Bone Key

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Truman set the cards down and his smile got wider. "Well? Someone gonna cut the deck? It's five-card draw, jacks or better to open, trips or better to win."

  Jorge was starting to think that maybe this trip was worth it for Reynaldo after all...

  EIGHT

  David Madleigh had never been so scared in his life.

  Admittedly, the competition wasn't exactly what you'd call fierce. David was pushing thirty and still hadn't figured out what to do with his life. He had two bachelor's degrees and a master's. When he completed the latter, he came down to Key West to take a summer off and just hang out, go to the beach, drink a lot of beer, listen to a lot of music, do some snorkeling, maybe learn how to scuba dive, and so on, before moving back north to work on his Ph.D.

  That was five years ago. He hadn't gotten around to leaving the island yet.

  The money he'd saved up for the vacation had run out, so he had to work, and since his MA was in English literature anyhow, what better use to put it to than to work at the Hemingway Home and Museum?

  That was fine right up until Hemingway's ghost showed up.

  David had heard all the ghost stories. Hell, he'd even done a few ghost tours on a freelance basis over the past five years. But he'd never actually seen a ghost—until six months ago.

  It had actually been kind of cool at first. The ghost didn't really do anything except glare a lot, but that pretty much fit Hemingway's intense personality. This was a guy who fought bulls, after all.

  Then he started talking.

  And acting.

  The historical society insisted on keeping the place open. Business was bad enough in January once the holiday crowd disappeared, they didn't want to make it worse. David's argument that they weren't going to get a lot of people anyhow fell on deaf ears. He had to keep giving tours and hoping that nobody would mention the cats—like that poor guy this morning.

  And sure enough, the place was deserted this evening. Nobody had shown up for the 6:15 tour, and he was willing to bet that the same would be true for the 7:15.

  Then two guys came in—one very tall, one just the regular kind of tall, both going for a sort of post-Grunge look. They were also a little ripe, like their last shower was in 2007. The taller one was carrying a packing tube of some kind. The shorter one was holding what looked like an old Sony Walkman that had been attacked by a rabid dog, and also wore a necklace with some kind of weird charm. The taller one approached David after the two paid their way.

  "Hi there. I'm Sam Winchester, this is my brother, Dean."

  David smiled. He'd pegged them for a couple, not siblings. "My name's David, and I'll be running the tour, which starts at fifteen minutes past the hour. Until then, I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. The house was orig—"

  Sam interrupted him. "We're actually curious about the hauntings."

  Sweat, which the mild breeze did nothing to ameliorate, beaded on David's forehead. "You talked to that couple, didn't you?"

  "I'm sorry?" Sam put on a confused expression, but David wasn't buying it.

  "Look, that man just tripped and fell on the sidewalk. There are a lot of cracks—Katrina, y'know? Messed up all the sidewalks around here." In fact, most of the sidewalks had been fixed up in the two and a half years since Hurricane Katrina, but David had to say something...

  "I don't know what man you're talking about," Sam said. "We just—"

  A noise startled David, causing him to jump up a few inches in the air and his heart to skip a beat. Whirling around, he saw Sam's brother, Dean, raising his arms and dropping his messed-up Walkman. Looking down on the pavement, David saw that the Walkman was sparking, lights flashing on and off.

  Sam looked at Dean. "Dude—the EMF blew out."

  "You think?" Dean said, shaking his hand back and forth. "Christ, the energy you'd need for that'd light up Chicago. Definitely some major mojo here."

  David had no idea what these two were talking about, but he needed to get them out of here before Mr. Hemingway showed up. "All right, look, I don't know what you two are doing, but—"

  Turning back to David, Sam said, "We need to know about the haunting. When did it start?"

  "I—I don't know what—"

  Walking up to him, Sam stared down at him with scary-intense eyes. "Look, David, something bad's happening here. We need to stop it. People have been hurt and killed."

  The sweat was now pouring down into David's eyes. He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt. "K-killed? I don't know what you're—"

  "When did the hauntings start?"

