by Tim Waggoner
“Sure does,” Sam said. He slipped his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “Looks like that coffee is going to have to wait.”
“How far away from here is Bridge Valley?”
“I don’t know. A few hours, I guess,” Sam said.
Dean stood. “Well, if we’re hitting the road, I’m getting some pie to go.”
* * *
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this, Grandfather.”
Fifteen-year-old Greg Monsour stood next to a wooden table on which a tall, lean figure lay. His head was shaped like a canine’s, with a long snout and high pointed ears. The man—although Greg had trouble thinking of him as such— was wrapped in graying strips of cloth from head to toe. This was fine with Greg. He had no desire to see what was beneath the bandages.
His grandfather and grandmother stood at the foot of the table, both smiling encouragement. Nathan and Muriel Monsour were both in their early sixties and short—Nathan only an inch over five feet, Muriel a couple inches under. Their hair was so white it almost glowed, especially when compared to the brown skin of their Egyptian heritage. They were both thin, almost to the point of looking unhealthy, but that was a family trait, as was their height—or lack of it.
“Our people always look hungry to remind us of where we came from,” Nathan had once told him. Greg wasn’t sure what he’d meant by that, but he’d never worked up the courage to ask. His family was big on tradition—it was practically a religion with them—and one thing you didn’t do was question tradition. Elders must be shown respect and their wishes obeyed in all matters, the family must remain separate from the world of humans as much as possible, and the rituals that sustained Anubis must be performed with absolute precision, lest something go horribly wrong. Greg didn’t see any harm in asking questions, though. How else were you supposed to learn? But the Monsour way was simple: keep your mouth shut, listen, and do what you were told. It drove him nuts sometimes, and he couldn’t wait until the day he was an Elder. Maybe then he’d be able to change the rules, or at least loosen them a little.
Nathan wore a long-sleeved white button shirt, khaki slacks, and black shoes. He always kept his shirt collar buttoned as a nod to formality. Greg thought he’d be happier wearing a suit and tie all the time—if Muriel would allow it. She wore a flannel shirt, jeans, and sandals, and she kept her hair back in a ponytail. She was less rigid about tradition than Nathan, at least in some things—like how the family dressed—but not, however, on what they were about to do. What he was about do.
“Your mind is wandering,” Muriel said. Her voice was gently chiding, but a stern look had come into her eyes. Greg broke off his musings and forced himself to concentrate.
The three of them stood in a small room that, aside from the table, contained shelves of stone containers, all of which were labeled with hieroglyphics. Greg’s ancient Egyptian wasn’t as good as his grandparents would’ve liked, but he knew enough to identify what was inside the jars. More or less. A stone column was located in a corner of the room, well away from the table and its occupant. A small fire burned in a recessed area atop the column, heating beneath a copper bowl containing a bubbling mixture. The room already smelled of age—mildew and wood rot—and the brazier added a miasma of exotic spices that made Greg think of a funky little shop where old hippies sold “all-natural” health supplements. He was familiar with the smell. Normally, the entire family attended the Rite of Renewal, and Greg had done so since he was an infant. But today was different. Today he was conducting the rite all by himself for the first time, which was why Nathan and Muriel—his teachers—were in attendance. This was partly to keep him from becoming too nervous, but it was also a precaution. No need for the rest of the family to be endangered. If he screwed up, only the three of them would die.
No pressure, he thought.
“Is the amaranthine prepared?” Nathan asked, intoning the words in a solemn voice.
Greg resisted the urge to glance toward the brazier and double-check. He was supposed to show confidence.
“I have to add the final ingredient.”
He was so nervous his voice cracked on the last word, but his grandparents acted like they didn’t notice.
“Then do so,” Muriel said. Her tone was more encouraging than Nathan’s, but her gaze was just as serious.
“Yes, Grandmother.”
Greg thought of his first lesson in conducting the rite, delivered by his grandparents when he was fourteen.
“Why do I have to learn the rite?” he’d asked. “Everyone else knows how to do it.”
