Sam nodded his agreement, but his heart wasn’t in it. Part of him had always wished for an easy way out, and sudden lack-of-existence would certainly do the trick. He tried to change the subject.
“What are they going to think when they get to the end of the list, and there we are?”
“Let’s not even go there,” Dean replied. “What I don’t get is why Abaddon would send us here in the first place. Says he wants to defeat the Devil and go on sipping pina coladas for the rest of eternity on Earth. But think about it, if we destroy all the vessels, that means his, too.”
“So he’d be stuck in Hell.”
“And he said that he wanted Lucifer to be destroyed entirely, but this would just keep him locked up,” Dean added.
“With Abaddon stuck guarding him,” Sam continued.
Both of them paused to reflect on the pretzel that was temporal mechanics. Then Sam chimed back in. “He must not have known exactly what was on the scroll...”
“Or he’s just another angel douche, playing us for fools,” Dean said bitterly.
“Where does that leave us?”
“Screwed, as usual,” Dean said.
“What if... what if we’re the ones who destroy it?” Sam ventured.
“Back up.”
“In 2010, history records that the last page is missing or destroyed. What if we’re the ones who destroy it? To stop Walter from fulfilling his... destiny, or whatever.”
“Then we’re going to have to fight our way past Walter to get it,” Dean answered. “He’s not going to let that thing out of his sight again, not after we got the slip on him the last time.”
Sam looked at Dean seriously. “Could you do it?”
“Kill Walter?” The words rolled a little too effortlessly off Dean’s tongue.
Outwardly, it seemed as though the notion didn’t faze Dean, but Sam knew it did. Dean would never admit to having a soft spot, but right now, it was the exact size and shape of Julia. In fact, it was a novelty for Sam to be on the other side of their usual dynamic—instead of being the lovestruck kid brother falling for the wrong woman, he was the protective one waiting for the right time to intervene. After what had happened with Ruby, Sam doubted if he’d ever again be able to have a healthy relationship with a woman. Not that it matters, since I’ll probably be dead soon. God, that wasn’t morbid at all.
Dean stared back at the motel room.
“No. Probably couldn’t,” he conceded.
“Guess we need another plan,” Sam said, relieved by his brother’s candid response.
“Yeah.” Dean kicked at the dirt, billowing it into a gloomy cloud, matching the one Sam had made earlier. “I think I’ve got one.”
Later that evening, Dean went looking for Julia. He found her scrubbing the bands of her car’s CB radio, listening for any hint of voices in the static. Before alerting her to his presence, he took the opportunity to watch her with her guard down. He imagined that she carried herself differently when she thought no one was watching—that he could see the ‘real’ Julia underneath the layers of defenses.
“I know you’re watching me, Dean, and it’s creepy.”
Guess that theory’s shot.
“I came to see if we could mend some fences,” Dean said.
“Nothing to mend. You made it pretty clear what your intentions are regarding the scroll.”
“And now we share the biggest secret that anybody’s ever kept. The key to stopping the Devil. And that means we’re going to have to work on our trust issues.”
Wearily she looked at Dean. “I don’t have the energy to get into all of our issues.”
“The way I see it, I have no choice but to trust you.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Because without your help, I’m not going to be able to stop your dad from murdering a lot of innocent people. And the only way I’ll be able to convince you to help me is to tell you the complete God’s honest truth, and that means trusting you not to flip out when you hear it.”
“I’m a big girl.”
Dean sized her up. “Not that big.”
“My dad has been working toward this his whole life. What makes you think I can convince him of anything?”
“You’re his daughter. That’s how daughters work. Look at Paris Hilton, she runs around showing off her hoo-ha and her dad just keeps refilling her checking account.”
“Who?”
“Right. See, that’s the problem. Different frames of reference.”
“Get to the point, Dean.”
“Fine. You and I are both hunters. We both have missions to complete, it’s just that... mine has taken me a little farther from home.”
“How far?”
“Fifty-six years.”
Dean could see that Julia was trying to process the information, but she gave no indication as to whether she believed it was true or not.
“Let me go back to the beginning,” Dean said.
“That would be helpful.”
“With a father like yours, you must know the story of Lucifer and Michael. Lucifer loves God more than anything else, but can’t stand his creations. Us. He doesn’t think we deserve to live in Paradise. He rebels, and big brother Michael has to put him down. Sweet family story.”
With a flick of her wrist, Julia turned off the buzzing CB radio, focusing her attention on Dean.
“Lucifer spends all his time in the pit gearing up for the rematch. But, it’s not that simple. First, he has to be let out. Second, the rematch has to take place on Earth, so he has to find the perfect meatsuit to jump into, and Michael has to find his. And here’s the kicker, their vessels... have to be brothers. ‘So it is in Heaven, so shall it be on Earth.’”
Realization began to dawn on Julia’s face. Dean hurried to finish before the inevitable questions started.
“A battle for the fate of Earth, fought by two of the names on that list in there. And it’s true, if all those bloodlines were cut, the angels would be all dressed up with no place to go. But Walter’s wrong about one thing. They’re not strangers.”
