“Have you read them? The scrolls?”
Walter didn’t respond immediately, instead he looked into Sam’s eyes as if he was passing judgment, determining whether he was worthy of sharing what he knew of the scrolls.
“No.”
Sam forced a smile and took a sip from his very strong drink. Straight whiskey, he realized. At least it was afternoon. As he set the glass on the nearby end table, he noticed a red blot seeping across Walter’s canvas sling.
“Your arm alright?” he asked, indicating the bloody stain.
Walter glanced at it carelessly. “Ah. I should really be more careful on the subway,” he said, and stood up. “Let’s go to my office and talk about the scrolls.”
The sub-basement of the Waldorf Astoria was spinning around Dean Winchester. His head was rested against the cushion of a tall-back chair, his feet propped up on the security desk outside the hotel’s vault. His sobriety was long since gone.
“You think you’ve had a crap week, let me tell you something, James,” Dean said, gesturing wildly with an almost-empty bottle of vodka, the only liquor he had managed to swipe from the bar upstairs. “I come from... the future.”
For his part, James wasn’t listening to a word of Dean’s rant. He was far more than three sheets to the wind, his pudgy cheeks and eyes were both red, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
“The friggin’ future, man.”
James studied his hands intently, as if they were part of somebody else’s body.
“We have this thing, the internet, it’s like porno city. Anything you want. What are you into, man? Asians? They’ve got Asians,” Dean said with a knowing look. Boy did they have Asians.
James’s head drooped toward the floor. Dean, realizing that this was his moment, shut up and watched for any sign that James would snap out of it. Instead, he dropped to the floor entirely, his girth hitting the concrete with a slap.
“Gonna feel that tomorrow,” Dean said as he moved toward the vault door. In his inebriated state, he stumbled over James’s legs and nearly face-planted himself.
The vault was like that of a small bank, with a heavy combination-locked door which no doubt lead into a room full of safety deposit boxes. Dean knew that breaking into the main vault would be relatively straightforward—after all, he had a bit of experience in that regard—but finding the War Scroll inside might prove trickier. He’d seen James bringing the large crate in earlier, but he had no idea how big the scroll itself was, or whether it had been filed into an individually locked safety deposit box.
As he listened to the tumblers on the main door click into place, he heard James twitch on the floor. Poor bastard, Dean thought, seems like he’s got enough problems as it is. This ain’t gonnahelp. Not that Dean knew what James’s problem was, since he hadn’t been particularly chatty during their marathon drinking session.
After a few minutes, the heavy door swung open. All of Dean’s fears about finding the scroll were immediately relieved, as the center of the vault was filled with several large jars. They looked to be thousands of years old, and each was capped with a lid inscribed with symbols. Dean moved quickly toward them. He lifted the lid off the nearest jar, to find, to his surprise, a shape was carved onto the inside of the lid—a rudimentary Devil’s Trap. The holy symbol that could contain a demon.
Before Dean could react, a throaty growl sounded behind him.
James McMannon stood outside the vault, totally sober, his eyes jet black. While Dean took a heartbeat to consider how totally screwed he was, James charged.
EIGHT
Despite his considerable heft, James’s possessed body moved with the speed and lightness of a man half his weight. His meaty hand grasped Dean’s neck as he slid him off his feet and up against the wall of the vault. Dean’s feet strained for the solid floor, his toes dangling inches above the cement.
James looked at Dean with a discerning eye, as though he had just discovered a brand-new species of insect. He rolled Dean’s head from side to side as Dean gasped for breath.
“Listen buddy,” Dean managed to choke out. “I know you’re super glad to get into a new meatsuit—though frankly you could have picked someone in better shape. How ’bout you leave the poor shmuck alone?”
James brought Dean’s face close to his own and sniffed him.
“Whoa, guy, I’m not into the kinky stuff,” Dean squawked, noticing the wild look in the man’s eyes. “This is a little too Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom for me. How about you let me go?”
