Bone Key

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  "You get my message?" Dean asked as he headed back westward toward Old Town.

  "Yeah, got the voice mail when we stopped over in Atlanta. And I don't like it."

  "Me either, but unless you got a better idea... "

  "Anything's a better idea than workin' with a demon, Dean."

  "Really?" Dean said snidely. "So that wasn't a demon who helped you rebuild the Colt, that was just some blond chick with really black eyes, right?"

  Bobby said nothing.

  "Look," Dean went on, "you said that Tonto can't use me because my life's already been sacrificed. Well, I made that sacrifice so that Sammy wouldn't die. I ain't lettin' that be for nothing, so we are doing whatever it takes to make sure he lives. If that means workin' with that bitch of a demon, then we do that."

  "I don't like it, Dean."

  "Excuse me, but when did liking ever enter the freakin' equation? This is Sam we're talkin' about!"

  "Yeah, and you already did one stupid-ass thing to save his life, and I don't want you doin' another one without thinkin' about it first." Bobby pointed an accusatory finger at Dean from the passenger seat. "And don't you dare take that tone with me, boy. I been in this game a lot longer than you, and I know all about what you have to do when things get bad."

  Bobby didn't elaborate, and Dean didn't ask, mostly because he was embarrassed. Bobby was as close to a father as Dean had anymore. Hell, in some ways, he was better than the guy who originally had the job, and he certainly didn't deserve to have Dean biting his head off. "I'm sorry, Bobby."

  "It's all right," Bobby said in a quieter tone. "I shouldn'ta snapped. But you ain't the only one's been up all night."

  They drove in silence for a few minutes.

  "What exactly did the demon say she could do?" Bobby asked.

  Turning the Impala right onto White Street, Dean said, "She said her spell could channel all the spiritual energy on Key West through a single vessel."

  "And you're the single vessel?"

  Dean nodded. "Has to be a willing vessel; otherwise, she's spending too much time struggling with the guy and isn't able to focus."

  "Makes sense." Bobby's lips twisted in thought. "The Last Calusa's got the strength of the entire tribe, with the added bonus of all the people he killed. The spirits on the island are already more powerful thanks to the demons' spell. Combine 'em all into one person—"

  "And you got one bad-ass spirit," Dean said.

  "Sonofabitch." Bobby suddenly got a faraway look in his eyes.

  "Bobby?" Dean prompted as he turned left onto Eaton.

  Shaking his head, Bobby said, "I'm a jackass. Shoulda realized it when I heard your voice mail. This sounds like a variation on a gestalt."

  "Gesundheit."

  Bobby didn't even dignify that with a reply, which Dean found disappointing. Sam, at least, he could count on for a groan of appreciation. Instead, Bobby just said, "It's a spell that combines several people into one."

  "You ever seen this spell in action?"

  "No." Bobby shook his head emphatically. "This is high-level stuff, the sorta thing that monks could only pull off after fifty straight years of meditation."

  "Or a demon could do in her sleep."

  "Yeah."

  Pulling into the Naylor House's driveway, Dean said, "So basically we're fighting fire with fire. Tonto's a ghost to the power of a thousand, so we hit him with a ghost to the power of a thousand."

  "Pretty much, yeah." Bobby climbed out of the car and opened the back to retrieve his bag.

  Bodge was sitting on the front porch, Snoopy draped over her lap, snoozing. "Heya Deany-baby! You got a package. Nicki's got it inside."

  The salutation got Dean a look from Bobby, which Dean ignored with only a little more effort than it took to ignore similar looks from Sam. "Thanks, Bodge! This is our friend Bobby."

  "Pleased to meet you, Bob. I'd get up, but, uh—" She pointed at the sleeping sheepdog.

  Bobby smiled. "Got a pooch of my own. If he ain't up and runnin' over to meet new people, means he's out like a light."

  "Yeah." Bodge laughed. "There's some breakfast left in back if you guys want."

  "Thanks," Dean said as he hopped up onto the porch. He paused to give Snoopy a scritch. The dog raised his furry head for a brief second, then flopped back down onto Bodge's thigh.

