Bone Key

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  For that comment alone, Dean almost pulled the trigger. Instead, he thought about Susannah and that other girl whose death got them down here in the first place. "The last two people you did your little whammy with wound up with their throats cut."

  Shrugging, the demon said, "Blood helps focus the ritual, and dead girls tell no tales of Italian tourists who roofied them and escorted them out of the bar they were in. You, I'm not worried about blabbing. Besides, the blood isn't necessary, it just helps."

  "You expect me to believe that? Taking a life makes the spell more powerful. So how do I know—"

  "No, sacrificing a life makes the spell more powerful. Why do you think the Last Calusa left you out of his little confab in there? You've already lost your life, Dean, your meat's just still wandering around for a year. I don't gain anything by killing you." Another grin. "Well, nothing beyond the entertainment value." The grin fell. "But it won't help the spell any."

  Dean only believed what the demon was saying because Bobby had told him the same thing. But he still didn't like the idea in the least.

  "Tell you what, Dean," the demon said, "I still need to get myself a little R&R before I do this, and you'll want to consult with your South Dakota pal, and nothing's gonna happen until tomorrow at 5:43 p.m. when the sun goes down anyhow, so why don't I just leave the offer on the table? I'll meet you and your buddy boy Bobby at the Southernmost Point at, say, five?"

  The demon didn't wait for a response, as Montrose's head reared back again, his mouth levered open, and black smoke streamed out into the night sky.

  After the smoke disappeared over the ocean, Montrose coughed violently a few times. "Okay," he said in a weak voice. "That was different." He put his hand to his heart. "Always wanted to know what demonic possession felt like."

  "Really?" Dean asked.

  "No, not really."

  Sirens started to blare in the background, and they were getting louder.

  "Somebody's noticin' that the chief didn't check in," Montrose said. "You'd best vamoose. I'll cover for you. Keep me posted, all right?"

  Dean made a noncommittal grunt—he had bigger concerns than keeping this guy in the loop—and got into the Impala.

  I'm gonna get you out of this Sammy, I swear.

  He sighed as he made a broken U-turn and sped back toward Duval. Even if I have to work with a freakin' demon to do it.

  FIFTEEN

  Sam really hated being possessed.

  The last time it happened, it was for a whole week. Azazel's daughter—whom Sam and Dean still thought of as "Meg," even though that was just the name of the poor young woman she'd possessed—had crawled out of hell after Sam had exorcised her the first time at Bobby's place. She not only possessed Sam, but put a binding symbol on Sam's arm that locked her into his body. There was still a patch of tight skin where Bobby had burned off the brand, one of a network of scars, bruises, and disfigurements both brothers had gotten over the years. (Sam was still waiting for the fingernail on his right index finger to grow back after those two gods yanked it out at Christmas... )

  Just as before, Sam was fully aware of what was going on but could do nothing about it, and just as before, it was incredibly frustrating. So far he hadn't done anything so awful as kill a man or torment a young girl, but the night was young. He needed to get free before things got any worse.

  The Last Calusa had made Sam and all the cops and lab techs and the chief of police stand in a circle around the section of earth that had left the bones exposed. More dirt had been cleared away, exposing yet still more bones, which couldn't have been good.

  For some reason, Dean and Officer Montrose were left out. Sam hadn't the first clue why, but he was grateful that at least his brother was still out there—assuming, of course, that the Last Calusa hadn't just killed them.

  The entire time since he lost control of his own body, Sam had been struggling fiercely against it, but to no avail. Sam figured that the Last Calusa had been able to harness the life energy he drained from the construction crew to make himself stronger. Between that and the Fedregottis' spell, Sam wasn't sure how this guy was supposed to be stopped.

  He tried to wiggle his finger—the one that ached from the pulled-out nail—but couldn't. "Dammit."

  Only then did he realize he could talk.

  Beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, he thought. "What're you gonna do with us?"

