "Which don't get me wrong, I'm not encouraging. But it'd be nice to know where we're going. I don't think I've ever worked a job this blind before."
"It's not exactly a job," said Sam.
"It's not exactly not a job either," said Dean. "We're hunting something. That's a job. That's the job. This is the job that we did every other job to get to."
"Yes, I suppose it is," said Sam. "Look, this is New York, you can find a dozen card games just by turning your head in the right direction, each one as anonymous as the last. Win us some money and we'll get a nice hotel, someplace you can keep Tessa."
"If we're going to be stuck in New York, we might as well enjoy the amenities," agreed Dean grudgingly. "We could take in a show, see the sights."
"It's a big city," said Sam, crossing his arms. "But somewhere in it's something we're looking for."
"We're just as likely to find it at a burlesque show as anywhere, right?" said Dean, a grin creeping onto his face in spite of him. "Maybe I don't hate New York so much after all."
: : :
The Garnet Hotel was not swank, like many of those that they passed on the streets, but it was warm and clean and offered Dean a space for Tessa so long as he let their mechanic get a good look at her. It seemed, to all involved, a fair trade. But finding one person in New York, particularly a person who didn't want to be found, definitely was the proverbial needle in the haystack.
"Maybe we're not supposed to be in New York after all," suggested Sam. "There was nothing definitively tying either Pamela's information or my visions to this spot exactly."
"I know you're tired of staying put," said Dean. "Hell, I'm tired of staying put too, and you've had a lot more practice than me at it. But let's not second guess everything now. You saw Dad in you vision, Sam, and I know all too well now that they're the real deal. And besides, did you read this morning's paper? Electrical storm kicked up on the east side yesterday out of nowhere."
"Omens," said Sam, and Dean could actually see his resolve firming. "Any other incidents to back it up?"
"Unfortunately, I don't think mutilated animals are big news in New York City, so that one's out," said Dean. "No doubt in my mind what this is, though. We've seen it too much lately, Sam."
"So we keep looking," said Sam, pacing the room. "All right. We can do that."
"No," said Dean, "tonight we go out for a little entertainment. Then we keep looking. We've earned this, Sammy."
"You just want to see some women in their underthings," said Sam.
"You have no idea how long it's been," said Dean. "I should've taken Pamela up on it while I had the opportunity."
"Pamela never intended to let you so much as snap her garters and you know it," said Sam with a longsuffering sigh. "All right, we can go out but I get to pick the show. And if you've still got a hankering for female underthings after that, you can go find a kinetoscope parlor on your own and hope it has a seedy back room."
"They all have seedy back rooms, Sam," he said. "Some of them have seedy front rooms, too."
"Well, if anyone would know that, I suppose it would be you," said Sam. "Some of us have higher standards."
"All right, all right, you can pick the show. Just make it something good."
The poster outside the theater Sam chose advertised Sam Lucas as its headliner, along with the Kindle Sisters, Jack Lampkin's Magical Emporium and the Amazing Ava, the Girl who Dances with Fire.
"Acceptable?" said Sam.
"Let's just hope the Amazing Ava dances in her underskirts," said Dean, letting Sam pay for their tickets (with money, as always, from Dean's stash) and leading the way inside, straight up to the balcony and tucked up against the wall.
"I once heard of a man who can play an ocarina through his arsehole," said Dean. "Now that is something I'd like to see one day."
"This is why I get to choose the shows," said Sam.
The Kindle Sisters were cute in that precocious pre-teen way, Jack Lampkin came very close to actually drawing blood (a popular decision, from the hoots of the audience) and the resident strong man really could lift a fully attired woman with one arm, much to the chagrin of the woman from the audience who found herself in an undignified position by the end of it. But it was the Amazing Ava that really caught his attention.
"Can you tell how she's doing it?" hissed Dean in his brother's direction, watching as flashes of fire appeared around her as she danced, seeming to come out of nowhere and sometimes following her motions as she dipped and turned.
"No," said Sam, sounding troubled by the fact. "There must be someone controlling the gas in the back."
"No pipes," said Dean, "and no source of ignition." He would suspect a hidden sparking device if the ignition had been, well, hidden. But even to Dean's sharp, trained eye the trick to the act was invisible.
Which was maddening because the Amazing Ava's costume was, in fact, as immodest as Dean had hoped, and the fire dance both titillating and provocative.
"You think it's worth looking into?"
"You just want to meet the Amazing Ava," said Sam.
"Consider it a perk."
They didn't stay for the airship captain's thrilling tales of adventure in the Philippine Islands, and they heard the musical stylings of Sam Lucas - just as good as Dean had always been led to believe they were - only from backstage as they hustled their way in, looking for the Amazing Ava.
"Are you allowed to be ba--?"
"I'm with the airship act," said Dean, and with his standard attire no one questioned him, the force of his personality carrying Sam along in his wake.
They found her in a dressing room, which was crowded with heavily made up girls only momentarily before every last one of them but the Amazing Ava scurried out past the Winchesters and onto the stage to perform their number.
"Unless the two of your are planning on putting on a wig and a dress, you're not allowed back here," she said as she wiped her lipstick off with a damp handkerchief.
Dean answered by closing the door behind them, which certainly got her full attention.
"I'm not as defenseless as I look," she said, shoulders square and facing them down.
"That's just the thing," said Dean. "We don't think you're defenseless at all, Ava. If that is your real name."
"No, Mr. and Mrs. Ava named their daughter 'Amazing'," she said dryly. "Five more seconds and I scream."
"No, wait," Sam interrupted. "Look, we just want to ask you a couple of questions, and they're the sort of questions that you might not want to have overheard."
"Two seconds."
"How do you start the fires?" said Sam.