“You...”
“... and Sam. Hounded by this crap since birth. And fifty-five years from now, Lucifer will be freed. The Apocalypse will start. And we’ll find a way to stop it. Without killing hundreds of people.”
Julia turned away, pushed one step too far.
“So, let me get this straight, you’re a time-traveling angel-vessel from the future.”
“I’m the angel vessel. Michael’s.”
“And Sam... is Lucifer.”
“His vessel. Yes. But angels, even fallen ones, aren’t like demons—they need permission to come in. And Sam won’t give it.”
“If you really believe that, you wouldn’t be so desperate to find another way to stop him.”
“I trust my little brother.”
“You don’t trust anyone, Dean. Even now, you’re thinking of ways to take back everything you just said.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because that’s what I’d be doing. This line of work isn’t designed to let people make friends. Even if they’re family.”
“Well, Sam’s all I’ve got,” Dean said. “And if you think I’m going to let Walter murder him...”
“If your story’s true, you’ve seen the start of the Apocalypse. And as a hunter, you’re not willing to do whatever it takes to stop it?”
“There’s another way. We’ll find it.”
“We go out every day and put our lives on the line for other people. This is the single biggest evil sonofabitch there ever will be, and that’s not big enough for you to lay down in front of?”
“Hunters don’t lay down. If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging.”
Julia’s mouth curled into a half-smile. “Okay.” She turned away from him. “Right answer. But... what makes you think there’s another way? Chances like this don’t come twice...”
As earnest as he’d ever been, Dean moved to l
ook her right in the eye.
“I have to believe that there is. Your dad... he wants his destiny. Sammy and me, we don’t. Most days, I wake up and feel like running. But this is what we’re saddled with, so we’re going to find our way out from under it. But fifty-six years from now. Not today. Not like this.”
“You said you’d put your trust in me, but you’re asking me to put a hell of a lot of trust in you. I’m supposed to trust my grandchildren’s lives to you being able to punt your way out of this.”
“I thought you didn’t want the picket fence.”
“I want it, Dean, I’m just smart enough to know I’ll never get it,” she said sadly.
Dean was entirely spent. There was nothing else he could say to her that hadn’t already been said, so he went back to the beginning.
“Talk to Walter.”
She nodded, but didn’t say a word. Her facial expression was unreadable.
“We save people. We don’t murder them.”
“Let me sleep on that,” she said as she walked away.
* * *
It was late, and Dean forced himself to go to bed. There was nothing for him to do besides wait, putting him in an uncomfortably passive position. As a hunter, his tactic had always been to keep moving, to keep testing every option until he found a solution, but that rarely involved letting a woman ‘sleep on’ the most important decision of her life.
Sam was already asleep in his bed. Instinctively wary, Dean locked the door to their room and checked the windows were sealed. He trusted Julia; he had to. But now she knew that, in theory at least, Sam’s death could save the world from the Apocalypse, it didn’t hurt to take some precautions.
Despite all of the thoughts swirling in his head, the comfortable mattress and backlog of sleep deprivation quickly took its toll, and he fell asleep with his shotgun beside him.
When Dean awoke, the sun was shining brightly in through the motel window. It’s got to be least 10 a.m., he realized.
Swinging out from under the covers, Dean noticed the empty bed next to his. He had a moment of panic—where was Sam? But he pushed it aside, Sam always wakes up early. He’s probably grabbing some coffee. Stepping outside, he felt the cool morning breeze on his skin. It would have been refreshing, if he wasn’t in such a hurry to hear what Julia had to say.
Stopping outside her door, he raised his hand to knock, then thought better of it. Serious morning breath. Should have brushed before I came over. He and Julia obviously had no future together—since her future was in the distant past—but that didn’t mean Dean had given up entirely.
As he turned back toward his room, Julia’s door swung open.
“Dean,” Sam said, framed in the open doorway, a broken look on his face. “We have a problem. They’re gone, and they took the scroll.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Throughout Dean’s life, he’d been betrayed by anyone who had got close to him. With Julia he had allowed himself to hope, even though, Dean realized, it was an idiotic notion to fall in love with someone born fifty years before him.
A burning anger bubbled up within him. He returned to their room and headed straight for the closet.
“They said they weren’t going to make any moves until we talked about it some more,” Sam said.
“Well, they lied. Seems like Walter’s plan to play a part in saving humanity means he’s going to do whatever it takes.”
“Aren’t we as well?”
Dean stared at his brother. “We’re not killing people, Sam.”
“How are we going to find them? We have no idea where they’ve gone.”
Dean held up the cord of the CB radio.
“We’re going to track them as we go.”
Twenty minutes later, they pulled into the electronics store. As they raced inside Crazy Eddie was there, smiling broadly.
“Good morning gentlemen. Can I hel—”
Dean put his hand in his face.
“We’re taking some equipment.”
Dean pulled a CB converter off the wall, and Sam grabbed a large extendable antenna. They left without saying another word to the store clerk.
