Perspective Shift 3/7
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Chapter 2
John Reese braced himself to get an earful once he was alone. He knew his employer, Harold Finch, was still uncomfortable with his occasional use of the badge and identity he’d stolen from the wife-beating marshal Brad Jennings, who was currently languishing in a Mexican prison after John had delivered him and several kilos of cocaine to the Federales. But John also knew that Finch had a far more pressing matter about which to fuss at him when he unmuted his earwig. He waited until the other two men had had time to get well out of earshot, took a deep breath, and tapped his ear.
Sure enough, Finch didn’t even give him time to say anything before squawking, “Mr. Reese, those men are not federal agents!”
“I know, Finch,” John replied softly. “I know.”
“I was able to get a clear enough shot from the security camera to run through facial identification software. Their real names are-”
“Sam and Dean Winchester. I did see the news reports out of St. Louis two years ago.”
“Then you know that they’re dangerous, multiple murderers!”
John looked toward the closed door and shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think the Feds got it wrong.”
“What?! How can you say that?!”
“I can’t explain it; maybe these guys have evil twins or something. But I have looked into the eyes of truly evil men-traitors, terrorists, sadists. Their souls are dead, and so are their eyes. The men who shot up that diner in St. Louis had dead eyes. That’s not what I see in these two.”
Finch sounded less panicked and more wary when he asked, “What do you see?”
John lowered his voice even further before admitting, “They’re like me.”
“How can you possibly-”
“I’m a killer, too, remember? But I do it to save lives, and from the way they talk, that’s their goal as well.”
“But grave desecration?”
“That part I don’t understand yet. But I’m telling you, Finch, they’re not as sociopathic as Root or Agent Shaw. Yeah, they’re killers. Yeah, they’re damaged. But like I said, I think we’re on the same side here.”
There was a pause before Finch said, “That doesn’t mean you have to accept a ride from them.”
“Well, I am going to the same place they are.”
“Which in this weather is the height of folly!”
“It’s our only lead. I was too late for Fahey, but storm or no, I can still catch his killer and stop him from killing anyone else.”
“And if the Winchesters are the real threat?”
“Then the best chance of stopping them is for me to go with them.” John started toward the door.
“John… please be careful.”
Hearing such naked worry in Finch’s tone never failed to warm John’s heart. It had been far too long since anyone genuinely cared about his wellbeing, let alone an employer; the CIA certainly never had. He didn’t know how Finch had gone from reclusive billionaire benefactor to best friend in less than a year, but now that it had happened, John found himself soul-deep grateful for it.
“I’ll bring you back a postcard, Harold,” he promised and ended the call as he left the apartment. Knowing Finch, he’d keep listening through the phone’s mic, but the conversation per se was over as far as John was concerned.
Outside, Sam was waiting on the loading dock, and Dean was behind the wheel of the black 4x4 with Pennsylvania plates that was coming through the alley toward them. John made sure to close the door with enough force for Sam to hear it, and Sam turned to acknowledge him with a nod.
“So how long have you known Fahey?” John asked.
“We didn’t,” Sam admitted. “Only talked on the phone once. We’re out of the Topeka office; Fahey was an analyst at the white-collar crime center in DC. He specialized in identity theft.”
John frowned. “So why’d you contact him?”
“He processed the missing persons reports on all the victims before Rollins and picked up on a pattern-a small quirk in the perp’s MO, but it tells us a lot.”
“Which is?”
“There were no personal photographs in any of the vics’ homes. But there were a lot of empty picture frames.”
John’s frown deepened, thinking back to the interior of the apartment he’d just left. He’d been somewhat distracted by finding the Winchesters, but now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any personal photos in the rooms he’d seen. “Did you see just the one body?”
“Yep. That, plus no pictures, suggests he’d already disposed of Rollins before Fahey showed up.”
“You’re sure Fahey was here?”
“As sure as we can be. Fahey was just about to take off to come to New York when I called yesterday, swore up and down that only he could stop the killer.” Sam huffed and shook his head as Dean stopped the SUV and got out. “I told him to meet us at the Lyric Diner for lunch today, but he never showed.”
“The Lyric?” John echoed, hoping his alarm wasn’t obvious.
“Yeah,” Dean replied, joining them. “You know it?”
“I’ve eaten there a few times.” That was an understatement-it was Finch’s favorite diner, and they’d also met with NYPD Det. Joss Carter there a few times in the last year-and-change, since she’d stopped hunting “the Man in the Suit” and joined their crime-stopping crusade. John didn’t want to know how badly wrong things would have gone if they’d eaten there for lunch themselves instead of picking up sandwiches to take back to the abandoned library Finch used as an operating base and eating there while Finch researched the numbers the Machine had given them. “Eggs Benedict are pretty good,” John added, mostly to tease Finch.
“Bacon cheeseburger’s not bad, either,” said Dean. “Wish we could stick around to go back on Tuesday-free pancakes.”
Sam rolled his eyes.
Dean chuckled at him but grew more serious as he looked back at John. “One thing I need you to do before we go.”
John shrugged. “Shoot.”
Dean beckoned for John to follow him around to the back of the idling SUV. He opened the tailgate to reveal several Vietnam-era military duffles.
“Those look familiar,” John murmured.
Dean glanced up from opening one. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, my dad did four tours in ’Nam. Army.”
“My dad was a Marine. Taught me everything he knew.” Dean pulled the duffle further open. “Lemme see your sidearm.”
Suddenly uneasy, John drew his SIG Sauer and placed it in Dean’s waiting hand.