At that, she just smirked and stopped her countdown. "I don't give away the secret to my act," she said. "Even the producers of the show don't know how I do it, so I don't know why you think I'm going to tell you."
"Yes, I'll bet they don't know," said Dean. "I'll bet they don't know because you're not using gas or electricity or any other scientific means in your fire dance, are you, Ava? You're doing it yourself." And with a tap to his temple as he said it, he made it clear just what 'yourself' was supposed to mean.
Sam knew they'd hit their mark when her expression closed down and her eyes grew guarded. "Who are you?"
"So we're right, then," said Dean. "Don't worry, we're not going to tell your boss."
"The other guy said you people were going to leave me alone," she said. "He said he got what he needed."
Sam felt himself go very, very still, barely able to turn his head to look at his brother. "What other guy?" said Dean finally. "Did he give you a name? Can you describe him to us?"
"No, I'm done, get out," she said. "Get out before I scream. There's a strong man out there who's just aching to do more than lift housewives on stage."
"No, wait," said Sam. "Wait, we're not... I have abilities too. I get visions. And I know a boy who's telekinetic. We're not here with bad intentions, I promise you."
"Then why so curious about my previous callers?" she said. She might not have necessarily believed him, but at least it was enough to keep her from screaming. "You sound more interested in him than me."
"We might be," said Dean frankly. "Please, what did he look like?"
"I don't know," she said. "Tall, slim, clean-shaven, brownish hair? It was a couple of years ago, and he was never particularly distinctive."
Sam hadn't realized he was hoping for one description in particular until hers didn't match his father. But then, if it hadn't been their father, then who?
"Was there anything about him, anything at all, that was memorable?" She was clearly uncomfortable with the questioning, but she hadn't yet let out the threatened scream so they persisted.
"There was one thing," she said, "but it was probably a trick of the light."
"Did it look like his eyes went black?" said Dean.
"No, not black," she said. "A gold or a yellow. It was the oddest thing."
Well, that was a new one on Sam, and apparently on Dean, too. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, and the man just another hunter noticing the same things they had. But then what hunter would promise that no others would ever bother her? Or maybe the eyes meant it was something they hadn't encountered before.
"This is going to sound like a strange question," said Sam, "but did you lose your mother when you were small?"
"How did you know that?" she said warily. "She died saving me from a fire when I was a baby."
Sam was increasingly coming to believe that a fire wasn't what they were truly saved from. Or maybe that they hadn't, in the end, been saved in time at all.
"The same thing happened to me," he said finally, as Dean stood a little taller, looked a little more watchful. "To us."
"So what am I supposed to do now?" she said. "Why did you have to tell me all of this? What does it mean?"
"We don't know," said Dean. "We don't know what it means. And you shouldn't do anything, you should just keep on doing what you do exactly how you do it. We need to go."
"Yes, I think you do," she said, swallowing hard.
"Oh, and the man you met, the one who told you he and his people were going to leave you alone?" said Dean. "Don't believe them, Ava. Be careful, all right?"
: : :
Dean intended to talk to Sam about everything as soon as they were out of the theater, finding a convenient eatery to sit in instead of taking the time to go back to their hotel, but the moment they exited they saw her. And this time she saw them, too, vanishing around a corner almost as instantly as she had appeared.
"Sam, did you...?"
"Meg," he said, and was even quicker than Dean to sprint across the street to the corner. When they arrived, though, she was completely out of sight.
"Doesn't want us to follow this time."
"Which means we must," said Sam. "The human body she's borrowing has limitations. She must be nearby still; she can't have simply vanished."
It certainly didn't seem that way, but his reasoning was sound, and so they scoured the street, looking in every doorway, on every balcony, in every alleyway, until Sam caught a glimpse of her ahead and tugged Dean in the right direction.
"Where the hell is she going?"
"I think she knows we've spotted her," said Sam, tilting his head back and looking up.
"We're not near the airship terminal," said Dean without looking. "I know we're not."
"No, but I think she's heading for the one place she thinks you'll no longer be willing to follow." Dean looked up then, and saw what Sam saw, what he should've seen all along. The tallest building on the street. The tallest building in the whole damn city.
"No, Sam," he said, feeling a phantom ache in his ankle and his chest just at the thought.
But his feet were still moving, drawing him towards it, following that distant bob of uncovered blonde hair far ahead of them on the street. The last place he wanted to go was that building, but for this he would. For this he'd scale it, right to the top.
If Meg thought it would stop him from catching up with her, from trapping her and extracting every bit of information about her father out of her, then she had sorely underestimated him.
"I can go alone--"
"Like hell you can," said Dean, practically snarling the words out. "If she wants to play that game, then we'll play it with her. All she'll be doing is trapping herself. You've still got that diagram that Bobby gave us?"
"For the seal of Solomon?" said Sam. "It never leaves my person, Dean."
"Good," he said. "I think we might finally have the chance to use it."
If it worked the way Bobby said it would, then Dean was going to have some fun with it. And if it didn't, well, they'd find out before they tried it on the big man himself.
"Do you think she was at the theater looking for Ava?" said Sam, grabbing Dean's sleeve again so they didn't get separated by the carriage heading up the street and right at them.
"It all adds up, doesn't it?" said Dean. "Maybe her daddy didn't really want you after all. Maybe he just wanted someone like you."
"Or maybe he wants a complete set," said Sam. "I hope Ava takes our advice."
"Whether she does or she doesn't, we have bigger problems right now," said Dean.
The Singer Building stood head and shoulders above the rest of the street, looking impossibly tall when Dean looked up from the base of it. They hadn't been wrong. Meg, or someone who looked just like her, had vanished inside the doors not far ahead of them. But Dean forced his feet forward, through those doors and towards the unmanned and completely automated elevator.