  Inside, Nicki was sitting at the front desk, and Dean introduced Bobby to her as he signed for the package, then they took the big box and went out into the back. The table had two pitchers of coffee, several bowls filled with cut fruit, a loaf of bread next to a toaster, a butter dish, several jars of jam, and a few boxes of cereal.

  "They only do the fancy breakfast from six to nine," Dean said dolefully. Of course, he could have had it this morning, but he had been up around Key Largo at that point.

  "This'll do." Bobby poured himself some coffee and put two slices of bread in the toaster.

  After they'd stocked up on fruit, toast, and coffee, they retired to Dean's room.

  Captain Naylor was waiting for them, predictably. "I see you've brought assistance thanks to your brother's capture. Good morning, sir. I am Captain Terrence Naylor, and I'm a prisoner of this blasted house."

  Nonplussed, Bobby said, "Er, Bobby Singer. Friend'a Dean and Sam's."

  "Mr. Winchester and I have an arrangement," Naylor said.

  "Yeah," Dean said through gritted teeth, "that you'd leave me alone, and I'd salt and burn your bones when this was all over. You ain't doin' so hot on your end."

  Sounding wholly unapologetic, Naylor said, "My apologies, but my already-nightmarish existence has grown far worse."

  "My heart bleeds."

  "Actually," Bobby said, "we're gonna need your help to get this done. You and all the spirits on the island."

  "And how's that, Mr. Singer?"

  Quickly, Bobby explained what he assumed the spell to be. "If there's anything you can do to smooth matters over with the other spirits, it might help."

  "I doubt I have that sort of influence over my fellow deceased—however, in the interests of fulfilling my side of our arrangement, I will endeavor to do so."

  With that, he faded away.

  Dean fixed Bobby with a dubious expression. "You really think Captain Ahab there can talk the other spirits into cooperating?"

  Bobby shrugged. "Got nothin' to lose by tryin'. Maybe the horse'll talk."

  "Sorry?" Dean asked in confusion. It was a sad commentary on Dean's life that it was perfectly possible that Bobby really meant an actual talking horse.

  "Story my uncle used to tell," Bobby said after sipping his coffee. "Guy's being condemned to death. He's brought before the king, and the king asks if he has any last words. Guy says, 'Your majesty, gimme a year, and I can teach your horse how to talk.' The king thinks this sounds good, so he stays the guy's execution for a year and tells him to go to the stables and teach his horse to talk. The guy's friend goes up to him, and says, 'What're you, nuts? You can't teach a horse to talk, nobody can!' The guy says, 'Look, I've got a year. Maybe I'll die. Maybe the king'll die. And hey—maybe the horse'll talk.'"

  Dean just stared at Bobby for a second. Then he reached into his pocket to pull out a knife. "Here's to talking horses."

  Slicing open Bobby's box, he saw your basic hunter's toolkit, including a mess of holy water, a few charms, and some weaponry, of both the firearm and bladed variety.

  "If this spell works the way I think it does," Bobby said, "the demon'll possess someone and cast the spell on you."

  "Why not just channel it through the person she's possessing?"

  "If she said it wouldn't be powerful enough if she had to fight the will of the vessel, then she probably would have the same problem if she tried to channel it through her own vessel."

  Dean sighed. "Good thing we got those charms to keep us from getting possessed." Bobby had given Dean and Sam the charms after Meg took over Sammy, and since then, both brothers had gotten the charm tattooed on their chests, w
ith the charms themselves stored in the Impala in reserve.

  "Yeah." Bobby scratched his beard. "Let's hope it works."

  That brought Dean up short. "You don't know if the charms will work?"

  "Nothing's sure in this world, Dean. You of all people should know that by now. And this demon's proven to be pretty tricky. I'm not assumin' anything."

  "Can't say as I blame you."

  "Good. Now here's what I think we should do... "

  Bobby Singer had led a quiet, normal life for a long time. Married, owned his own business, had some money in the bank, was well respected in the community. He was happy as could be, living the American Dream.