Dean looked it over quickly. “Nine mil,” he muttered. “Okay.” He quickly rifled through the duffle and came out with a plastic bag of ammunition. “See if I’ve got a mag that’ll fit….” He rummaged further and shook his head. Then he ejected the magazine, cleared the round John had previously chambered, manually emptied the magazine, and handed the rounds back to John before swiftly reloading from the plastic bag.
Frowning in curiosity, John pocketed his own ammo and picked a round out of the bag. The shell was standard brass, but the bullet looked to be made of a shiny metal that was lighter in color than lead. “Where’d you get these?”
“Load my own,” Dean replied distractedly.
“What’s so special about ’em?”
“Trust me.” Dean slid the magazine back into place, chambered a round, uncocked the hammer, and handed the gun back to John.
John put the round he’d been examining back in the bag and holstered his gun. He failed to see the point of that exercise, but if it had been to give him blanks or jam his gun somehow, he was glad to have his backup piece still securely strapped to his right ankle.
Dean closed up the ammo bag, put it back in the duffle, and zipped the duffle shut. “And…” he said before opening a different duffle, rummaging a little, and pulling out a pocket knife to present to John. “Keep that on you at all times.”
Now thoroughly bewildered, John accepted the knife, opened it, and examined the blade, which was made of the same light-colored metal as the bullets-silver, possibly. It was definitely long enough to penetrate the heart or do other serious damage if properly applied. He gingerly tested the edge with his right thumb and found it razor sharp… so sharp, in fact, that he didn’t realize he’d broken the skin until he saw the blood, a split second before the pain registered and he hissed.
“You okay there?”
“Yeah, yeah, just split the skin a little.” That was addressed as much to Finch as to Dean.
“Here.” Dean opened a third duffle and grabbed a first aid kit from it.
“I’ll be all right,” John insisted, cleaning the knife on his handkerchief before folding up the blade. “Sharp knife, clean cut, didn’t go that deep.”
Dean smiled like he’d passed some sort of test and handed him a medicated fingertip bandage, still in the undamaged paper wrapper. John chuckled a little, slid knife and handkerchief into his jacket pocket, and bandaged his thumb. As he wrestled with the bandage, Dean closed up the back and opened one of the back passenger doors for him before returning to the driver’s seat. Sam, who had settled himself in shotgun in the meantime, looked a question at Dean, who nodded once in clear approval. John wasn’t sure whether the message was He’s clean or He’s good to go or He’s not seriously injured, or some combination of the three, but whatever it was, Sam nodded back and relaxed as John climbed in.
John had no idea what had just happened. Dean had armed him, that much was clear, and had done so apparently without any reason to believe he wasn’t a real marshal or was in any way opposed to stopping them by force if need be. That did fit well with his theory that the Winchesters weren’t quite as dangerous as the real FBI had long believed, although why Dean had thought he needed arming remained to be seen. There was also the sense of his having passed a test with his reaction to the knife, but he didn’t know what that test might have been or how he’d passed it. Still, the Winchesters were now more at ease with his being there, and that rapport would be useful regardless of which side they were really on.
Even so, as Dean drove away from the apartment and the rain began to fall in earnest, John took a moment to clone Sam’s phone and mute his own before saying, “So our killer’s similar enough in appearance to all his victims to be able to pass for them temporarily but can’t fully assume their identities until he moves to a different city where they’re not known.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Sam agreed. “I mean, we’re reasonably sure we’ve already IDed the right guy, and he does fit that profile.”
“But even if we’re wrong,” Dean continued, “we’re still lookin’ at a white male, probably in his late 20s, around six feet tall, dark hair, eyes….”
“Blue, green, or hazel. People seem to notice those eye colors least.”
That probably explained at least part of whatever test Dean had just run. Aside from the age, John himself fit that profile.
“Of course, we’re assuming late 20s because of when Henri Musset disappeared,” Sam went on, as if reading John’s mind. “The killer could just be someone who could have passed for a college student, whatever his actual age was at the time.”
John frowned. “Thought Musset was the first victim.”
“That we know about, sure. Right now, we don’t even know who the killer was before he became Musset.”
As if on cue, Sam received a text. John stole a glance at his phone and saw that the message had come from someone IDed as Charlie.
“What’s up?” Dean asked.
“It’s from one of our analysts,” Sam replied. “Musset’s campus housing info from Stanford shows that he had a roommate named Alex Declan his last year, but there’s no other record of anyone by that name ever existing. And there was apparently some sort of dispute that made Musset request a new roommate for his last quarter, but then he rescinded the request.”
“So real name or alias?”
“I dunno.” Sam pocketed his phone. “Does make it look like Musset was the first, unless the killer stole a previous vic’s alias.”
“Be pretty tough to get into college with an alias but no paper trail, especially a college like Stanford.”
“I know. It’s just… if Musset was his first vic, why did Declan decide to kill him, first of all, and then destroy the body and steal his identity? What set him off? And why didn’t anybody see the signs before it was too late?”
John’s phone flashed in his peripheral vision. He looked down to see a text from Finch: Sam attended Stanford from 2001 to 2005.
“Dude, we’re talking about Stanford, not UTPB,”* Dean was saying, and the choice of contrast puzzled John. “It’s not the sort of place where everybody knows everybody.”
“Yeah, but everybody knows somebody,” Sam countered. “They should have had friends, mentors, study groups. Musset was probably hooked into at least one of the international student groups. Didn’t anybody catch that there was anything off about Declan?”
“Look, he was smart enough to wait until after graduation to kill Musset, when nobody was around to question why he was suddenly pretending to be Musset or why he’d up sticks to San Diego. Maybe he was already better at hiding his tells than you’re giving him credit for.”