With a swoop of his arm, James threw Dean clear out of the vault. He sailed over the ramshackle table outside and hit the concrete wall, head first. He slumped to the ground, consciousness fading quickly. The last thing Dean heard before blackness took him was a howling, ferocious bark.
When Dean woke up, the asshole desk clerk was looming above him. Dean turned his head with difficulty. He noticed the vault was closed and James McMannon was nowhere to be seen.
Dean lifted his arm to the desk clerk. “Can I get a little help?”
“You’re fired. Return your uniform and get out.”
Dean managed to lift himself up on one elbow.
“You mean I don’t get to keep this cute little hat?”
The desk clerk sneered, turned, and walked away.
Dean felt the goose egg on the back of his skull. So much for working from the inside.
As he got to his feet, Dean had to brace himself against the wall. He stumbled a little—he hadn’t been unconscious quite long enough for all that vodka to metabolize.
After returning his bellhop monkey suit, Dean stumbled out onto the dark sidewalk. The sun had set, but when? How long had he been out? His watch had stopped when he came to in 1954, and he hadn’t managed to get it going again. He looked both ways, trying to figure out which direction the apartment was. Then he heard the quick clip of shoes on the sidewalk. Two NYPD officers were quickly approaching him, and that couldn’t be good news. Dean spun on his heels and tried to cross the street, but the officers quickly grasped both his arms.
“Had a little too much to drink did you, guy?”
Dean looked at them, a tad bleary-eyed.
“Not at all officers. I just woke up. Had the most wonderful night with Marilyn Monroe. She’s a hell cat.”
“We should let DiMaggio have a bat at your face for that one,” said one of the officers, as the other hailed a paddy wagon.
When it arrived, they shoved Dean roughly into the back of the vehicle and sped away.
By the time Sam got to the police station, Dean had been sitting in a cell for a couple of hours. The station chief led Sam down into the holding cells beneath the old building, where he discovered his brother sitting contently on a clean bunk drinking coffee and playing poker with his cell mate, a guy in a rumpled suit who looked like his three-martini lunch had got out of hand. Dean jumped up when he saw Sam.
“You have ten bucks on you?”
“Dean, I can’t use any of my money. It’s useless.”
“Exactly, so give me a ten,” Dean whispered, indicating the guy behind him.
Sam dug in his pockets and pulled out a bill. Dean took it and threw it down on the ground between the cots.
“I’ll see your five and I’ll raise you five,” Dean said. He then sat back against the wall.
“Too rich for my blood,” the guy said.
“Guess the pot is mine then.” Dean pulled a pile of change and bills toward him. “Thanks for a good game.”
The guard unlocked the door.
“Thanks Joe, keep up the good work.” Dean smiled at Sam as he held up his winnings in 1954 dollar bills.
The boys made their way out of the station.
“Nice going with staying under the radar, Dean.”
“I didn’t have a choice. I was this close to nabbing the scroll. And news flash! McTubby the guard wasn’t any regular guard. He was possessed by a demon, and now he’s on the loose. And it really doesn’t help that yo
u lost Ruby’s knife.”
They stepped out onto the street.
“Wait, what do you mean he was possessed?”
“You know, black eyes, super-human strength, the whole shebang, right here in 1954.”
“What did he want?”
“To eat my liver? How should I know?”
“Well, did he say anything?”
Dean paused, trying to remember. “He didn’t so much talk, as... bark.”
“What, like a dog?” Sam asked, amused. When Dean’s facial expression remained stony, he realized it wasn’t a joke. “Wait, really? Like, a demon guard dog?”
“Half dog, half man? Sort of a man-dog. More dog than man. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. The most important thing right now is staying out of its way long enough to get the scroll. Getting back to 2010 alive would be a nice perk.”
By the time the Winchester brothers made it back to their small apartment, it was almost three in the morning. They spent half an hour comparing notes and going over the events of the last twenty-four hours. Sam told Dean everything he had learned at the library and from Walter, minus the information about Abaddon.