  Then something happened to his wife. At the time, he didn't know what it was, but in the end, he was forced to kill her before she killed anyone else. He stabbed her repeatedly—once didn't do it—and eventually she died, weird black smoke flowing from her mouth.

  From that moment forward, Bobby was consumed with anguish, not as much by the fact that he killed his wife, but because he didn't know what happened to her. He'd never been particularly book-smart. Sure, he knew his way around a motor vehicle, and he did okay in school, neither a poor student nor one who excelled.

  But after he was forced to kill his own wife to stop whatever it was that had taken her over, Bobby swore he would never live in such ignorance again. He set out to learn everything he could. The once-pristine house attached to the salvage yard in which he had lived in wedded bliss quickly became covered in shelves full of books, scrolls, maps, and more. Never again would someone die because Bobby Singer didn't know what was happening.

  The guilt intensified when Bobby realized that he could have saved her with a simple Latin incantation—an exorcism, like they did in the movie. That knowledge nearly destroyed him, but he soldiered on, devouring every text he could get his hands on so he would know everything about the shadowy world of magic and deviltry.

  Before long, he gained a reputation in the community of hunters, those people who lived under the radar and tracked down the things that went bump in the night. He was the go-to guy if you needed lore or information. (Also if you needed your car fixed. He still had a business to run, after all...) Among hunters it was often said that if Bobby didn't know it, it wasn't worth knowing.

  That just made the guilt even worse.

  Of all the friends he'd made over the years, though, no one frustrated him quite as much as John Winchester. Moody and ornery, unwilling to share information, yet irritable when you didn't give him exactly what he wanted, John had come to Bobby a lot in the early days when he was just starting out.

  The last time Bobby saw John alive, he came within a hairsbreadth of unloading his shotgun into John's gut. Truth of the matter was, that day only took so long to come because of Sam and Dean. Bobby loved those boys like they were his own, and it was always a source of pride to him that they called him "Uncle Bobby" when they were younger.

  Everything Bobby had learned over the years had told him that demons were not to be messed with. You exorcised them and moved on. You didn't talk to them, you didn't do deals with them, you didn't give them a single chance, because the microsecond you let your guard down, they'd nail you. That was why he'd been so livid when Dean informed him of the deal he'd made with the crossroads demon to save Sam's life.

  So what the hell am I doing helping Dean work with another demon? What was I doing asking Ruby's help to rebuild the Colt?

  Things were changing, that was for damn sure. The demons were all over the place since the Devil's Gate opened, and as far as he could see, a lot of them were gearing up for a war. As the only survivor of Azazel's chosen ones, there was a better than even chance that Sam was a part of it.

  For better or worse, that meant Dean and Bobby were part of it, too. They just had to hope they'd be on the winning side.

  He and Dean had driven in the Impala to the construction site—or as close as they could get. The wards were, of course, still there. A massive cordon had been set up beyond them, including local cops, county cops, state cops, and the U.S. Navy.

  After going on a quick reconnaissance, Dean came back to the car. "Saw our guy Montrose. He says they've been tryin' to get through all day, but no luck."

  "Not surprising. Doubt there's any force on Earth—or elsewhere—that could get through."

  Dean climbed back behind the steering wheel. "Montrose said he could see inside. Sammy, the cops, and the lab techs're all standing in a circle around the bones. They ain't moved since last night."

  "Didja try the dust?"

  Nodding, Dean said, "Yeah. It stuck to the wards like you said it would, so we'll be able to see 'em."

  Bobby looked at his watch. "Almost five. Time to meet our demon."

  "Yeah." Dean slammed the steering wheel as hard as he could and screamed incoherently, then let loose with an impressive display of profanity, pounding the steering wheel the whole time.

  A few seconds after he started, Dean stopped, turned the key, and calmly turned the car around. Bobby wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that Dean felt comfortable enough with Bobby to let out his frustration like that. He knew for damn sure that Dean would never in a million years lose his cool like that in front of Sam.

  The Southernmost Point was a black, red, and yellow piece of concrete shaped to look like a boat's buoy. It sat in the corner of a plaza at the intersections of Whitehead and South Streets, which was the farthest south Key West got—and was only two blocks from the construction site. At five in the afternoon, Bobby expected to see more tourists taking pictures of themselves with the buoy.