Too late, he’d feared his question would offend Nathan’s sense of tradition, but he’d only smiled and said, “Everyone in the family must know how to perform the rite. What if some of us are incapacitated? What about when we die? No matter what, the rite must be performed, once a month, during the cycle of the full moon. It is the jakkals’ sacred duty and our great honor.”
Greg walked to the shelves and opened a polished wooden box. Inside, a bronze dagger lay on black velvet. Hieroglyphs were etched into the metal, and although the light in the storeroom wasn’t especially strong, the symbols seemed to glimmer. He removed the Blade of Life Everlasting, gripped the handle with both hands, and pressed it flat against his heart, point upward. He then crossed to the brazier, taking ten measured steps. Why it had to be ten, he didn’t know. Would the rite fail if he took nine steps or eleven? It seemed like such a small detail, but his grandparents had drilled into him the importance of getting every single detail of the rite correct. He did not want to disappoint them.
When he reached the brazier, he stopped and held the blade over the bubbling amaranthine with his right hand, keeping the left pressed over his heart. He spoke a series of words in ancient Egyptian, doing his best to pronounce each distinctly.
“We praise you, Great Anubis, son of Nephthys and Set, Lord of the Sacred Land, Protector of the Dead, Guardian of Eternal Shadow. You, who inhabit the borderland between life and death, darkness and light, dreams and waking. We brew for you this holy elixir so that you might drink deep and continue your long slumber until such time as your people once more have need of your guidance, strength, and savagery. We pray you find our offering worthy, Dread Lord, that your eyes remain closed, your heart silent, your limbs still, until the next cycle begins.”
Despite his determination to conduct the rite properly, he feared he rushed the words. His grandparents didn’t say anything. He held his left hand over the amaranthine, then pressed the edge of the knife to his palm.
This was going to hurt.
He gritted his teeth—which, without his being aware of it, had sharpened—and drew the blade slowly across his palm, slicing through skin and deep into the muscle beneath. He made a fist and let his blood run down into the amaranthine. The mixture turned black, and a coppery tang mingled with the smell of weird spices.
The blood streaming from his fist slowed to a trickle and then stopped altogether. He opened his hand. There was no sign of the wound, and no blood on his hand either. His body had reabsorbed it as he healed. Pleased and relieved that he hadn’t messed up anything yet, he returned the Blade of Life Everlasting to its case. There was no blood on the dagger. He wasn’t sure if his body had reabsorbed it or if the blade had drunk it as payment for its service. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Then he returned to the brazier and lifted the copper bowl containing the now-completed amaranthine. He felt his flesh burn, but he forced himself to ignore the sensation. Pushing through pain was part of the ritual, and he would heal soon enough. All he wanted to do now was finish the last part and get this over with.
He carried the amaranthine to the table. There was an imperceptible gap between the cloth strips over the figure’s mouth. He lifted the bowl to the gap and slowly poured the mixture into the mummy’s mouth. Anubis remained still as death, but Greg—with his people’s enhanced hearing—could detect the soft sounds of swallowing. When the last of the amaranthine was gone, Greg let out
a relieved sigh, but then crimson light began to glow through the bandages covering Anubis’s eyes. The sight terrified Greg. During all his lessons in attending to Anubis, he’d never seen the god do anything like this. Something was wrong. “Grandfather, Grandmother, what’s happening?” he cried.
“Step away from the table,” Nathan said. He spoke softly, and for the first time in Greg’s life, he heard fear in his grandfather’s voice. “Before Anubis—”
Nathan’s eyes went wide, his mouth fell open, and he transformed. His teeth became fangs, his fingers lengthened into claws, his ears grew pointed, and short golden fur sprouted on his cheeks and chin. But his eyes—which normally would have been a bright amber—glowed with a strange crimson light. There was no sign of Greg’s grandfather in those eyes.