  The Last Calusa turned to stare at him from behind the ornate mask from where they stood inside the circle, though not actually stepping on any of the bones. "We will enact the vengeance of the Calusa."

  "Which is what, exactly?"

  Before the Last Calusa could speak, the chief of police said, "What're you talking to this lunatic for? I don't know what kind of game you're playing, mister, but—"

  "Silence!" The Last Calusa gestured, and suddenly the chief couldn't speak, though his mouth continued to move.

  "Leave him alone!" one of the cops said. "You've got no right to—"

  Another gesture, and the cop was also silenced.

  "What of our right to survive? We were the mightiest of warriors in our time. Some came to the Calusa for protection, and they were rewarded. Others tried to take what belonged to the Calusa, and they were punished. Their bones littered the ground as testament to their foolishness in challenging us."

  Now the Last Calusa paced around the circumference of the bones, staying within the circle of the possessed. "For many seasons, we thrived. Then came the outsiders with their strange clothing and odd tools. And their sickness. Illness was always a part of our lives, but the outsiders' diseases could not be cured by our priests. The outsiders were able to do what the warriors of many a tribe could not: They brought low the Calusa."

  Standing in front of Sam now, the Last Calusa stared at him. Through the painted wooden mask, Sam saw eyes that seemed to change color every few seconds. The deep, hollow voice—which continued to speak a language Sam did not know, for all that he continued to understand every word—came out in a muffled echo through the wood.

  "As our people died, the priests came together, knowing they needed to take action. When there were only a handful of Calusa left alive, one priest was able to bind the eye souls of the dead together so that one day they might achieve vengeance on those who destroyed us. When the time was right for us to return, we did. We steal the lives from the outsiders, as they stole the life from us with their disease. Once we have sufficient strength, all outsiders will be destroyed. That is the vengeance of the Calusa."

  "Great," Sam muttered.

  Sam noticed that the Last Calusa had a solid presence. Spirits were often more ethereal. In fact, the only thing that gave away that the Last Calusa was anything other than corporeal was that he had no smell. The wood the mask was made of, the paint that decorated it, the musk of the Last Calusa—Sam couldn't smell any of it. The only olfactory hit was the dirt of the ground around him and the salty tang of the ocean breeze.

  That had been true of Molly as well. Her spirit was fully corporeal, and relived the same accident every year for fifteen years, and while Sam could touch her, he'd never been able to smell anything on her.

  "What does this accomplish?" Sam asked. "The Calusa will still be dead. And it's been over two hundred years. None of the people who invaded your land then are around anymore. This peninsula has belonged to several different nations since then. Most of the people who live here aren't even descended from the ones who killed your people."

  "It will accomplish what we were created to accomplish: vengeance. That is all that matters." The Last Calusa stepped back. "You will remain here until next the sun retreats. Then it will end."

  As he spoke, the Last Calusa faded away into nothingness.

  But Sam still couldn't move. He had hoped that he might be able to reason with the spirit even though he knew it to be a long shot. Vengeance spirits, though, were like computers: They could only do what they were programmed to do and couldn't move beyond that.
Garbage in, garbage out.

  "What the hell is going on here?" the chief of police asked. "This is insane, how can—?"

  "Chief," one of the cops said, "with all due respect, shut the hell up. You—kid."

  Sam realized that the cop was talking to him.

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm guessing you're one of the hunters on the island that Van told us about?"

  The chief was getting apoplectic. "Hunters? What the hell does some jackass shooting deer have to do with—"

  "Yes, my brother and I met Officer Montrose last night. My name's Sam Winchester."

  "You know how to stop this thing, Winchester?" another cop asked.

  Hedging his bets, Sam said, "There are lots of ways to destroy a spirit."

  "Don't play mind games, son," a third cop said, "we do this for a living. Right present, I'd prefer an honest answer to fake reassurances."

  "Me, too."

  "Yeah."

  The chief, though, yelled, "What are you people talking about?"