Sam looked out the window instead of replying, and John got the sense both that this was an argument the brothers had had before and that Sam was blaming himself for not having stopped Declan before he started down this path.
Finch texted again: Conversation on video confirms neither brother knew Declan or Fahey by sight. They seem to think Declan is a shapeshifter. Be careful.
John had no idea what to do with that last bit of information and stuck his phone in his pocket. At the same time, Dean snapped on the radio and turned up the volume-and to John’s relief, it was a classic rock station. Sam huffed but relaxed, seemingly in spite of himself, which told John that the conversation was over. By the end of the song, Dean was drumming on the steering wheel, and when the next song turned out to be Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On,” all three men were singing along by the end of the first verse.
John hadn’t truly let down his guard around anyone but Finch since he’d reupped after 9/11. He’d come close with Carter a couple of times-she certainly knew more about him than anyone other than Finch-but even as much as he trusted her these days, he still couldn’t let her all the way in. He definitely wasn’t going to let down his guard around the Winchesters. But he was more convinced than ever that his initial assessment of them was correct. They might still surprise him with a double-cross, the way mob boss Carl Elias had the first two times John had trusted him… but then again, there was that silver knife in his pocket, given without any sign of fear that he’d turn it against them.
Yes, he liked these two. He didn’t trust them, but he liked them, and he was going to enjoy the ride to Owen Island while it lasted… as much as one could enjoy being on the road in a worsening rainstorm.
At the next commercial, Dean turned down the radio and glanced back at John in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Jennings. What’s your first name?”
“John,” said John. One advantage of having had a common first name all his life was that he’d been able to hang onto it, and with it a shred of his true identity, despite all the CIA had done to turn him into John Reese. He’d used other first names with other covers when necessary, but he never had liked being a Brad.
There was a perceptible pause, just long enough for John to remember that the Winchesters’ father had also been named John, before Dean huffed and smiled a little. “I’m Dean. This is Sam.”
“Dean, Sam,” John echoed with a nod, relieved that he now officially knew their first names.
“How long you been in New York?”
“Couple years. Had a few cases here before that, but nothing long-term.”
“Ever get to CBGB?”
“No, actually. I was never really into the punk scene.” That was safe to admit. The fact that he hadn’t been east of the Rockies until he’d joined the Army and hadn’t been to New York City until he’d joined the CIA, by which time CBGB was about to close down, wouldn’t be safe even to twist to fit his cover.
Dean just nodded. “I went once. Wasn’t what I expected at all.”
Sam huffed a laugh, but neither brother seemed inclined to elaborate, and John decided not to press.
And there the conversation stood until they were well out of the city. Between the radio, the wind, and the rain, it was increasingly hard to hear if anyone had spoken. Then the radio went out, and Sam reported that they’d lost cell service. John checked his own phone and saw that it was true for him as well. That meant he’d lost his link to Finch, and the odds that the Machine had some alternate way to track him were low, since the storm could well be blocking GPS signals from the phones and any transponder that might be in the vehicle itself. He wasn’t overly worried, though. As long as he could keep up his rapport with the Winchesters, the only person likely to be shot on this trip was Declan.
Even so, when they stopped for gas and a snack in Riverhead, he waited until the Winchesters were at the opposite end of the convenience store before activating his earwig in the hope that he was still connected to Sam’s phone and could use it to eavesdrop. It worked-they were reminiscing about the SucroCorp corn syrup scare and the misleading nature of the “natural ingredients” label on the pies this convenience store had for sale-so John went into the restroom to listen less conspicuously.
There was a pause filled with footsteps, apparently moving away from the pies, before Sam asked, “So what do you think?”
“His name ain’t Jennings, for one thing,” Dean answered.
“Dude.”
“I dunno, man. I can’t pin it down.”
“Yeah, me neither. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he got to Rollins’ apartment so soon after we did or that he was there in the first place.”
“You think he’s the one….”
“The computer was supposed to call, yeah.”
John swore mentally. Had the Machine called the Winchesters in on this case? Was it even capable of doing something like that? If it had, what did that mean for them, for John and Finch, and for the case? They had to be sharp and have had access to a library to have worked out the Machine’s code and the significance of the numbers in the three days it had taken the Machine to get the numbers to Finch. How much of the truth about the Machine had they been able to deduce in that time as well? Of all the times for you not to be able to monitor this line, Finch, he thought.
“I’m still not sure it was a wrong number,” Dean said. “He didn’t catch the meaning of the silver. He’s not a cop, but….”
“Whoever he is, he needs us,” Sam agreed. “And I’ve got a feeling we need him.”
“Not like I was gonna leave ’im here, Sam. Dude’s got good taste in music.”
Sam laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Dean paused. “I don’t care what you say. I’m gettin’ a fried pie.”
John could almost hear Sam roll his eyes as the brothers started bickering over whether hand pies were the same as fried pies, whether the latter actually existed north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and so on. He shut off his earwig, put the restroom to its intended use, and went out to browse the postcard racks, nodding to Sam as they passed each other. Not finding one for Owen Island, he met Dean at the hot food island, opted for a hot dog that didn’t look overcooked instead of one of the taquitos Dean grabbed, and waited while Sam got fountain drinks and Dean paid cash for all their purchases, which included a few CDs.