Given all they had discovered, the boys were now faced with a couple of problems. Though they knew when the transaction was going to take place, they didn’t know who the actual buyer of the scrolls would be. They knew that a banker had been involved in the sale, but it would take some legwork to find out who that was. Even if they did find him, it would be much easier to take the scrolls before the actual transaction, rather than trying to grab them at the Waldorf Astoria, especially now that Dean had lost his job. They also had no weapons, and no idea how to contact Don once they actually had the War Scroll.
The one mercy granted them that night came from an unexpected source. Their next-door neighbors had been going at it with some vigor the whole night, to the point that the wall was shaking. At the height of the banging, a Murphy wall bed sprang loose from the wall where it had been hidden from view.
“The good news,” Sam said, “is that the thief didn’t find it either.” He then claimed the bed and was asleep in minutes.
Dean lay on the worn couch. Feels like I haven’t slept in years. His thoughts drifted to the leggy brunette in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria. In 2010, it wasn’t unusual to see a woman traveling by herself; in 1954 it was another story. He wondered who she was and where she had come from. There was something about how she carried herself. He was drawn to her confident walk and the way she had looked right at him—almost into him. Dean thought that after hunting down the demon-possessed guard, he might hang around and try to run into her again. He fell asleep trying to craft an opening line that would be suitable for the era.
In the morning, Sam and Dean sat on the steps of the New York Public Library sipping cups of coffee. Dean couldn’t believe coffee was just five cents, and a whole pizza was seventy-five cents. It was like living in food paradise.
They discussed what their next move was. They decided that Sam would send a telegram to the address on the Wall Street Journal classified ad, saying that he was interested in buying the scrolls.
Dean wanted to go back to the Waldorf and find James— it couldn’t be a coincidence that demon was hanging around the site of the upcoming auction. But before returning to the hotel, he headed to a secondhand store determined to buy a suit, after which he planned to get a close shave. If he was going back to the Waldorf as a civilian, he didn’t want to look out of place.
* * *
Sam found a Western Union and sent a telegram to the party selling the scrolls.
INTERESTED IN BIBLICAL SCROLLS SEEN IN CLSFD AD IN WSJ STOP HAVE FUNDS STOP SERIOUS BUYER STOP PLEASE RESPOND QUICKLY STOP SINGER
In fact, they didn’t have any funds, but Sam was going to cross that bridge when he came to it. He thought the little hat tip to Bobby was appropriate, and he wished more than ever that Bobby was there to help them.
Sam told the clerk where he could be reached, and said he would stop back in an hour to see if there was a response. He then made his way to Gimbels.
Browsing the men’s section, Sam found a wool suit for twenty-eight dollars. He had the money—Dean’s tips and his poker game in the holding cell had netted them about a hundred bucks—and Sam decided the suit was worth it. He wore it out of the store, his regular 2010 clothes stuffed into the Gimbels bag.
Sam noticed a barber shop right outside the department store. Only “a little off the top”, turned out to be about four inches. Sam stared at himself in the shop’s mirror. Now that is different, he thought. The barber smoothed his hair back with a little Murray’s Pomade and he was ready to go.
When he stopped back at the Western Union, a telegram was waiting for him.
SINGER STOP WILL CONSIDER GENEROUS OFFER STOP MEET AT 21 CLUB AT 11 AM STOP ASK FOR FELDMAN
Sam looked up and saw a clock on the outside wall of a nearby a bank; it was 10:30 a.m. He asked a passerby for directions, and then started north up Sixth Avenue; he would get there right on time.
At the 21 Club, Sam admired the lawn jockeys mounted on the porch roof of the street level restaurant below. He had never been here before. Whenever the brothers had been in New York, it had always been on a hunt. They had never really got to enjoy the culture of the city.
Sam entered the dark restaurant. Red leather booths ringed the room and every inch of it was strung, hung or hugged with a toy of some sort. A maître-d’ ushered Sam to a table where a young man in a dark-brown suit was already sitting, Sam was sure he couldn’t be a day over twenty-five. He wondered how this kid could possibly be in the business of selling ancient biblical texts.
“Mr. Feldman?” Sam asked.