Nathan rushed to Greg’s side, moving fast as lightning, and grabbed the boy’s wrist in a grip like iron. Startled, Greg let go of the empty bowl. It hit the mummy’s chest and fell to the floor. Greg tried to pull free, but his grandfather’s grip was too strong. His touch was so cold, it burned. The pain intensified, becoming so bad that Greg was tempted to transform and gnaw off his hand. Maybe he’d grow a new hand, maybe he wouldn’t. So long as the pain stopped, he didn’t care one way or another.
Greg began to transform out of reflex, but his change came slower to him. Despite Greg’s youth, his grandfather was an Elder, and far more powerful. Jakkals could heal almost any wound, except those caused by gold, but injuries inflicted by one of their own people took far longer to heal. There was no way he could survive an attack by Nathan, and he knew it. At first he couldn’t understand why Nathan had suddenly become a mindless, vicious animal, but then he realized what must have happened. He was no longer looking into his grandfather’s eyes, but rather those of Anubis. He’d done something wrong during the Rite of Renewal, and Anubis had partially awakened. The god had possessed Nathan and was using the Elder to defend himself against what, in his dreamlike state, he viewed as an attack.
Nathan raised his free hand, his claws still lengthening, but before he could strike Greg, Muriel was suddenly there. She backhanded her husband so hard that his jaw broke with a sharp crack. His head snapped back, and he collapsed to the floor, stunned.
Muriel quickly moved past Greg and lowered her head, placing her mouth close to Anubis’s ear. She then spoke in ancient Egyptian.
“Great Dark One, return to your slumber. All is well.”
Greg looked at Anubis’s cloth-wrapped body. The crimson light emanating from the god’s eyes dimmed, and his chest ceased its rise and fall. His eyes went dark once more, and his lungs stopped working. With a shaking hand, Greg touched the god’s bandaged wrist, but he felt no pulse. Anubis had returned to his slumber.
Now that Greg was free of Nathan’s grasp, he inspected the flesh where his grandfather had grabbed him. The skin on his wrist was dry and leathery, almost as if he had aged in the place where Nathan—or rather, Anubis—had touched him. He expected to see the skin return to normal as his body’s supernatural healing capabilities went to work, but seconds passed and his wrist looked no better. This isn’t good, he thought, fighting to keep a surge of panic at bay.
“Don’t worry,” Muriel said. “Anubis was not fully awakened, and so was not at his full strength. Your wrist will heal, although more slowly than you’re used to. You’ll be fine.”
His grandmother’s words reassured him.
A moment later, Nathan groaned and rose stiffly to his feet. His features were human once again, and his eyes no longer glowed crimson. His lower jaw tilted too far to the right. He reached up and put it back into place with a sickening click. He opened and closed his mouth experimentally, and then smiled.
“I’m all right,” he said.
Muriel stepped to his side, and he put his arms on her waist.
“We’re lucky Anubis didn’t fully awaken,” she said. “Otherwise, he might’ve taken full control of you, and if that happened—”
“You wouldn’t have been able to knock me out so easily,” Nathan said, smiling.
Muriel smiled back, but Greg could feel the tension between them. They’d all just had a very close call, and they knew it.
Anubis existed in a twilight state, neither fully alive nor fully dead, and when he was awakened, the god himself didn’t rise to fight. Instead, he possessed a vessel, and when the time came, the jakkals willingly, even joyfully, consented to be used by their god. But no one could resist the ancient one’s power, and he could take control of anyone he wished, regardless of whether they gave him permission. Anubis could’ve just as easily possessed him or Muriel as he had Nathan, and there was nothing they could’ve done to stop him. Greg wondered what it would be like to have the god’s spirit take over his body. He’d been taught that serving the god as a vessel was the greatest honor a jakkal could hope for, but Greg found the idea terrifying. Did you lose consciousness when Anubis took over, or were you instead aware the entire time, a passive presence in your own body, able to do no more than observe? Either way sounded awful.
“I’m so sorry, Grandfather,” Greg said. “I didn’t know that could happen.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Nathan said. “Mistakes happen. It likely occurred because you mispronounced a word or two of the invocation.”