She knew they were behind her. If she didn't know they were behind her, she wouldn't have come here. Dean knew that, and yet somehow still, in the back of his mind, he hoped they were arriving with the element of surprise.
"What do you think the odds are that she stopped at the mezzanine?"
Sam just looked at him and pressed the switch to call the elevator, and Dean hoped that no one arrived to check for identification. He hadn't gone to the theater prepared for this kind of pursuit, after all. It seemed a little absurd, to be standing in pursuit of someone, but while the stairwell was only a few feet away, scrambling up forty-some-odd floors, while feeling more productive, would ultimately just slow them down.
The forty-sixth floor - the last they could reach by elevator - was deserted when they reached it. The offices had long since closed for the day and Meg, too, was nowhere to be found.
Well, he hadn't expected her to be waiting for them, after all, but the quiet was eerie. Especially a quiet highlighted by the whistle of wind from outside the windows, whipping over the viewing balcony that wrapped around the floor. With his head, he motioned for Sam to take one direction while he took the other, but while Sam rounded the corner quickly, Dean hadn't gone more than a dozen steps before he felt something impact with the base of his skull and drive him to his knees.
"Sometimes the old ways are the best ways," came Meg's voice from behind him as Dean struggled not to see stars. "That was so much more satisfying than just pushing you around."
"Satisfy this," muttered Dean, swinging one of his legs out and catching her ankle, bringing her down to the floor as well. Not as satisfying as exorcising her back to hell, but satisfying enough.
He flipped himself over onto his back, still waiting for his vision to clear, and managed to catch her scowl as she had to pick herself up as well. And further up the dim corridor behind her, Dean caught sight of Sam returning to investigate the commotion. He tried to tell him with his eyes, in the quick look he dared himself, that he had this under control, that Sam should set the trap.
He didn't know if the message was received or not, but when he looked back again Sam was gone.
Meg didn't bother with swinging a brick at his head this time, going straight to the mind mojo, sliding him back across the floor. But not before Dean had time to slip the holy water out of his coat and splash some in her direction, keeping her from pushing him very far.
"Where are your friends this time?" he said.
"Oh, they're around," she said, but if they were around here, they'd have shown their faces by now. "How's that ankle, Dean? Still holding up, is it?"
"The ankle's fine. How's your face?"
"As lovely as ever."
"Let me see what I can do about that," said Dean, shaking his head one last time and struggling to his feet as she shook off the impact of the holy water. "There's more where that came from."
"Is that all you've got?" she said. "If it is, this is going to be child's play, Dean. You go over the railing and Sammy comes with me."
"If I go over the railing Sammy isn't going anywhere with you," said Dean, "and you know it. Was that supposed to scare me?"
"Did it work?" she said. "Are you trembling? You look as though you're trembling, Dean."
He was, but so slightly he was sure it wasn't visible, not even to a demon like Meg. He wasn't going over the railing. He wasn't going near the railing. And Sam wasn't going with her, no matter what it took.
Not that he thought that's what they were doing here. Demons lied, and they never stopped.
"Only with anticipation," he said, struggling to his feet on an ankle that remembered the pain of an earlier fall, from a much greater height. "You have no idea what you're in for."
"Oh, I think I have an idea," she said. "Where's your little brother, Dean?"
"Right here," said Sam, slamming the back of her head with the butt of his full-bore scattergun, pulled from the folds of his coat. He took her arms and Dean took her ankles and they'd moved her halfway up the corridor before she managed to push them both away from her, landing on her feet and whirling on Sam. He was ready with the holy water, catching her shoulder and neck with it. "How badly do you want me?"
"Why Mr. Winchester," she said, "had I know you were so forward the day we met I mightn't have answered your questions at all."
"Was that you, that day?" said Sam. "Did I meet you, or did I meet the girl who had that body before you?"
"I don't think I want to answer that," she said, taking a step forward for every step that Sam took back. "I don't think I want to answer any of your questions at all."
"Oh, you'll answer our questions," said Dean. "No matter what it takes."
"I think that's something that's going to take a lot more than you have to give," she said.
Suddenly she stopped, right as they reached the corner of the outside corridor, and looked up at the ceiling. Just a couple of steps further around that corner would have brought her into the trap Sam had hastily scrawled on the ceiling with a piece of chalk.
"Oh, that's precious," she said. "I want to take that home with me to show the family."
"You're not going anywhere," said Dean, standing blocking her way in one direction while Sam blocked the other.
"Oh, I think I am," she said, and in one smooth motion to the side, completely unanticipated, she crashed the glass window and landed on the terrace outside. Immediately the wind came whistling into the building, scattering bits of glass everywhere and making the sharp fragments still attached to the window frame shake under its force.
She'd left him with no choice. Dean was going out.
Meg hadn't gone far; that body was broken and bleeding, held together by force of ill will alone. One hand on the railing, wind whipping her hair, she looked back at Dean with a twisted smile on her face.
"I've got a secret," she sing-songed at him through cracked lips.
"Yeah, I'll just bet you do," he said. "And that's exactly what we intend to get out of you."
"Oh?" she said, raising seared eyebrows. "You want to know my secret?"
"We want to know all your secrets," said Dean, leaning in close to snarl in her face. "And we will, with a little time and pressure."
"I'll save you the trouble," she said, leaning even closer, close enough to whisper. "Here's my secret, Dean. You're on the wrong coast.."
"We're what?" he said, wide-eyed, leaning away from her again.
She smiled that same smile again, twisted and cruel, then before Dean could so much as make a grab at her blouse she was leaning back over the railing and tumbling thirty-five stories to the rooftop below.