  Since his own people were ignoring him, Sam felt comfortable disregarding the chief as well.

  "I'm not sure. A spirit like this, there's two ways to get rid of it. One works on most every spirit: You salt and burn its physical remains."

  "How come you said 'most every'?" the first cop asked.

  "Well, sometimes the remains are cremated or otherwise destroyed. And—" He hesitated. "And sometimes the spirit's too powerful for that to work."

  Silence descended upon the site for a moment. Then the chief burst out: "You people are insane! Spirits? This is nonsense!"

  "You been livin' on Key West how long, boss?" another cop asked.

  "I don't believe in ghosts," the chief said archly.

  "What'd you think that was, Chief, a special effect? And hey, how come you ain't movin' right now?"

  The chief started muttering. "Crazy, just—just crazy."

  A lab tech spoke over the chief. "You said there were two ways to get rid of it, Mr. Winchester. You implied the first method won't work here."

  "It won't," Sam said. "This spirit is the embodiment of the entire tribe. We'd never be able to track all the remains down."

  "Fine," the lab tech said. "What's the other?"

  "The Last Calusa is a vengeance spirit. It's here for a particular purpose. Some spirits are here to warn somebody about something, or let people know who really killed them, that kind of thing. Once they've fulfilled that purpose, they move on."

  "So once this guy does what he's supposed to do, he'll go away?" a cop asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Great," another cop said, "so all we gotta do to get rid of this guy is wait for him to wipe the entire human race. Swell."

  "Not all of us," Sam said. "He said all 'outsiders' would die. And you notice he didn't drag Officer Montrose in here. My guess is that sacrificing us will give him the power he needs to wipe out all non-Indian people. Or maybe he'll spare the members of tribes he considers friendly to the Calusa. "

  "This is insane," the chief said.

  "I'm with the chief," one of the cops said. "He's just gonna kill us 'cause his people got sick? I mean, he said it himself, it was disease that wiped 'em out! That's not even anybody's fault!"

  "I didn't see you trying to explain that to him," another lab tech said.

  "It was pretty obvious that listenin' to reason wasn't high on this guy's list."

  The cops continued to argue. Sam tuned it out, trying to focus inward. Maybe, if he concentrated hard enough, he could break free of the Last Calusa's imprisonment. Several moments of concentration later—though Sam wasn't sure how long, since he couldn't move his arm to see what time it was—and he had no luck.

  So he concentrated some more. I've got until a quarter to six or so tomorrow, and it's not like I have anything better to do...

  SIXTEEN

  Dean sat not-very-patiently on the hood of the Impala, currently parked on Route 1A near the Key West International Airport. Which, Dean thought, is a pretty hifalutin name for a shack with a runway. Still, they had flights to various foreign countries—many of which were closer to Key West than the island was to the Florida state capital—so Dean supposed it made sense.

  Bobby had said his flight would be in around ten. Dean supposed he could have gone inside and checked, but that would've required setting foot in an airport, which Dean had no interest in doing. That would put him in dangerous proximity to the planes. It was bad enough the damn things kept flying overhead and making all that noise as they came crashing—okay, landing—to the ground.

  He didn't see how Bobby could even consider traveling that way. Of course, it made more sense right now, since they only had until sunset tonight. Sam had whined any number of times about how ridiculous it was that they had to drive everywhere. And even Dean had to admit that being grounded limited them. But air travel was expensive, as was storing the Impala (though Bobby would let them keep it at his place for free). More important, how the hell were they supposed to transport their weaponry? Dean had plenty of faith in his and his brother's ability to forge documentation, but it was a lot easier to fool a grieving widow or an overworked hospital nurse than airport security.

  Sammy...

  Dean shook his head—then jumped out of his skin as he heard another plane take off. Goddammit.

  Route 1A ran along the southeast coast of the island, and in this spot it was the beach and the ocean on one side and the airport on the other. If he faced one way, he could see the planes, and he broke out in a cold sweat. If he faced the ocean—which had the added advantage of affording him a view of the women on the beach—he was caught off guard by the sounds of the planes, and it scared the crap out of him.