“You’ve got to pay for those!” Eddie called after them.
Sam assembled the gear as Dean drove. The plan was to find the signal that Walter and Julia were using, and quickly, before they could tell anyone about the list. But chances were slim. They had no idea which direction Walter and Julia had gone in. Moreover they had no idea what kind of hunter network they were a part of. John Winchester had always taught his boys a sort of code: they might have to kill the bodies demons inhabited, but they don’t kill people. From the conversations they had had last night, it seemed that not all hunters thought that way. To Julia and Walter, the greater good was worth sacrificing some human life.
Dean gripped the steering wheel; all these things flying through his mind as they burned down the freeway.
Sam regarded his brother. Sam was pissed. Dean knew better than to get involved with someone, especially another hunter. Just at the time when the outcome of the Apocalypse would be determined by whether Sam and Dean could find away to keep Lucifer and Michael at bay, Dean decides to get involved with a chick. Sam knew his brother would never let him get away with that if the tables were reversed. Example, Ruby.
Sam fiddled with the CB radio, but all they heard were truckers all over the Midwest; not one spec of evidence that Walter and Julia were out there.
Dean pulled over for gas. They had been driving south in a crisscross fashion for hours. The new Oldsmobile they had hotwired was a gas-guzzler.
Dean hit the head at the rest stop. Staring into the mirror in the men’s room, he wondered if they would ever be able to leave 1954. Would they run into their father at some point? Would this mean that they would never be born? How long could they live in the past? Would they even age? Dean took off his jacket and set it on one of the sinks. He ran some water over his face. As he reached for his jacket, he noticed a small piece of paper hanging out of the inside breast pocket.
It was a napkin from the café across the street from the motel. On it was scribbled a little drawing that Julia had doodled while they were having coffee the previous night. It was an arch, with little stick people figures underneath it. Dean had teased Julia that she was terrible at drawing, and that he would never pick her to be on his Pictionary team. She didn’t understand the reference, but she did give him the drawing. The arch looked like it could be the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Dean could be totally wrong, but it was the only lead they had.
“They’re in St. Louis.” Dean jumped into the driver’s seat.
“How do you know?” Sam asked.
Dean held up the napkin. “Julia drew this, sort of looks like the St. Louis Arch, right? I wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing. I bet that’s where they’re based. When we called them on the CB, it took them twelve hours to get to us. It’s a twelve-hour drive to St. Louis, especially in these old cars.”
“They have a twelve-hour jump on us. Let’s get going.”
Dean hit the gas and headed due south.
Around eight hours later, as they reached the outskirts of St. Louis, they turned on the CB again.
Dean nodded toward the radio. “Flip through, see if you can’t get a higher frequency for any emergency calls.”
Sam did as he was told. Surveying the upper frequencies of the CB might lead them to any emergency calls coming into the St. Louis Police Department. If Walter and Julia were serious about killing off some of the angelic bloodlines, there probably would be some witnesses to the violence. Unless they were really, really good.
In a quiet residential street, Dean pulled over to the side of the road. It was around eight p.m., the sun was going down and several families were out for an evening stroll.
Sam diligently switched through the frequencies, going all the way up and then back down again. Then he caught it. It was faint, but they had picked up the local police radio.
T
hey listened for more than an hour. All the police calls were for public drunkenness or the occasional domestic dispute. Dean leaned back and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long night.
Dana Mey Smith was on her hands and knees looking underneath the bed for Bertrand.
“Found him!” She appeared back at her son’s bedside with the erstwhile missing bear. “Don’t let him drop down there again,” she said with a sincere maternal voice.
Dana smoothed down the blond cowlick of her son’s hair; ever since he was born, the absurd tuft of hair had adorned her son’s forehead. If it hadn’t smoothed out in five years, she was certain it was never going to. But at least the hair’s disposition fit the popular hairstyles of the times.
“I won’t,” Cory said as he closed his eyes contentedly and turned over.
Dana tiptoed out of his room and down the stairs. At first she didn’t notice anything out of place. It was still hot in her small two-story Victorian, though she kept all the windows open all the time when it was the middle of summer like this. And she didn’t lock the door because Greg would be returning home from his shift. So it wasn’t unusual to have the long curtains move in the breeze. But as Dana turned toward the kitchen, she saw a figure outlined in the curtain. The figure was tall and dressed in black clothing with a ski mask on his face. She screamed.
He moved toward her. She screamed again and tried to run toward the back door. The man tackled her to the floor. She tried to knee him in the groin, but he was far too fast and too strong.
Dana felt her head hit the floor. A hot tingling feeling ran from her ears to her eyes.
“I don’t have any money. I don’t have any money,” she cried through her tears.
The figure put his hands around her throat and started to squeeze. She struggled at first, pulling at the fists around her neck. In a matter of thirty seconds her body went limp.
The man got up off the floor and pulled the dead body into a pantry inside the kitchen.
Supernatural: War of the Sons Page 20