Dean rushed the railing and stared at her crumpled, unmoving body until he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder.
"What did she say?" he asked, squeezing hard. "Dean, what did she say?"
"She said we have to go," said Dean, finally stumbling back from the railing. "We need to get out of New York, Sam."
"Not that I'm not keen to get out of the city, Dean, but demons lie," said Sam, letting go of him so they could move back towards the safety of the building. "She might just want to get rid of us."
"No," said Dean, shaking his head. "Getting us here to this city, that was messing with us. Dad's nowhere near New York City, Sam, not now, maybe not ever. He's not even on this coast!"
"You don't know that," said Sam.
"No, but you do," said Dean. "God damn it, I should have listened to you, listened to your doubts. Your vision, it never was of this city."
"It was impossible to tell, Dean," said Sam, "we couldn't have-- damn it!"
Sam swore so infrequently that Dean took particular notice when he did. "What, what is it?" he said. "Sam?"
"There was something... in the vision, in the back of my head... if I'd only realized sooner."
"Realized what, Sam?" said Dean, raising his voice over the sound of the wind.
"The building I saw, the reason I thought it looked familiar. It wasn't because I'd seen it on a picture or a postcard, Sam, it's because it's outside of San Francisco. That's where we need to go. That's where we're going to meet Dad."
They were on the wrong coast, and who knew how much time they'd wasted chasing after Meg, when their real target was going in the other direction all along.
Riverton, Maryland
Sam understood just how determined Dean was to cross the country when they drove through the night, barely speaking, stopping only to top up the water while they could, lest they run out at any inopportune place. He knew they couldn't keep up this pace once they got further west, but Dean seemed determined to make the best time he could while the roads were still good.
Sam managed to get a little sleep while they were on the road, but the dawn light reflecting off the front-end gauges woke him before long, and he stretched as best he could within the confines of the automobile.
Dean was still silent and grim, and Sam was content to wait and watch the scenery pass by until Dean wanted to break the silence.
"Just tell me you don't think we're going to be too late," said Dean finally, out of the blue. "Tell me this whole mad trip isn't in vain."
"I don't know, Dean," said Sam, "but I have the feeling that Dad isn't there yet. I think he's still on the road, just like us, and Tyr is a great horse, but he doesn't have the stamina Tessa has. And you know dad, there's no way he's leaving him behind."
"Right," said Dean. "Yes, you're right. If he headed west right after Chicago, though, he would long since have arrived in San Francisco."
"If he headed west straightaway," said Sam. "He's following the same signs and omens we are. And I checked, Dean; there were no indications he should go to San Francisco - or anywhere in California - during the time we were heading for New York. None at all. More likely he headed down to Tennessee or Arkansas; I don't know if it's anything, but there were some indications that something was going on down there just this past week."
"Then it's a good thing we're heading through that way," said Dean, eyes on the road and hands clenched so hard around the steering wheel his knuckles were white. "I can't believe they fooled us that way. Drawing us right to the wrong coast!"
"It wasn't a wasted trip, Dean," said Sam, but he too felt the frustration of that detour, and of this entire hunt, beginning to wear down on him. "We learned things in New York that we didn't already know."
"I hate feeling like they're leading us around by the nose, Sammy! They're always a step ahead of us, both them and Dad."
"Well, we've got the advantage of knowing where we're going now," said Sam, "and I'll bet they don't know that. We can prepare, Dean. We'll be ready."
"We'd better be," said Dean, and drove a little faster.
Lawrenceburg, Tennessee
There was still snow on the road, a light dusting, but it was nothing compared to what they would've encountered if they'd tried to travel any further north. The northern route was the more familiar, the more used, but the southern route, this time of year, was the faster.
"We should stop for the night soon," said Sam, "unless you're heading somewhere particular. You need sleep, Dean."
"Don't you know where we are?" said Dean.
Sam squinted at the landscape, but at sunset with a layer of snow all over it didn't ring any bells.
"No, I guess you wouldn't," said Dean. "He was still up in Blue Earth when you left for school, wasn't he? We're no more than five miles from Pastor Jim's church, Sammy. Hot meals and warm beds for the night. "
After the past few days, Sam had to admit that sounded heavenly, and he didn't care if that meant he'd been spoilt by his years in Palo Alto. There was such a thing as driving yourself so hard you were no good to anyone, and if Dean drove his automobile off the road because he wasn't getting enough rest they would never make it to San Francisco in the first place.
"I haven't seen him in years," said Sam. "He sent me a letter once, though. At school. Just to see how I was getting on."
"Huh," said Dean, his gaze not even flickering towards Sam. Sam had always wondered how Jim Murphy had known where to find him, since Sam certainly hadn't had the opportunity to tell him, but he thought now he knew just how it had happened. "Well, you two were always close."
"When I was a kid," agreed Sam. "He was always there when...."
"Dad wasn't?"
"Dad never understood me," said Sam. "Pastor Jim always did. I wish we hadn't lost touch."
It was his fault, he knew that, but at the time he'd been so determined to cut ties, before he realized what an impossible task that really was. And by the time he did, it was hard to go back.
"I bet Dad would understand you now," said Dean quietly. Sam bet his father would understand him all too well now. He knew he understood his father far better than he ever thought he would.
Pastor Jim's church was the centerpiece of a tiny, nameless village, small enough to look suspiciously upon the arrival of strangers and large enough to notice they'd arrived. They were met at the steps of the church by a man in a black suit, hair disheveled and expression somber.
"What's your business here?"
"Hey," said Dean, raising his hands to protest his innocence. "It's okay, we're old friends of Pastor Jim Murphy. We were passing through and wanted to pay him a visit."