On the way out to the car, John considered what Dean had said about silver. He must have meant the new bullets and the knife-yes, now that John thought about it, those were made of silver. And Finch had said they thought Declan was a shapeshifter, possibly because of that bizarre lens flare that had affected Declan’s eyes in the video. So apparently they believed the only way to kill Declan was with silver, and the fact that John hadn’t had any adverse reaction to cutting himself with the knife had convinced them that he wasn’t a shapeshifter himself. John still didn’t know what to do with that information, though, especially if the Machine had called them in. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking the Machine was sapient enough to care about him-Finch had taught it that human lives were worth saving, but that wasn’t the same thing. Still, it must have calculated that they wouldn’t succeed without some support that only the Winchesters could provide, and right now, the only real difference between the Winchesters and their usual list of allies was that the Winchesters thought Declan wasn’t human.
John didn’t believe in monsters. Then again, two years ago, he hadn’t believed in the Machine.
He was still thinking along these lines when, several blocks from the gas station, Dean interrupted his reverie with the last question he’d expected: “So, John, how long you been a hunter?”
“What?” John asked, startled.
Dean took one hand off the wheel and waved his finger in a circle. “Doin’ this. Savin’ people, huntin’ things.”
John decided to go for an edited version of the truth. “Couple of years. Didn’t know there was a name for it.”
“Yeah? What you been huntin’?”
“Ghosts and demons, mainly.” That was metaphorically true, anyway-his own past certainly came back to haunt him fairly regularly, although it didn’t normally take a shape as murderous as Kara Stanton and Mark Snow had been.
Sam turned to look back at him over the back of the seat. “First shapeshifter hunt, then?”
John nodded. “Yeah.”
“Aim for the heart. Silver will do a lot more damage anywhere else than lead would, but he’ll still survive, even if you shoot him in the head. Shifters are like werewolves and skinwalkers that way-only silver to the heart will kill them.”
“Main difference is, shifters still look human when they shift,” Dean observed.
“Well, and weres only change on the full moon and don’t shed their skin.”
“Right.”
John felt like he’d slipped into the Twilight Zone. “Are you sure Declan’s not a were?” he heard himself ask.
“Positive,” the brothers chorused.
“How do you know?”
“No bloodstains.”
John must have looked as confused as he felt, because Sam explained, “Weres and skinwalkers eat hearts. Even a were who’s aware enough in human form to dispose of the body afterward would still have to clean up a lot of blood, which a good CSI team would be able to discover. But Declan’s good enough at covering his tracks that he doesn’t leave anything behind to suggest foul play-weres don’t do that. We think he’s not even shifting to avoid leaving his own DNA at the scene.”
John nodded, processing that idea as best he could. “He could be killing offsite, in the woods or something.”
“Those are the first places Search and Rescue goes. The dogs would have found something.”
“Besides,” Dean added, “if Declan was a were, he’d have a way bigger body count by now. He’s killin’ once every year or two, not once a month.”
“That makes sense,” John admitted, even by non-‘hunter’ logic. He still felt like it was about to start raining meatballs.
“So how’d you get into the life?”
John took a deep breath. “I, uh. I lost someone.”
Both brothers nodded, like that was the most common thing ‘hunters’ said when asked that question. Good, at least his cover was holding so far.
“What was her name?” Dean asked.
“Jessica.”
A heavy silence fell over the car as the brothers looked at each other. Then Dean looked back at the road and the rain, gripping the wheel more tightly.
“I lost a Jessica, too,” Sam told the dashboard quietly.
It took John a moment to break the silence again. “What happened?”
“Demons. You?”
“I don’t know. I just know it looked like her husband.”
Sam nodded slowly.
“I was too late to save her,” John continued. “It almost destroyed me. But then someone found me and… told me I needed a purpose.”
The brothers exchanged another look, and then Dean asked, “That would be Finch?”
John’s blood ran cold. “What?”
“That’s his name, right? The guy with the computer?”
“How the hell-”
“I got good ears.”
“Hey,” Sam interrupted before John could go for his backup piece. “You said it yourself: we’re on the same side here. We lost our Finch to the Leviathans over a year ago; his name was Bobby. We get it. But we’re not a threat to you or Finch. We’re here to help.”
“Like I’m supposed to believe that from a Winchester?”
Sam huffed. “Okay, so you’re one up on us. But your computer called us two days ago with a message that put us on Declan’s trail. That’s the only reason we’re here. We’re not gonna go looking for Finch, and if we wanted to hurt you, we’d have done it by now.”
“You could have tried, anyway.”
“We’ve taken down bigger monsters than you,” Dean snapped. “Sammy here took down Lucifer himself and put him back in his cage. But you really think we wanna take out a guy who can get us real FBI badges and classy hotel rooms at the drop of a hat and pay us for takin’ this hunt?”
John was reasonably sure Finch had done no such thing, but he wasn’t about to say so. Nor was he willing to confirm the existence of the Machine by suggesting that it had done those things itself, especially when it shouldn’t have been capable of calling them with the numbers in the first place. “You wouldn’t be the first people to try to kill him,” was all he said.
“Dammit, we don’t care about Finch! We’re after Declan!”
“For all we know, Finch is in Alaska somewhere,” Sam agreed. “We’re not interested in looking for him. We just like to know who we’re working for, that’s all.”
“And it’s better than workin’ for the King of Hell again, that’s for damn sure.”
John was not going to ask. “If you come after Finch,” he growled, “it’ll be the last mistake you’ll ever make.”
“Glad we had this little talk,” Dean replied and shoved a Metallica CD into the CD player.
Next
* The University of Texas at the Permian Basin is in Odessa, Texas, the nearest city to Kermit, which (for POI-only fans) was where Sam had just spent the better part of the second Year That Wasn’t between SPN Seasons 7 and 8. UTPB has about ten thousand fewer students than Stanford does.