  If Dean had to have a phobia, he supposed fear of flying was as good a one as any to have in his line of work. Beat the hell out of claustrophobia or a fear of loud noises. Dean had no problem with fear, as long as it stayed healthy. Healthy fear kept you alive. Crippling, mind-numbing, paralyzing, sweat-inducing fear, though, that sucked. And messed with the job.

  The job was all Dean had. Yes, he had Sam, too, but Sammy was intricately tied up with the job.

  He pounded the hood of the Impala and hopped off it, starting to pace on the sidewalk. Times like this, I wish I smoked. This'd be a great time for a cigarette. Not that it would help matters, and they had enough problems keeping up with rising gas prices, much less adding a habit that cost five bucks a pack.

  But that was the job. Cheap motels, cheap coffee, cheap beer, cheap food that was probably hardening his arteries by the second, all of it a testament to getting what you paid for.

  My health don't matter, though. Why should I worry about a heart attack or lung cancer when I'm fifty when I ain't even gonna see my thirtieth birthday?

  A tinny rendition of Eric Clapton's guitar riff for "Crossroads" sounded from Dean's pocket. Taking out his cell phone, he saw that it was Bobby. Guess one of those planes was his. "Yeah, Bobby?"

  "Plane's landed."

  "Okay—I'm right down the street. See you in a few."

  About twenty minutes later, Dean was waiting at the car pickup area near the terminal when Bobby finally emerged, holding a small carry-on bag. "I also had some stuff shipped overnight to the Naylor House. It show up yet?"

  "Dunno," Dean said. "I haven't been there in a while." He assumed that Bobby had sent along things you couldn't really bring on a plane.

  Bobby threw his bag into the backseat, then stared at Dean through the passenger-side window. "You okay? The bags under your eyes have bags under their eyes."

  Dean shook his head. "I was up all night digging through Dad's journal. Didn't find jack about the Last Calusa or about demon rituals that destroy powerful spirits. After that, I got sick of sitting in the damn room, so I went driving up and down the keys for a while."

  Bobby opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat. "After dealing with John's thought processes, I'd need a long drive myself. C'mon, let's figure out wh
at's goin' on."

  Dean yanked on the seat belt. Something about having Bobby in the car made him want to play it safe. He didn't always bother with it, though lately he'd been putting it on when Sam whined about it, just to avoid yet another argument. He and Sam had been bickering way too much lately as it was. Besides, with both of them on the federal radar, it'd be downright embarrassing to be nailed at a traffic stop for piddly crap like a seat belt and get tossed back into the waiting arms of Special Agent Henriksen.

  For Bobby, though, Dean buckled up on instinct. Out of respect, if nothing else.

  It had been a very frustrating night. Pulling an all-nighter was fine if you actually got something out of it, but all Dean had done was read through the overstuffed leather-bound notebook that was all he had left of his and Sam's father. In the years since the yellow-eyed bastard killed their mother, John had dedicated himself to being a hunter, and all that time he took copious notes.

  What they weren't, though, were organized notes. Aside from sticking the stuff that was phony in the back, Dad didn't keep his notes in anything like order. Sammy had been making noise about putting the whole thing into a database or something on his laptop, but he hadn't actually had time to do so, what with them being so busy doing their jobs and all.

  So Dean spent the entire night squinting over Dad's weird handwriting and upside-down margin notes and total lack of organizational skills, all to find out that this was something he never encountered in two decades of hunting. Or if he did, he didn't bother writing it down.

  Thanks, Dad. Big help, like always.

  To make matters worse, Captain Naylor wasn't doing so hot at keeping his promise to leave Dean alone, as he kept showing up in the room to ask how things were proceeding. He also expressed displeasure at what the Fedregottis did to him, at great length.

  Finally, Dean got fed up and left.