  "About—about six months ago. Mr. Hemingway just kept—kept appearing, y'know? And it was cool and all, but then—but then he started talking to people." He looked away. "Then he got rid of the cats."

  Sam frowned. "Cats."

  "Yeah, I was wonderin' about that," Dean said. "The museum's famous for having lots of cats. They all got six toes, supposedly."

  "Right," Sam said with a nod, "because Hemingway had polydactyl cats."

  David ignored the glare that Dean gave Sam at that comment, and said, "And he kept checking on the tourists. Mostly it was okay, but if anyone was here to see the cats instead of his home, he'd throw them out!" It was actually kind of a relief to talk about this. The staff had been dancing around the issue, kind of pretending nothing untoward was happening.

  "When did he become so active?" Sam asked.

  "Last week. Couple days before New Year's."

  Sam looked at Dean. "When that girl died."

  David frowned. "What girl?"

  "Never mind," Sam said. "Do you know when he'll show up again?"

  "That's easy," Dean said with a smirk before David could say that he had no idea. Talking a lot louder, Dean said, "Well, shoot, Sammy, if the cats aren't here, we may as well go home! Nobody cares about some musty old writer dude, we just wanna see the cool cats!"

  Closing his eyes, David said, "You'll hear him now."

  Sam asked, "Hear? Not see?"

  David reopened his eyes to see a look of confusion on Sam's features. "Yeah, when he throws people out, you can't see him. If he just wants to yell at you—and he does that a lot, lemme tell ya—then you can see him."

  "Good," Dean said. "Means they have limits."

  An all-too-damn-familiar voice said, "Limits are for the living, boy."

  Both brothers looked around, but couldn't see anything. Dean looked at his brother. "Sam!"

  But Sam was already reaching into the tube he was carrying, and pulled out two sawed-off shotguns. He tossed one to Dean, who caught it one-handed. Panic suffused David. The only guns that were supposed to be there were from Mr. Hemingway's collection.

  Dean started waving the shotgun around.

  "Where are you, you dead bastard?"

  "Impressive," Mr. Hemingway's voice said. Suddenly, the air shifted and the form of Mr. Hemingway coalesced right in front of Dean. "You do those modifications yourself, boy?"

  That threw Dean for a loop, apparently, as his mouth fell open. "Uh, yeah—yeah, I did."

  Sam, meanwhile, took aim with his shotgun and fired it, the report reverberating in David's ears.

  David's father used to hunt all the time, and taught David all kinds of things he didn't care about regarding firearms. Since leaving home, David had willfully forgotten most of what his father had taught him, but he remembered just enough to know that shotgun blasts usually didn't look like that. It was a spray of what looked like sand or dirt or salt or something.

  Whatever it was, it had an immediate effect on Mr. Hemingway, who looked like he literally blew apart, his screams echoing off the house and competing with the shotgun blast to completely deafen David.

  Over the ringing in his ears that made everything echo like they were in a tunnel, David heard Dean say, "Y'know, this whole conversational thing is really messing with my game. Was he really geeking out over my sawed-off?"

  Ever the tour guide, David found himself
saying, "Mr. Hemingway was a connoisseur of firearms in his life." He said it in a high, squeaky voice, and not entirely consciously. His ears were still ringing, and his feet were rooted to the spot. He didn't think he could move if someone put a gun to his head—which was a real possibility just now.

  "That... hurt!"

  All three of them looked around. That was Mr. Hemingway's voice.

  Sam had once again raised his shotgun. "Definitely some major mojo."

  "Oh yeah," Dean said, doing likewise.

  "Hey," David said, "you really can't have those in here!"

  "Rock salt disperses spirits," Sam said.

  That brought David up short. "Really?"

  "Yup. These shotguns fire rock-salt rounds. It won't hurt anything."

  David probably should have pointed out that even rock salt can cause damage to physical objects if thrust with great force out of a shotgun barrel, but a voice sounded in the courtyard.

  "You... shot... me!"

  The voice was still disembodied, which worried David, as it probably meant he was going to do something physical.

  "Yeah, well, it's what we do," Dean said. "Call it revenge for all the kids who had to suffer through The Old Man and the Sea in school."