"Old friends, you say?" he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Since we were kids," said Sam, trying to see past him into the church, wondering what this was all about. "We used to stay with him sometimes, up in Blue Earth. I've been away at university."
His expression cleared a little at that, though not entirely. "Well, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, then," he said, "but his funeral was yesterday."
"The...." Dean began, staring in obvious disbelief. "Pastor Jim is dead? When? How?"
"We don't know what happened," he said. "We found him with his throat cut on the sanctuary floor." Then, finally, he offered his hand. "I'm sorry for the less than warm welcome, but it's been a terrible week here. My name's Jimmy. I served as Jim's secretary, when he required one."
"Jim and Jimmy," said Dean, and almost smiled. Jimmy did smile, though it was a bittersweet one.
"That's what the congregation used to say," he said.
"Well, I'm Dean and this here is Sam. Winchester," he said. "This is just so hard to believe. I knew Jim before I even learned how to read. I can't believe someone would want to hurt him that way."
It was bait, Sam knew that, but at the same time there was a certain sincerity to it. If anyone were to survive the evils of the world, it should've been Jim Murphy.
"I saw the... the body," said Jimmy, lowering his voice. "I know the horrors or mankind are myriad, but the way his blood was drained like that... it's hard to believe it was human."
"Well, like you said, mankind is capable of terrible things," said Sam, and wondered if they'd have the chance to check for traces of sulfur, or if it was already too late. "I'm sorry for your loss. You must have been close."
"He was a true friend and a faithful man of God," said Jimmy sorrowfully. "He'll be missed by all of us."
"He'll be missed by a lot of people," said Dean, and Sam knew he was thinking not only of themselves but of the vast network of hunters across the continent. "I hope whoever or whatever did this will be made to pay."
"God saw what happened here," said Jimmy. "Somehow, in some way, justice will be served."
"Do you mind if we spend some time in the church?" said Sam. "In some way, I believe he's still here."
"Of course," said Jimmy. "Wait, you said your last name was Winchester?"
"We did," said Dean, his attention captured. "Did another Winchester pass through here recently?"
"Not that I'm aware of," he said, "but Jim had me post a letter to a Winchester just the day before he passed. A John Winchester, if I recall correctly."
"Pastor Jim sent Dad a letter?" said Sam. "Do you happen to know what it was about?"
"No, I'm afraid it was a private correspondence," he said. "Signed and sealed before it ever passed into my hands. Jim was adamant it be posted as soon as possible."
"Where?" said Dean urgently. "Where did you post it to? What address?"
"Now that I recall," said Jimmy. "It was care of a saloon in Nebraska, which did at the time strike me as unusual."
"Harvelle's Roadhouse, I presume," said Dean, giving Sam a look that was easy to interpret. It was no mystery where they were headed next.
"The very same," he said. "I take it you're familiar with it?"
"Well, the letter was addressed to our father," said Dean. One thing didn't have to do with the other, but it was as good an explanation as any. "I guess we'd better catch up with him. It sounds like something important."
Sam nodded slowly and swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't suppose you know of anyplace nearby where we might hire a room for the night?" he said. "We'd counted on staying with Jim."
"I think if the pastor were with us he'd insist you do just that," he said. "His house has been sitting empty since his passing, and if you'd be willing to give the place a little life again, if only for one night, I think the congregation would insist you stay as well."
"That's very kind of you," said Dean. "It'd be... nice to feel close to him, this one last time. Thank you." Sam nodded his agreement and let Dean do the talking. All his thoughts about a reunion with the man who, for a time, had been like a father to him, and this was what it came to. Too late even for the funeral.
The demon was going to pay, no matter what it took.
Memphis, Tennessee
"What, did everyone decide the other side of the Mississippi looked prettier today?" said Dean, standing up in his stationary vehicle and looking at the mess of wagons and buggies in front of him. "If they'd just let me go I could've beat the train across."
"And if you hadn't, Dean?"
"I could've gotten out of its way, no problem," said Dean. "You haven't even seen my rockets yet."
"I will concede that you drive the finest automobile on the road," said Sam, "and I will caress every inch of her if you ask it of me, but I won't believe there are rockets hidden in her tubes and valves somewhere."
"I wouldn't call them hidden," said Dean, remaining standing as he impatiently watched the train go by. "They're just not perfected yet, that's all."
"What does that mean, exactly, 'not perfected'?" said Sam.
"I haven't quite worked out a steering mechanism yet," he admitted. "Or brakes."
"Dean?"
"Yes, Sam?"
"Don't use the rockets."
"I wouldn't have to if they'd let us on the bridge," said Dean. "There's plenty of room for me to drive alongside the train. I've been in tighter situations."
"I seem to remember being in a tighter situation with you," said Sam. It felt like a hundred years ago though, the locomotive race at Jericho Station. Jessica had still been alive. Sam had still been a university student.
It was at Jericho Station that he'd first met Meg.
"So what do you say, do you think they could stop us if we tried?"
"I think they'd stop us at the other side," said Sam, "and you wouldn't have to worry about your lack of a braking system. You might give the papers something to write about though."
Dean tapped his fingers against the top of Tessa's windshield and glared at the slow-moving train. Or what Sam was sure he considered a slow-moving train; all things considered, Sam thought it was going at a respectable speed.
"Just a few more minutes," said Sam, but the words seemed to do more to incite Dean than soothe him. "Just think about how far it would be to drive north to the next bridge, and waiting out the train won't seem so bad."
"Next time I have time to tinker with her, I'm adding a paddling system strong enough to handle the Mississippi."
"Tessa is an amazing automobile, Dean, but she can't be all things," said Sam. "Look, you can see the end of it now."