Chapter 2
John Reese braced himself to get an earful once he was alone. He knew his employer, Harold Finch, was still uncomfortable with his occasional use of the badge and identity he’d stolen from the wife-beating marshal Brad Jennings, who was currently languishing in a Mexican prison after John had delivered him and several kilos of cocaine to the Federales. But John also knew that Finch had a far more pressing matter about which to fuss at him when he unmuted his earwig. He waited until the other two men had had time to get well out of earshot, took a deep breath, and tapped his ear.
Sure enough, Finch didn’t even give him time to say anything before squawking, “Mr. Reese, those men are not federal agents!”
“I know, Finch,” John replied softly. “I know.”
“I was able to get a clear enough shot from the security camera to run through facial identification software. Their real names are-”
“Sam and Dean Winchester. I did see the news reports out of St. Louis two years ago.”
“Then you know that they’re dangerous, multiple murderers!”
John looked toward the closed door and shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think the Feds got it wrong.”
“What?! How can you say that?!”
“I can’t explain it; maybe these guys have evil twins or something. But I have looked into the eyes of truly evil men-traitors, terrorists, sadists. Their souls are dead, and so are their eyes. The men who shot up that diner in St. Louis had dead eyes. That’s not what I see in these two.”
Finch sounded less panicked and more wary when he asked, “What do you see?”
John lowered his voice even further before admitting, “They’re like me.”
“How can you possibly-”
“I’m a killer, too, remember? But I do it to save lives, and from the way they talk, that’s their goal as well.”
“But grave desecration?”
“That part I don’t understand yet. But I’m telling you, Finch, they’re not as sociopathic as Root or Agent Shaw. Yeah, they’re killers. Yeah, they’re damaged. But like I said, I think we’re on the same side here.”
There was a pause before Finch said, “That doesn’t mean you have to accept a ride from them.”
“Well, I am going to the same place they are.”
“Which in this weather is the height of folly!”
“It’s our only lead. I was too late for Fahey, but storm or no, I can still catch his killer and stop him from killing anyone else.”
“And if the Winchesters are the real threat?”
“Then the best chance of stopping them is for me to go with them.” John started toward the door.
“John… please be careful.”
Hearing such naked worry in Finch’s tone never failed to warm John’s heart. It had been far too long since anyone genuinely cared about his wellbeing, let alone an employer; the CIA certainly never had. He didn’t know how Finch had gone from reclusive billionaire benefactor to best friend in less than a year, but now that it had happened, John found himself soul-deep grateful for it.
“I’ll bring you back a postcard, Harold,” he promised and ended the call as he left the apartment. Knowing Finch, he’d keep listening through the phone’s mic, but the conversation per se was over as far as John was concerned.
Outside, Sam was waiting on the loading dock, and Dean was behind the wheel of the black 4x4 with Pennsylvania plates that was coming through the alley toward them. John made sure to close the door with enough force for Sam to hear it, and Sam turned to acknowledge him with a nod.
“So how long have you known Fahey?” John asked.
“We didn’t,” Sam admitted. “Only talked on the phone once. We’re out of the Topeka office; Fahey was an analyst at the white-collar crime center in DC. He specialized in identity theft.”
John frowned. “So why’d you contact him?”
“He processed the missing persons reports on all the victims before Rollins and picked up on a pattern-a small quirk in the perp’s MO, but it tells us a lot.”
“Which is?”
“There were no personal photographs in any of the vics’ homes. But there were a lot of empty picture frames.”
John’s frown deepened, thinking back to the interior of the apartment he’d just left. He’d been somewhat distracted by finding the Winchesters, but now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any personal photos in the rooms he’d seen. “Did you see just the one body?”
“Yep. That, plus no pictures, suggests he’d already disposed of Rollins before Fahey showed up.”
“You’re sure Fahey was here?”
“As sure as we can be. Fahey was just about to take off to come to New York when I called yesterday, swore up and down that only he could stop the killer.” Sam huffed and shook his head as Dean stopped the SUV and got out. “I told him to meet us at the Lyric Diner for lunch today, but he never showed.”
“The Lyric?” John echoed, hoping his alarm wasn’t obvious.
“Yeah,” Dean replied, joining them. “You know it?”
“I’ve eaten there a few times.” That was an understatement-it was Finch’s favorite diner, and they’d also met with NYPD Det. Joss Carter there a few times in the last year-and-change, since she’d stopped hunting “the Man in the Suit” and joined their crime-stopping crusade. John didn’t want to know how badly wrong things would have gone if they’d eaten there for lunch themselves instead of picking up sandwiches to take back to the abandoned library Finch used as an operating base and eating there while Finch researched the numbers the Machine had given them. “Eggs Benedict are pretty good,” John added, mostly to tease Finch.
“Bacon cheeseburger’s not bad, either,” said Dean. “Wish we could stick around to go back on Tuesday-free pancakes.”
Sam rolled his eyes.
Dean chuckled at him but grew more serious as he looked back at John. “One thing I need you to do before we go.”
John shrugged. “Shoot.”
Dean beckoned for John to follow him around to the back of the idling SUV. He opened the tailgate to reveal several Vietnam-era military duffles.
“Those look familiar,” John murmured.
Dean glanced up from opening one. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, my dad did four tours in ’Nam. Army.”
“My dad was a Marine. Taught me everything he knew.” Dean pulled the duffle further open. “Lemme see your sidearm.”
Suddenly uneasy, John drew his SIG Sauer and placed it in Dean’s waiting hand.