  "Shoot... a man... in his... home?"

  "No, shoot a spirit who's infesting a museum," Dean said. "C'mon, 'Papa,' show yourself. Face me like a man!"

  Having already reached what he'd thought was his panic threshold, David found himself panicking more. Appealing to Mr. Hemingway's machismo was a bad idea.

  "Oh... I will, boy... rest assured. Very... very... soon." Those last three words were a bit quieter, as if a song was fading out at the end.

  "I think we got him," Sam said. "Just took a little longer."

  "Yeah," Dean said, "and I get the feeling he's gonna pull himself together faster'n usual, too."

  He looked at David. "We need to salt and burn his bones. Where's he buried?"

  David's mind went blank for a second, then he stammered, "Er, uh—Idaho."

  "Crap." Dean shook his head.

  Sam approached David. Where before he was intense, now he was pleading. "Listen, David, we're staying at the Naylor House—you know the place?"

  Quickly, nervously, David nodded.

  "If the spirit comes back, call there and let one of the proprietors know, okay?"

  "O-okay."

  "Freeze!"

  Whirling around, David saw Officer Van Montrose standing in the entryway, his weapon out and pointed at Sam and Dean.

  "Drop the shotguns and put your hands behind your heads, fellas," Montrose said in his deep voice.

  "Officer—" Sam started, but Montrose cut him off.

  "I didn't say talk, I said drop the shotguns and put your hands behind your heads—now!"

  Sam and Dean did as they were told. "On your knees, interlock your fingers," Montrose added. As they did so—Sam looking resigned, Dean looking pissed—Montrose said, "Heard a shotgun blast, David. What happened?"

  "These two guys were firing—firing rock salt at—at, you know, the—the thing." Even with the frank talk with Sam and Dean, David couldn't bring himself to say "Mr. Hemingway's ghost" out loud.

  "Rock salt?" Montrose asked. "You sure?"

  David nodded quickly.

  "Okay." Montrose walked around behind Sam and grabbed one arm, bringing it down to the small of his back, and attached a handcuff to that wrist, then did the same for the other arm. He then cuffed Dean, and yanked both to their feet. "C'mon, fellas, we're goin' for a ride."

  David swallowed. The ringing in his ears was finally starting to die down, so the world was starting to sound normal again.

  "You okay, David?" Montrose asked.

  "Not really. You, uh—you need me to make a statement?"

  "If I do, I'll come by later, all right?"

  David nodded as Montrose led the brothers out of the courtyard and to the street.

  It was several minutes before he moved from that spot.

  Dean was fairly used to being handcuffed.

  Between his various arrests and some of his kinkier one-nighters, Dean had worn the bracelets many a time. He'd learned the hard way that struggling was pointless and only served to make it hurt more, as the thin metal bit into your wrists. Dean didn't mind pain, and had a fairly high tolerance for it, but that didn't mean he sought it out, either. So when he was cuffed in the courtyard of the Hemingway Home and Museum, he didn't struggle or complain.

  Sam hadn't been handcuffed nearly as often—he had neither been arrested enough nor had an interesting enough sex life—so he hadn't figured that out yet. He was still struggling as the cop hustled them to his cruiser, parked at an angle in front of the Hemingway Home and Museum.

  This was a complication they didn't need. There were federal warrants out on both Dean and Sam, and an FBI agent named Victor Henriksen who was just dying to get his mitts on them again. Dean really couldn't blame Henriksen—he was just doing his job, and from the point of view of a federal agent who didn't know the real deal, Dean was a crazed serial killer and Sam his accomplice. But Dean would also be quite happy never to see the man ever again, either. Henriksen had learned from the mistakes he'd made in Milwaukee and adjusted his game plan accordingly when he encountered them again in Green River. The next time, he'd likely learn from the brand-new mistakes at Green River and make their lives even more difficult.