"I'm going to run down these buggies," said Dean, finally sitting back down again. He'd left Tessa running; all he needed to do was let the throttle out and they were on their way. Which, as soon as the train had passed and traffic had been signaled, he did, shooting out past half the people in front of him and onto the bridge.
"Don't actually kill anyone," said Sam dryly. "We can't afford the delay."
"Don't I know it," said Sam, but he didn't actually relax until they were safe on the other side and on their way again.
Sloan, Arkansas
The language Dean used when they blew out a tire just outside the border of Oklahoma Territory was startling even for Sam, who'd spend most of his life with his brother and father.
"C'mon baby," he said when he was done with his tantrum, stroking her glossy paint. "You wouldn't do this to me here, would you? It's three miles to the nearest town, and God only knows how long to get a replacement tire here."
"I don't think sweet talking her is going to work this time," said Sam regretfully, already putting his things together for the walk back the way they'd just come. "We might as well get going while there's still light."
"Oh no," said Dean. "I'm not leaving my baby here unattended."
"Then what would you suggest we do?" said Sam. "Wait and hope that the next rainstorm brings spare tires falling from the sky?"
"As convenient as that would be," said Dean, "no. I'll stay with her and you head back into town."
"To do what?" said Sam. "I haven't the first clue what you'll need to fix Tessa."
"All right," said Dean, stroking his automobile again. "You stay with her and I'll go back into town. If I'm lucky they'll have a spare in Little Rock. If I have to go any further afield, we could be here for days, Sammy. We don't have time to be here for days."
Sam wasn't particularly pleased to be left on his own in the wilderness, but he had a veritable arsenal at his disposal so it wasn't as though he was going to be helpless and alone. Dean would actually be the more vulnerable.
"Wear your warm boots," he said instead of explicitly agreeing. "If you catch cold we'll be delayed even longer."
"I don't need to be told to wear my warm boots," said Dean, but nonetheless he grumbled as he changed into them, and packed up what things he'd need for the walk. "I'll be back tonight no matter what, Sammy."
"Dean, don't be foolhardy. If it's dark, just pass the night in town."
"No, I'll be back tonight," he insisted. "Take care of her, Sammy. And yourself."
"It's nice to know which you put first," said Sam, but he gave Dean a smile and a wave as Dean headed off down the dirt road and then settled in for a long wait. At least he still had daylight, and his father's journal to thumb through while he had this time to himself.
Sam had started keeping a journal of his own back in Nebraska, after Jess, after he realized that this was his life again and it was possible it always would be. So far, though, it was filled only with notes about demons: how to find them, trap them and banish them. That, and a handful of pictures from the road, of Dean and Bobby and Pamela and Tessa and those few other things that caught his eye. Maybe, for him, that was what his journal really needed to be - a record of his entire life, and not just one piece of it.
He read the first pages of his father's journal for what had to be the tenth time, because those first pages of the journal somehow had more of his father and less of the hunter in them. It was his father as Sam didn't remember him, aching, confused, vulnerable, angry at the world and terrified of it at the same time. Terrified for his sons. Desperate to avenge his wife.
Now, after Jess, Sam finally understood a lot of what his father went through back then, and Sam didn't have two small children to somehow care for on top of everything else. He might not understand all the choices his father made, but he understood why he made them now.
It was long after dark when Dean returned, stubborn bastard that he was, trekking along the open road with only a single, hand-held lantern to light his way.
"Told you I'd be back," he said, the smile on his face looking strained as he sat down at the fire Sam'd built up.
"So what's the news?" said Sam, just to get it out there. Good or bad, he just wanted to know.
"Next train from St. Louis," said Dean, kicking up some dirt with his boots. "Day after tomorrow."
"I'll bet you had some choice words to say about that," said Sam as he watched Dean warm his fingers and toes.
"Almost got myself kicked out of the telegraph office," said Dean, chuckling humorlessly. "Probably for the best that I had a three-mile walk in the cold to cool off."
"Should've stayed in town," Sam muttered, but it wasn't as though it was a surprise that Dean had stuck by his declaration and returned to Sam and Tessa in the dark. "A day and a half might not make any difference at all."
"Or it might make all the difference," said Dean. "Not that it matters the slightest bit now, since we have no choice in the matter. Tessa's not going anywhere without a new tire, which means neither are we. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."
: : :
Dean was still snoring by the dying fire when Sam woke shortly after dawn, face down in his cocoon of blankets with his latest dime novel half buried under his arm. Sam made the coffee, strong and black, and picked up the newspaper that Dean had brought back with him from town.
It was another hour before Dean woke, time for Sam to make breakfast and read the paper from cover to cover. Fortunately in that order, because after reading the paper he didn't much feel like eating.
"Sammy?" he mumbled.
"Right here," said Sam, checking to make sure there was still coffee. "Do you have any plans for today?"
Dean had barely blinked his eyes open yet, so the look he turned upon Sam was fairly confused. He didn't even try to answer until the entirety of the question finally sank in.
"I thought I'd do some tinkering," he said. "Tune up Tessa. Clean the weapons."
"We haven't used anything since New York."
"And we were in enough of a hurry to get out of the city that I wasn't very thorough," said Dean, finally sitting up and stretching his upper body, shivering in an undershirt that was thinning and yellowing with age.
"You could do that," agreed Sam, picking up the paper and folding it in half to hand it over. "Or we could do this."
"What's this?" said Dean, taking the paper and shaking it open. "What am I looking at, Sammy? I stole this from the telegraph office. I haven't read it yet."
"Obviously," said Sam, then just sat and waited. It was on the front page, after all. It wasn't going to take long.
"People are being eaten," said Dean.