Dean looked it over quickly. “Nine mil,” he muttered. “Okay.” He quickly rifled through the duffle and came out with a plastic bag of ammunition. “See if I’ve got a mag that’ll fit….” He rummaged further and shook his head. Then he ejected the magazine, cleared the round John had previously chambered, manually emptied the magazine, and handed the rounds back to John before swiftly reloading from the plastic bag.
Frowning in curiosity, John pocketed his own ammo and picked a round out of the bag. The shell was standard brass, but the bullet looked to be made of a shiny metal that was lighter in color than lead. “Where’d you get these?”
“Load my own,” Dean replied distractedly.
“What’s so special about ’em?”
“Trust me.” Dean slid the magazine back into place, chambered a round, uncocked the hammer, and handed the gun back to John.
John put the round he’d been examining back in the bag and holstered his gun. He failed to see the point of that exercise, but if it had been to give him blanks or jam his gun somehow, he was glad to have his backup piece still securely strapped to his right ankle.
Dean closed up the ammo bag, put it back in the duffle, and zipped the duffle shut. “And…” he said before opening a different duffle, rummaging a little, and pulling out a pocket knife to present to John. “Keep that on you at all times.”
Now thoroughly bewildered, John accepted the knife, opened it, and examined the blade, which was made of the same light-colored metal as the bullets-silver, possibly. It was definitely long enough to penetrate the heart or do other serious damage if properly applied. He gingerly tested the edge with his right thumb and found it razor sharp… so sharp, in fact, that he didn’t realize he’d broken the skin until he saw the blood, a split second before the pain registered and he hissed.
“You okay there?”
“Yeah, yeah, just split the skin a little.” That was addressed as much to Finch as to Dean.
“Here.” Dean opened a third duffle and grabbed a first aid kit from it.
“I’ll be all right,” John insisted, cleaning the knife on his handkerchief before folding up the blade. “Sharp knife, clean cut, didn’t go that deep.”
Dean smiled like he’d passed some sort of test and handed him a medicated fingertip bandage, still in the undamaged paper wrapper. John chuckled a little, slid knife and handkerchief into his jacket pocket, and bandaged his thumb. As he wrestled with the bandage, Dean closed up the back and opened one of the back passenger doors for him before returning to the driver’s seat. Sam, who had settled himself in shotgun in the meantime, looked a question at Dean, who nodded once in clear approval. John wasn’t sure whether the message was He’s clean or He’s good to go or He’s not seriously injured, or some combination of the three, but whatever it was, Sam nodded back and relaxed as John climbed in.
John had no idea what had just happened. Dean had armed him, that much was clear, and had done so apparently without any reason to believe he wasn’t a real marshal or was in any way opposed to stopping them by force if need be. That did fit well with his theory that the Winchesters weren’t quite as dangerous as the real FBI had long believed, although why Dean had thought he needed arming remained to be seen. There was also the sense of his having passed a test with his reaction to the knife, but he didn’t know what that test might have been or how he’d passed it. Still, the Winchesters were now more at ease with his being there, and that rapport would be useful regardless of which side they were really on.
Even so, as Dean drove away from the apartment and the rain began to fall in earnest, John took a moment to clone Sam’s phone and mute his own before saying, “So our killer’s similar enough in appearance to all his victims to be able to pass for them temporarily but can’t fully assume their identities until he moves to a different city where they’re not known.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Sam agreed. “I mean, we’re reasonably sure we’ve already IDed the right guy, and he does fit that profile.”
“But even if we’re wrong,” Dean continued, “we’re still lookin’ at a white male, probably in his late 20s, around six feet tall, dark hair, eyes….”
“Blue, green, or hazel. People seem to notice those eye colors least.”
That probably explained at least part of whatever test Dean had just run. Aside from the age, John himself fit that profile.
“Of course, we’re assuming late 20s because of when Henri Musset disappeared,” Sam went on, as if reading John’s mind. “The killer could just be someone who could have passed for a college student, whatever his actual age was at the time.”
John frowned. “Thought Musset was the first victim.”
“That we know about, sure. Right now, we don’t even know who the killer was before he became Musset.”
As if on cue, Sam received a text. John stole a glance at his phone and saw that the message had come from someone IDed as Charlie.
“What’s up?” Dean asked.
“It’s from one of our analysts,” Sam replied. “Musset’s campus housing info from Stanford shows that he had a roommate named Alex Declan his last year, but there’s no other record of anyone by that name ever existing. And there was apparently some sort of dispute that made Musset request a new roommate for his last quarter, but then he rescinded the request.”
“So real name or alias?”
“I dunno.” Sam pocketed his phone. “Does make it look like Musset was the first, unless the killer stole a previous vic’s alias.”
“Be pretty tough to get into college with an alias but no paper trail, especially a college like Stanford.”
“I know. It’s just… if Musset was his first vic, why did Declan decide to kill him, first of all, and then destroy the body and steal his identity? What set him off? And why didn’t anybody see the signs before it was too late?”
John’s phone flashed in his peripheral vision. He looked down to see a text from Finch: Sam attended Stanford from 2001 to 2005.
“Dude, we’re talking about Stanford, not UTPB,”* Dean was saying, and the choice of contrast puzzled John. “It’s not the sort of place where everybody knows everybody.”
“Yeah, but everybody knows somebody,” Sam countered. “They should have had friends, mentors, study groups. Musset was probably hooked into at least one of the international student groups. Didn’t anybody catch that there was anything off about Declan?”
“Look, he was smart enough to wait until after graduation to kill Musset, when nobody was around to question why he was suddenly pretending to be Musset or why he’d up sticks to San Diego. Maybe he was already better at hiding his tells than you’re giving him credit for.”