  But the only person present was an attractive young brunette. She was short, curvy, and wearing only a light green bathing-suit top, denim cutoffs, and light green mesh sandals.

  She was also holding a thin digital camera, and as Dean and Bobby approached, she practically bounced. "Ooh! Excuse me, can one of you take a picture of me next to the buoy? I totally need it for my Facebook page."

  Dean put on one of his more blinding smiles. "Be happy to, but after that, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to head off. We've got a meeting here, and we really don't want any tourists around."

  "Really? You guys are, like, drug dealers or something? Got any good stuff?"

  Bobby had had more than enough of this. The only way one of the major tourist attractions on the island would be this empty at this time of day in good weather was if the one person present had used her demonic abilities to send away everyone else. "Cut the crap, lady. You are our meeting, so let's get on with it."

  "Nice touch," Dean added. "What, you thought it'd be easier to talk me into it if you took over a hot chick?"

  The young woman's eyes went black. "Yes, actually."

  Snorting, Bobby said, "That's pretty transparent, even by demon standards."

  "Transparent ploy for a transparent hunter," the woman said. "Dean's pretty easy to read. The hard part was narrowing it down to one particular busty bikini-clad babe. Besides, I figured Dean was less likely to use his little toy gun on me if it meant killing poor, innocent little Kat. Nice girl, goes to Augustana College—that's near your little car graveyard in South Dakota, isn't it, Singer? She hasn't decided on a major yet, and she's spending a couple weeks in the Keys before the semester starts."

  "There's other ways to get rid of you," Dean said tightly.

  "You never really struck me as the Latin-chanting type, Dean."

  "Dean ain't the only one here," Bobby said. "Now we'll work with you on this, 'cause believe it or not, you're the lesser of two evils right now. But I will be carrying the Colt, and I know every exorcism ritual you can think of. Trust me when I say that if I see a single thing goin' hinky, I will end you—even if it means ending Kat, too. We understand each other?"

  The demon smiled with the pouty lips of the girl she'd possessed. "Clear as mud, boys. Let's get to work, shall we? Time's a-wastin', and we've got work to do."

  Bobby had a sinking feeling in his
gut that before this night was over, Kat was going to wind up dead, too.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sam had fought many battles over the years, earned many victories. He had defeated gods and demons, devils and spirits, imps and impossible things.

  But just at the moment, managing to wiggle his left thumb was the sweetest victory he could imagine. Probably because he'd been trying for the better part of a day.

  The sun shining through the tarp that covered the site was the only way for Sam and his fellow prisoners to judge the passage of time—which meant it had been a particularly long and frustrating night, as subjective time tended to draw out when you didn't have access to a timepiece. Everyone was relieved when the sky started to brighten with the sunrise.

  Sam had suggested that everyone try to get some sleep in the night so they'd be rested when the Last Calusa came back, but that only met with mild success. Sam had slept in far more bizarre places and positions than standing upright and immobile in a construction site—plus, being forced into such a position wasn't exactly a novel experience. His companions could not say the same on either front. They were sufficiently freaked and frustrated that sleep was hard to come by.

  By sunrise, they had devolved into banter and gossip. Soon, Sam knew far more than he ever needed to know about the internal politics of the KWPD.

  Unable to contribute, Sam continued to turn his mind inward. It was just a question of overcoming the paralysis. It was imposed by the will of the Last Calusa. True, that spirit had the collective power of thousands, maybe millions of once-living souls, along with those, both human and demon, that the Last Calusa had killed since being activated. But it also had to hold all the people in the site immobile, plus do whatever it needed to do to prepare for the sacrifice ceremony at sunset.

  And Sam Winchester could be a damn stubborn ass when he put his mind to it. Just ask my Dad when I insisted I go to Stanford. Or my brother when I refused to accept that he's gonna die.

  So he focused. And concentrated. And pushed. And grimaced. And agonized. And pushed some more. And after many many hours of that, he finally was able to wiggle his right thumb.