"Well, people are being mostly eaten, anyway," said Sam. "They found some pieces."
"Plenty of wild animals who'd be happy to eat a piece of you if they're hungry," said Dean. "Sounds like the local wildlife got a taste for people."
"Keep reading," said Sam.
He knew when Dean got to the important part by the sharp intake of breath. "They found human bite marks," he said.
"On the flesh and on the bones," said Sam. "I can only imagine the extraordinary restraint that must have taken to not use that as the headline."
"So what are you thinking?" said Dean. "Wendigo?"
"That would be my first guess," said Sam. "And my second. I know we're short on transportation right now, but if you'd be willing to leave your precious Tessa for a little while, one of the bodies was found near here, right by the border."
"Bodies?"
"Okay, a hunter found a leg," said Sam. "But it was pretty fresh."
Dean was clearly torn between wanting to stay with his most precious possession and wanting to fill this day with a hunt to feel less like they were cooling their heels while their goal got further and further away from them.
"No more than a couple of miles," said Sam. "Tessa's got as many protective symbols on her as you know."
"It's not the supernatural I'm worried about," said Dean, giving his automobile a longing gaze. "But what would Dad think of us if we didn't even check it out? I'll get the crossbow and the flare gun."
"Just the flare gun and the pistols, Dean," said Sam. "I'm not carrying the crossbow two miles when we don't even know if we're going to encounter anything, and especially when the flare guns will do the job just as well."
"You used to like the crossbow," said Dean, "especially when we set the bolts on fire." But he didn't argue the point and when he crossed to Tessa to dress and gear up, he returned with only the smaller weapons. "All right, douse the fire, Sammy. If we're going to do this, we might as well do this."
Sam poured Dean a tin cup of coffee and handed it over before cleaning up their campsite, stowing everything in the cargo compartment of Tessa and letting Dean seal her up and lock her down.
"If there's so much as a scratch on her when we get back--"
"You've left her alone in far more vulnerable places before," Sam reminded him. "She hardly looks abandoned. I don't think anybody will make that mistake."
The border between Arkansas and Oklahoma Territory wasn't clearly marked, there wasn't a signpost or a fence to mark the spot, but when you got too far on one side or the other, you'd eventually know it. They were off the road, but there were trails through the woods and narrow paths through the open fields, and not much to get in the way of their steady march towards the area where a man had been devoured within the past couple of days.
"Do you hear that?" said Dean, peering through the edge of the trees along the path. Just when they thought they were on to something, too. Sam didn't hear anything, but he did see a thin cloud of dust to indicate something was approaching.
"Whatever that is, it's not a Wendigo," he said.
"Not unless Wendigo suddenly ride motorcycles," said Dean as the dust cloud moved closer. "She's beautiful."
Sam assumed he meant the motorbike, long and gleaming with pipes and valves running up the sides and just a faint trickle of steam from the back. He knew they sat at least partly atop a boiler in Tessa, but he wasn't certain he could imagine riding astride one without some serious concern.
The man wore heavy trousers and a cotton shirt with a beaded leather coat overtop, his hair plucked but for a single scalp-lock. He stopped the motorcycle at the base of the gentle hill that Sam and Dean were atop, and was clearly waiting for them. It was not difficult to guess that either they'd strayed onto Cherokee territory, or they were about to.
"Hello," said Dean, waving a hand in greeting. "Our automobile broke down on the road. about two miles back that way."
"Do you need any help?"
Dean shook his head. "Wasn't something I could fix myself so we're waiting on a part now. We thought we'd stretch our legs for a while."
"You'll want to be careful in these woods," he said, nodding at the trees behind them. "Even in daylight. There have been some incidents."
"We saw that in the newspaper," said Dean, and even made a brief motion to show him before remembering they'd left it back in Tessa. "You'll probably want to be careful too. Something that can devour a person like that is not something anyone would want to encounter."
"And yet you're here," he noted.
While it would have been impolitic to note that they had come armed and prepared for anything, Sam didn't doubt that he already knew that. They certainly were making no attempt to hide the pistols, at the very least.
"We can take care of ourselves," insisted Dean.
"You think you can take care of this problem so that no one else will get hurt," he said, seeing right through Dean's bluster, sincere though it was. "You should go back to your automobile."
"And ignore the fact that people are being hurt?" said Dean. "That's just not the sort of men that me and my brother are."
"I can see that you believe that," he said, fingers tight on the handlebars of his motorcycle and looking at them with a steely gaze, "but you don't know what you're getting into."
"Don't we?" said Dean, meeting that gaze without flinching. "Will you think I'm crazy if I tell you I think there's a Wendigo somewhere in these woods?"
He shook his head, and looked back over his shoulder to where there were now three more men approaching on horseback. Then he looked hard and long at each of the Winchester boys in turn.
"It's not Wendigo," he said finally, "it's Nun'yunu'wi. And not your concern."
"If it's killing people and eating them then I think it is our concern," said Dean. "We've dealt with this kind of thing before."
"Oh, you know how to defeat Nun'yunu'wi, do you?" he said. "You think you know better than we do?" Dean looked back at Sam, but Sam wasn't able to offer anything he didn't already have. "Go about your business, Hunter. We have this one in hand."
Dean knew when to push ahead, but he also knew when to back down, and he didn't need any subtle hints from Sam to do it.
"Good luck then," he said, instead of making any argument, respect for a fellow hunter - in spirit if not in name - in his voice. "I hope you get it."
He nodded his acknowledgment and looked back down the path. "Do you want an escort for your return?"
"Thanks, but we know the way," said Dean, then pointed it out with one arm. "Two miles back that way, if you need us."
"Thank you," he said, with a respect equaling that Dean had given him, "but we've been preparing for this. It should be over tonight."