  Which meant they had to get away from the Key West cops. Or at least this cop. He had a flat face, a big nose, and small eyes, with jet-black hair. He pronounced his vowels in that funny way that was common to a lot of Native Americans, so Dean figured he was Seminole or some such. Dean was encouraged by the fact that the cop couldn't even be bothered to frisk Sam and Dean before putting them in the car, thus missing the burned-out EMF in Dean's pocket. It meant a level of incompetence that might make escape very possible.

  After putting them in the backseat and their shotguns in the passenger seat next to him, the cop climbed into the front. He checked both shotguns, laughed, shook his head, started the ignition—Dean heard the engine pull a bit and thought it needed a tune-up, not that he intended to share that with the cop—and backed up a bit before heading down Whitehall.

  "Where you two staying?" the cop asked.

  "Sorry," Dean said, "I'm invoking my right to remain silent."

  The cop shrugged. "Fine, I'll just drop you off wherever."

  Dean frowned. "What?"

  "You fellas're walkin' around with rock-salt rounds in your shotguns. Means you're either nuts, in which case the paperwork'll be a pain in the ass, or you're hunters."

  Sam and Dean exchanged confused and surprised glances. This was unexpected. "Uh, well—"

  "I got standing orders to let hunters be. You fellas come through here a lot, after all."

  "Uh, yeah," Dean said. "We're hunters. There's been a lot of—"

  "Yeah, I know, the spooks're on overload. Figured one or two'a you guys'd be along soon enough. They shut down the Little White House today, too, after a tour group saw Harry S his own self playin' poker."

  For a brief moment, Dean thought how cool it would be to play poker with the ghost of Harry Truman, then quickly banished the thought.

  "We'll need to check that out," Sam said.

  "I wouldn't," the cop said, turning the car onto Virginia Street. "Keep in mind, presidents and other big-shot folk still come there occasionally, and the Secret Service has been known to appear. When they lock down, they lock down. "

  Sam nodded. "We'll bear that in mind—and, uh, we're staying at the Naylor House."

  Dean could see the cop smile in the rearview mirror. "Good place. Give Nicki and Bodge my regards." He turned up Duval Street, and they moved agonizingly slowly up the street. It was packed with people barhopping, and even the fact that they were in a police car couldn't make the backlog of cars move any faster.

  "Uh, these standing orders," Sam said slowly. " All the local cops have them?"<
br />
  That got another smile. "Some of us, yeah. The ones who know what's really goin' on."

  "You wouldn't happen to know a cop in New York named McBain, would you?" Sam asked. "Or one in Baltimore named Ballard?"

  "Nah. Why?"

  "No reason."

  Dean chuckled at his brother's question. A cop in NYPD's Missing Persons Unit was part of what she called a network of police who knew about the supernatural. Said "network" consisted of only three or four others—including Ballard, a homicide cop Sam and Dean had encountered in Baltimore. Sam was probably thinking that this guy should be part of it. For his part, Dean wasn't interested. Mostly his life was easier when he stayed three steps ahead of law enforcement, the vast majority of whom were mentally incapable of dealing with what Dean and Sam dealt with every day. Sam would probably point out that Dean and Sam wouldn't be very good at dealing with, say, homicidal junkies. But cops had their job, and Sam and Dean had theirs. The world was a better place when they just stayed out of each other's way.

  Eventually, they made it to Eaton, and the cop turned and parked in front of the tour place across the street. He opened the door and uncuffed them, handing them each their shotguns as well as a business card each.

  "My name's Montrose. You need anything, call that number—it's my cell."

  Dean had no intention of using it, but Sam said, "Thanks—we appreciate it."

  "And hey, take a shower, willya? You two were stinkin' up my radio car."

  With that, he got back into his car and drove off.

  Walking across the street, Sam said, "Officer Montrose was right. We are getting a little ripe."

  Since they hadn't showered since they left Bobby's, Dean grudgingly had to concede the point, though he refused to do so out loud. "Fine, let's take care of that, then hit the bars."

  "Dean—" Sam started.

  "Look, our next step is to check out the place across the street, right? So we do that later on, when the streets are a little emptier."

  Sam glanced down at Duval, just a few feet down the street, and saw the teeming mass of drunken humanity stumbling around. "Yeah, good point."