Sam looked out the window instead of replying, and John got the sense both that this was an argument the brothers had had before and that Sam was blaming himself for not having stopped Declan before he started down this path.
Finch texted again: Conversation on video confirms neither brother knew Declan or Fahey by sight. They seem to think Declan is a shapeshifter. Be careful.
John had no idea what to do with that last bit of information and stuck his phone in his pocket. At the same time, Dean snapped on the radio and turned up the volume-and to John’s relief, it was a classic rock station. Sam huffed but relaxed, seemingly in spite of himself, which told John that the conversation was over. By the end of the song, Dean was drumming on the steering wheel, and when the next song turned out to be Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On,” all three men were singing along by the end of the first verse.
John hadn’t truly let down his guard around anyone but Finch since he’d reupped after 9/11. He’d come close with Carter a couple of times-she certainly knew more about him than anyone other than Finch-but even as much as he trusted her these days, he still couldn’t let her all the way in. He definitely wasn’t going to let down his guard around the Winchesters. But he was more convinced than ever that his initial assessment of them was correct. They might still surprise him with a double-cross, the way mob boss Carl Elias had the first two times John had trusted him… but then again, there was that silver knife in his pocket, given without any sign of fear that he’d turn it against them.
Yes, he liked these two. He didn’t trust them, but he liked them, and he was going to enjoy the ride to Owen Island while it lasted… as much as one could enjoy being on the road in a worsening rainstorm.
At the next commercial, Dean turned down the radio and glanced back at John in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Jennings. What’s your first name?”
“John,” said John. One advantage of having had a common first name all his life was that he’d been able to hang onto it, and with it a shred of his true identity, despite all the CIA had done to turn him into John Reese. He’d used other first names with other covers when necessary, but he never had liked being a Brad.
There was a perceptible pause, just long enough for John to remember that the Winchesters’ father had also been named John, before Dean huffed and smiled a little. “I’m Dean. This is Sam.”
“Dean, Sam,” John echoed with a nod, relieved that he now officially knew their first names.
“How long you been in New York?”
“Couple years. Had a few cases here before that, but nothing long-term.”
“Ever get to CBGB?”
“No, actually. I was never really into the punk scene.” That was safe to admit. The fact that he hadn’t been east of the Rockies until he’d joined the Army and hadn’t been to New York City until he’d joined the CIA, by which time CBGB was about to close down, wouldn’t be safe even to twist to fit his cover.
Dean just nodded. “I went once. Wasn’t what I expected at all.”
Sam huffed a laugh, but neither brother seemed inclined to elaborate, and John decided not to press.
And there the conversation stood until they were well out of the city. Between the radio, the wind, and the rain, it was increasingly hard to hear if anyone had spoken. Then the radio went out, and Sam reported that they’d lost cell service. John checked his own phone and saw that it was true for him as well. That meant he’d lost his link to Finch, and the odds that the Machine had some alternate way to track him were low, since the storm could well be blocking GPS signals from the phones and any transponder that might be in the vehicle itself. He wasn’t overly worried, though. As long as he could keep up his rapport with the Winchesters, the only person likely to be shot on this trip was Declan.
Even so, when they stopped for gas and a snack in Riverhead, he waited until the Winchesters were at the opposite end of the convenience store before activating his earwig in the hope that he was still connected to Sam’s phone and could use it to eavesdrop. It worked-they were reminiscing about the SucroCorp corn syrup scare and the misleading nature of the “natural ingredients” label on the pies this convenience store had for sale-so John went into the restroom to listen less conspicuously.
There was a pause filled with footsteps, apparently moving away from the pies, before Sam asked, “So what do you think?”
“His name ain’t Jennings, for one thing,” Dean answered.
“Dude.”
“I dunno, man. I can’t pin it down.”
“Yeah, me neither. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he got to Rollins’ apartment so soon after we did or that he was there in the first place.”
“You think he’s the one….”
“The computer was supposed to call, yeah.”
John swore mentally. Had the Machine called the Winchesters in on this case? Was it even capable of doing something like that? If it had, what did that mean for them, for John and Finch, and for the case? They had to be sharp and have had access to a library to have worked out the Machine’s code and the significance of the numbers in the three days it had taken the Machine to get the numbers to Finch. How much of the truth about the Machine had they been able to deduce in that time as well? Of all the times for you not to be able to monitor this line, Finch, he thought.
“I’m still not sure it was a wrong number,” Dean said. “He didn’t catch the meaning of the silver. He’s not a cop, but….”
“Whoever he is, he needs us,” Sam agreed. “And I’ve got a feeling we need him.”
“Not like I was gonna leave ’im here, Sam. Dude’s got good taste in music.”
Sam laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Dean paused. “I don’t care what you say. I’m gettin’ a fried pie.”
John could almost hear Sam roll his eyes as the brothers started bickering over whether hand pies were the same as fried pies, whether the latter actually existed north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and so on. He shut off his earwig, put the restroom to its intended use, and went out to browse the postcard racks, nodding to Sam as they passed each other. Not finding one for Owen Island, he met Dean at the hot food island, opted for a hot dog that didn’t look overcooked instead of one of the taquitos Dean grabbed, and waited while Sam got fountain drinks and Dean paid cash for all their purchases, which included a few CDs.