Dean gave him another wave, which Sam echoed this time, before buttoning his coat and heading back up the hill on the path they'd come from, heading back to camp once again.
: : :
"So is there any mention of Nun'yunu'wi in Dad's journal?" said Dean as he built up the fire again. It would be getting dark soon; the air was already starting to feel a little chillier and they had another night to spend outdoors. Maybe Dean would actually bother to get the tent out this time.
"Yes, actually," said Sam, frowning as he read the entry. "Not much; he only heard of it by legend and not experience. It's also known as the Stone Man and... wow, he wasn't wrong that we weren't equipped to deal with this one, Dean."
"What do you mean, not equipped?" said Dean. "Okay, maybe flare guns wouldn't have gotten the job done, but--" He stopped as Sam thrust the journal in front of him to read the entry himself. It didn't take long. "Okay," he said, swallowing hard. "Maybe we could've found another way, but not that one."
Where would they even find... well, Dean wasn't going to dwell on how one asked that question, in polite or impolite company.
"So what do you think?" he said as he passed the diary back again. "Beans and rice for dinner?"
"As long as you're making it," said Sam. "I made breakfast."
"I didn't even eat breakfast."
"That's not my fault," said Sam. "I also made the coffee."
"You did make the coffee," Dean was forced to concede. Not that he hadn't been planning to make supper for both of them in the first place, but sometimes a token argument was just called for.
"What time does the train get in?" Sam asked him, closing and wrapping the leather-bound book again and stashing it away inside the vehicle.
"Eight a.m. on the nose, or so I'm informed," said Dean. "Apparently the train is never late."
"Never believe anyone who says a train is never late," said Sam. "All that means is they've never really had to rely on one."
"Ain't that the truth," agreed Dean, "but whether it's eight or quarter past, I'll still head back into town as soon as I'm up."
He did set up the tent after they finished eating, but only as an alternative if the temperature dipped down beyond what they could bear. The night was clear, the moon not full but bright, and the temperature was mercifully hovering somewhere above freezing. They'd certainly spent the night out in worse.
"Do you want to sleep in shifts tonight?" Sam suggested after seating himself next to the fire and accepting the bowl of just-barely-warmed food that Dean passed over.
"I'm not going to sleep well out here knowing that thing might be on the loose," said Dean, staring into the fire as the sky got darker and darker. "I'm not keen on being eaten by something I can't shoot. I'll take first watch." For all the good it would do them, since apparently they were ill-equipped to tangle with it.
"I'll be up for a while anyway," said Sam with his mouth full, scarfing down everything Dean gave him. "Feeling a little restless."
"Yeah, I want to get on the road again too," said Dean. "Like an itch."
"You've never stopped, have you?" said Sam. "You've never stopped moving, not really."
"I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I did," said Dean. And it wasn't that he'd never had dreams of a home, of a place to call their own, but he was old enough to know that it could never have lived up to what he built it up as in his mind.
"But when it's all over, what are you going to do?"
"You say that like it'll ever be over," said Dean. "How can it be over? It's over when my life is over."
"You know what I mean, Dean. When the demon is gone, what are you going to do? Because we are going to get him. We are. And then what happens? Do you go back on the road?"
"Sam," he said, the clenching around his heart making even his words come out tight. "It's all I know."
"It doesn't have to be," said Sam. "You could stay with me."
"Or you could stay with me this time," said Dean. "What do you want to go back for, huh? What's there for you anymore, Sammy?"
"I don't mean Stanford," said Sam. "It doesn't have to be Stanford. It could be anywhere, Dean."
Dean swallowed and looked down at his own dinner. "Sure would make it easier to look out for you," he said finally. "You didn't make that easy this last while. Before... you know."
"Things got complicated," said Sam. As if 'complicated' could even begin to express how messed up things in their family had become. "Dad had his crusade and you had... I'm still not sure I understand what you had."
Like the choice to separate had been Dean's, and not Sam's.
"I know you were too young to remember that first year, Sammy, but I do," said Dean after a long silence, looking up at the stars. "That first year we didn't do much but ride the rails with Dad. Boy did he get hell from some of the boys for having us with him. Saloon after saloon and church after church until he found someone who could give him what he was looking for."
"Sometimes I wish they never had."
"Yeah, well sometimes I do too," said Dean. Sometimes he wished this whole mess had never fallen on them, but they hadn't had much choice in the matter. "I know you and Dad have your differences, but he tried, Sammy. He tried. And so did I."
Sam shook his head, but it wasn't disagreement. Dean knew the difference between disagreement and frustration, even now. "You raised me more than he did, Dean, and we all know it."
"Because he needed me to, Sam. He knew what you needed, and it was me," said Dean. "We'd be on a freight train in the middle of Tennessee and 'Hold onto Sammy' he'd say. 'Hold on tight.' And I never let you go, Sam. I never let you go, even when I could hardly get my arms around you anymore. I never let you go until you went away and made me."
"Dean...."
"You made me do it, Sam, and it just about killed me," said Dean. "So you want to know what I'm going to do when we get this demon? I don't care, as long as you don't make me let you go again."
"Dean...."
"Yeah, you said that already," said Dean, pinching back any sign of tears. He was not going to cry, not even when it was just his brother and him in the dark. "But hunting is what I do, Sam. There are always going to be things out there that need hunting."
"We'll figure something out," said Sam. "I don't want to go back to life without you either."
"Good," said Dean, and ate a mouthful of cold beans, and even though he knew that wasn't all there was to be said, for now it was enough.
At first light Dean went back into town to pick up his shipment from the train, and by noon they were on their way again, traveling the marked road through Oklahoma Territory and onward, heading west.
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