“No, I’m his attaché, Mr. Benjamin Shochat.” The man stood up and shook Sam’s outstretched hand. “I speak on Mr. Feldman’s behalf. You’re Mr. Singer, I presume?” The man had a lilting accent that sounded Middle Eastern.
“Yes. Good to meet you,” Sam replied. He sat down and motioned for the waiter to bring him a glass of water. “I’m interested in the scrolls and I’d like to bid on them, but I want to see them first.” Sam had clocked that the man was empty handed when he walked up to the table. If he could convince Shochat to take him to the Waldorf and show him the scrolls, he was in business.
Mr. Shochat studied Sam’s face. “You are working for someone, yes?”
“I’m not at liberty to say just yet,” Sam improvised smoothly. “But if I was speaking on behalf of someone else, it would be a very serious buyer with a large amount of capital. This person would like me to examine the merchandise first, however.”
“Not possible,” the young man responded with a snort. “They are being kept in a vault, under heavy security.”
“At the Waldorf Astoria,” Sam said with a smile, metaphorically laying his cards on the table.
“How do you know that?” Shochat was clearly ruffled and trying not to show it.
“I know things. I’d like to see the scrolls.”
“How do I know you have sufficient funds?”
Sam stood up. “I think I’ve already proven how serious I am Mr. Shochat. Kindly have Mr. Feldman contact me if he wants to do business.”
Shochat was looking increasingly nervous. It was clear he was in over his head, and was afraid that if he didn’t act carefully, he was going to let a big fish go.
“Okay, wait,” he said hastily. “Please sit.” He drank a little from his water glass. “Mr. Feldman has another interested party, and they’ve made an initial offer of 100,000 US dollars. Are you willing to go higher?”
Sam realized that since he didn’t actually have any money at all, he could say anything he liked. He sat back down at the table.
“If the scrolls are genuine, twice that price would be a bargain,” he said blithely.
Shochat leaned back in his chair, clearly impressed. Then Sam remembered that in an era of twenty-eight-dollar suits and seventy-five-cent large pizzas, 200,000 dollars was an enormo
us amount of money. He waited while Shochat thought it over. I just need an invite to the auction, that’s all. He and Dean could do the rest themselves.
“I’ll get back to you,” Shochat said at last and stood up. “I’ll speak with Mr. Feldman. I can’t negotiate for him.”
“Fine,” Sam said standing up as well.
The young man set a derby on his head, tipped it in Sam’s direction, and left.
Dean stretched comfortably in the large leather barber’s chair. He was impressed by the incredibly close shave he’d been given. Why did men ever give these up? he wondered.
He had bought a secondhand dark-colored suit, a white shirt, and a black derby. Dean had never been a hat guy, per se, but he liked the feel of the derby. He wondered if he could conceal a weapon of some kind in it.
Out on the street, close shaven and besuited, he felt completely incognito. Now he could slip around the hotel unnoticed, giving him another chance at the scrolls.
A few minutes later, Dean stepped into the opulent lobby of the Waldorf Astoria. No alarms went off. Disguise is working, I guess, he mused. Using a key set he had neglected to return the day before, he accessed the back stairwell. Slipping quietly into the sub-basement, he immediately realized his plan wouldn’t work.
Apparently, someone had taken his intrusion yesterday very seriously—there were now three guards waiting outside the vault, and all of them were armed. Before they noticed him, Dean slipped through a half-open door to his left.
He found himself inside a dank supply closet, containing a single metal chair with a man slumped in it, his back to Dean. Cautiously, Dean moved toward him.
It’s James the security guard, he realized. Fast asleep—Wait, do demons sleep? Since he wasn’t carrying any weapons, he decided to let the sleeping dog lie. Then he caught sight of the burlap sack in the corner and remembered a handy factoid: During the nasty New York winters, janitors used salt to melt ice on the sidewalks in front of important buildings like the Waldorf Astoria. And it looked like the hotel’s salt supply was stored in this very cupboard.
Supernatural War of the Sons Page 7