“Or you didn’t let the amaranthine brew long enough,” Muriel said. “The Rite of Renewal is more art than science. But you did well enough for your first try.”
“That’s right.” Nathan clapped Greg on the shoulder. “You’ll get it right next time.”
Greg knew his grandparents were trying to make him feel better, but it wasn’t working. He looked down at the slumbering form of his people’s god and feared that the next time he tried to conduct the rite by himself, it would go even worse.
THREE
As the Impala cruised past the Welcome to Bridge Valley sign, Dean turned off the radio—a classic rock station, naturally—and sat up a bit straighter in the driver’s seat. Regardless of what they suspected was happening in a given case, they needed to be hyper-aware of their surroundings. When you were a hunter, you had to be ready to shift gear at a moment’s notice. If you couldn’t do that, you wouldn’t last very long. So while the news report sounded like they had a werewolf pack on their hands, they had to remain open to other possibilities—which meant paying attention.
They’d stopped at a rest area a few miles outside town and changed into what Dean thought of as their monkey suits. Even after all this time using their FBI-agents-investigating-a-mysterious-death bit, Dean still hadn’t gotten used to wearing these clothes. The shirt collar always itched, and the pants felt a little tight. He wondered if they’d shrunken a little the last time they’d been dry-cleaned. Without realizing it, he removed one hand from the steering wheel and tugged at his pants, as if trying to loosen them.
Sam smiled. “What’s wrong? All that pie catching up to you?”
Dean put his hand back on the steering wheel and gave Sam a look. “Very funny.”
Bridge Valley looked much like any other small Midwestern town that the brothers had visited over the years: modest suburban neighborhoods, strips malls, fast-food and chain restaurants—even a Biggerson’s. The one place of interest, an amusement park called Happyland, was closed and long deserted. The farther into town they drove, the more rundown the houses became, and the more unkempt the properties. More than a few houses had boarded-up windows, but none of them had For Sale sign in the yards.
“Looks like this town’s fallen on hard times,” Dean said.
“I think I know why.”
Sam nodded to a small office building up ahead with a sign above the entrance that read FRESH START: DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE CLINIC.
Dean sighed. There were all kinds of monsters that preyed on people, and not all of them had fangs and claws.
Downtown looked as if it hadn’t changed much since the mid-twentieth century. Three-story brick buildings, old-fashioned street ligh
ts, wooden benches for pedestrians who wanted to sit and watch the traffic go by. There were signs proclaiming the area to be a historic district, and Dean thought if that meant old and boring, then it was an excellent description. There were a few promising places—a donut shop, a pizza joint, and a bar called The Whistle Stop. The latter was located next to the office of the local newspaper, The Bridge Valley Independent.
Convenient for the staff, Dean thought. After a long day of writing stories about cows and cornfields, who wouldn’t want to throw one back? Then he remembered the clinic they’d passed, and he felt guilty. From what they’d seen so far, booze and drugs were nothing to joke about in Bridge Valley.
The sheriff’s office was located in the city building, which looked more like an old-timey courthouse: all white marble, thick columns, and wide stone steps. From the moment they pulled into the parking lot, the brothers were “on.” The key to getting people to buy into their FBI disguise wasn’t so much to look the part, although that was important, but to project an aura of detached, professional confidence. That meant looking slightly bored, presenting themselves with an air of authority, and above all, no smiling or making jokes. FBI agents did not have a sense of humor. Not while working, anyway.
They walked up the stone steps, continued through a pair of chrome-and-glass doors, and flashed their fake IDs at the security guard on duty. The Winchesters had put on this act dozens of times, but Dean always felt a tightening in his gut as he prepared to meet the local law. Maybe this would be the time their fake IDs didn’t work, and if that happened, they’d have to find a way to get out of here without hurting anyone. That, or get ready for an extended stay in a place where the rooms had bars instead of doors. As usual, Dean marked the exits. A certain amount of perpetual paranoia had become second nature to the brothers over the years.
A few minutes later, they reached the sheriff’s department, and—after showing their IDs again—a deputy ushered them into the sheriff’s office.