On the way out to the car, John considered what Dean had said about silver. He must have meant the new bullets and the knife-yes, now that John thought about it, those were made of silver. And Finch had said they thought Declan was a shapeshifter, possibly because of that bizarre lens flare that had affected Declan’s eyes in the video. So apparently they believed the only way to kill Declan was with silver, and the fact that John hadn’t had any adverse reaction to cutting himself with the knife had convinced them that he wasn’t a shapeshifter himself. John still didn’t know what to do with that information, though, especially if the Machine had called them in. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking the Machine was sapient enough to care about him-Finch had taught it that human lives were worth saving, but that wasn’t the same thing. Still, it must have calculated that they wouldn’t succeed without some support that only the Winchesters could provide, and right now, the only real difference between the Winchesters and their usual list of allies was that the Winchesters thought Declan wasn’t human.
John didn’t believe in monsters. Then again, two years ago, he hadn’t believed in the Machine.
He was still thinking along these lines when, several blocks from the gas station, Dean interrupted his reverie with the last question he’d expected: “So, John, how long you been a hunter?”
“What?” John asked, startled.
Dean took one hand off the wheel and waved his finger in a circle. “Doin’ this. Savin’ people, huntin’ things.”
John decided to go for an edited version of the truth. “Couple of years. Didn’t know there was a name for it.”
“Yeah? What you been huntin’?”
“Ghosts and demons, mainly.” That was metaphorically true, anyway-his own past certainly came back to haunt him fairly regularly, although it didn’t normally take a shape as murderous as Kara Stanton and Mark Snow had been.
Sam turned to look back at him over the back of the seat. “First shapeshifter hunt, then?”
John nodded. “Yeah.”
“Aim for the heart. Silver will do a lot more damage anywhere else than lead would, but he’ll still survive, even if you shoot him in the head. Shifters are like werewolves and skinwalkers that way-only silver to the heart will kill them.”
“Main difference is, shifters still look human when they shift,” Dean observed.
“Well, and weres only change on the full moon and don’t shed their skin.”
“Right.”
John felt like he’d slipped into the Twilight Zone. “Are you sure Declan’s not a were?” he heard himself ask.
“Positive,” the brothers chorused.
“How do you know?”
“No bloodstains.”
John must have looked as confused as he felt, because Sam explained, “Weres and skinwalkers eat hearts. Even a were who’s aware enough in human form to dispose of the body afterward would still have to clean up a lot of blood, which a good CSI team would be able to discover. But Declan’s good enough at covering his tracks that he doesn’t leave anything behind to suggest foul play-weres don’t do that. We think he’s not even shifting to avoid leaving his own DNA at the scene.”
John nodded, processing that idea as best he could. “He could be killing offsite, in the woods or something.”
“Those are the first places Search and Rescue goes. The dogs would have found something.”
“Besides,” Dean added, “if Declan was a were, he’d have a way bigger body count by now. He’s killin’ once every year or two, not once a month.”
“That makes sense,” John admitted, even by non-‘hunter’ logic. He still felt like it was about to start raining meatballs.
“So how’d you get into the life?”
John took a deep breath. “I, uh. I lost someone.”
Both brothers nodded, like that was the most common thing ‘hunters’ said when asked that question. Good, at least his cover was holding so far.
“What was her name?” Dean asked.
“Jessica.”
A heavy silence fell over the car as the brothers looked at each other. Then Dean looked back at the road and the rain, gripping the wheel more tightly.
“I lost a Jessica, too,” Sam told the dashboard quietly.
It took John a moment to break the silence again. “What happened?”
“Demons. You?”
“I don’t know. I just know it looked like her husband.”
Sam nodded slowly.
“I was too late to save her,” John continued. “It almost destroyed me. But then someone found me and… told me I needed a purpose.”
The brothers exchanged another look, and then Dean asked, “That would be Finch?”
John’s blood ran cold. “What?”
“That’s his name, right? The guy with the computer?”
“How the hell-”
“I got good ears.”
“Hey,” Sam interrupted before John could go for his backup piece. “You said it yourself: we’re on the same side here. We lost our Finch to the Leviathans over a year ago; his name was Bobby. We get it. But we’re not a threat to you or Finch. We’re here to help.”
“Like I’m supposed to believe that from a Winchester?”
Sam huffed. “Okay, so you’re one up on us. But your computer called us two days ago with a message that put us on Declan’s trail. That’s the only reason we’re here. We’re not gonna go looking for Finch, and if we wanted to hurt you, we’d have done it by now.”
“You could have tried, anyway.”
“We’ve taken down bigger monsters than you,” Dean snapped. “Sammy here took down Lucifer himself and put him back in his cage. But you really think we wanna take out a guy who can get us real FBI badges and classy hotel rooms at the drop of a hat and pay us for takin’ this hunt?”
John was reasonably sure Finch had done no such thing, but he wasn’t about to say so. Nor was he willing to confirm the existence of the Machine by suggesting that it had done those things itself, especially when it shouldn’t have been capable of calling them with the numbers in the first place. “You wouldn’t be the first people to try to kill him,” was all he said.
“Dammit, we don’t care about Finch! We’re after Declan!”
“For all we know, Finch is in Alaska somewhere,” Sam agreed. “We’re not interested in looking for him. We just like to know who we’re working for, that’s all.”
“And it’s better than workin’ for the King of Hell again, that’s for damn sure.”
John was not going to ask. “If you come after Finch,” he growled, “it’ll be the last mistake you’ll ever make.”
“Glad we had this little talk,” Dean replied and shoved a Metallica CD into the CD player.
Next
* The University of Texas at the Permian Basin is in Odessa, Texas, the nearest city to Kermit, which (for POI-only fans) was where Sam had just spent the better part of the second Year That Wasn’t between SPN Seasons 7 and 8. UTPB has about ten thousand fewer students than Stanford does.