A/N: After this chapter, the annoying recap of the show will stop and we will be in all new material. Thank you and good night.
Chapter 3
Sam sat up straighter in his seat as 494 pulled the Impala into the muddy motel parking lot. “Did he tell you which room he was using?”
“Ah, that would be a big old ‘no,’ Sammy.”
“Okay. I don’t see any tire tracks that are deep enough to be the Machismobile, so he’s been gone for a few days, I guess.” Sam reached into the back and pulled his leather satchel forward, and peered inside. 494 didn’t know what he kept in there besides the laptop. “So what do you think, a little B and E, or talking to the office and hoping we guess the right alias?” He then made a satisfied noise and slid something up his sleeve.
“Let’s take a look around first,” 494 said. “It’s harder to explain if we get caught if we’ve already talked to someone.” He opened the door with a creak and hid his wince. The one thing he didn’t like about this car was that it liked to announce its presence. He’d even tried to oil the doors, and it had made not a jot of difference. The car drew stares everywhere he stopped between Gillette and Palo Alto, but the drive through California had been much more low key.
Who knew? Maybe classic cars were more common out here. That would be the logical explanation. Something else, maybe the animal instinct that was an unspoken part of being an X5, told him otherwise. That voice said that maybe it had nothing to do with the state and more to do with the car and who was driving it. Maybe it knew 494 wasn’t Dean, and that notice was something he didn’t want. If it knew, then it sure as hell knew when Sam had showed up. There were more classic cars in California. That was it.
Sam seemed utterly unbothered by any noise the car made. He opened the door and unfolded himself from the car, closed the door, and then strode towards the row of rooms like he belonged there. 494 hung back a little, letting Sam take the lead. He must have done so in the past, because he seemed comfortable taking point. This was the first time he had seen Sam do anything but what he was calling ‘the geek boy routine’. He’d seen Sam work on his schoolwork and sleep uneasily. Geek all the way.
This was different, though. This was a trained professional that knew what he was about. Sam walked along the sidewalk that masqueraded as a porch at just the right speed to peek into every window but not draw attention. He stopped outside the fourth room from the end. 494 came up behind him, casually blocking view for half the parking lot, and kept his hands in his pockets when he saw that Sam was easing a set of lock picks into the lock. He watched with interest as Sam disengaged the lock after only one or two small quick motions. 494 could tell he’d had a lot of practice, because not only was he quick at it, he had done it entirely by feel.
Even if Sam was boring, he knew his work. He slipped the picks from the lock and pushed the door open. Sam automatically lifted his foot and took a careful step over the salt line he knew would be by the door. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long for Sam to decide that John wasn’t here, and 494 could conveniently lead him on a trail to Wyoming. Then he could have done with these nut jobs. Though if he were to be honest, Sam seemed pretty much sane, at least so far. He followed Sam’s lead, stepped over the salt and closed the door.
His eyes adjusted instantly, and he took a look around. He saw circles of salt around the bed and table; something else was mixed in with the salt. The wall was covered with paper clippings. Sam was looking at the wall, so 494 took the time to go over the rest of the room. Nothing unusual was visible except for the salt and whatever the hell it was mixed in with it. And a fast food hamburger. Expired. 494’s cat sensitive nose couldn’t take it, and he dumped it into a handy trash basket and tied off the bag.
“So what do we have?” He went to stand beside Sam and look over what was tacked to the wall. It only took him a moment to pick out the system; Sam clearly already knew it.
“A Woman in White. But he didn’t know who it was yet. Which means he didn’t finish the job, so he left in a damned hurry.”
“You sure he didn’t know?”
“Come on, Dean. You know Dad better than that. He wouldn’t have left the case up like this. It makes him look like a serial killer. Besides, there are cat’s eye shells in his salt circles.”
X5s were all pretty good at thinking on their feet, but 494 had a particular flair for lying that no one could quite account for. There was no gene that you could give someone that made them a good liar or concocter of bullshit; at least, no gene that anyone had found. But if it was going to be found in anyone, 494 would be the place to look. “Yeah, he must have been worried. Maybe she found him first.” That didn’t sound good; it implied that this thing, whatever the hell it was, had gotten the better of John. “Or at least found where he was.”
“Yeah, maybe. If so, she must be strong, to leave her territory. She seems to stay on this five mile stretch.” Sam pointed to the mark map. 494 concluded that he must have said the right thing, because Sam didn’t seem to suspect. And what the hell was a cat’s eye shell? “Did he leave anything? Any clues as to where he went?”
Sam turned and started systematically opening every drawer, so 494 did the same, starting with the nightstand and then moving to the bathroom. They came up empty handed. “Looks like everything is gone except for the case.”
Sam had to agree. Dad had left the case, but taken all of his other belongings. That didn’t say ‘missing’ to Sam, it said ‘left’. Something wasn’t right here. More than just his absent father. Dean was acting off. First the thing with the radio, then saying that Dad may have finished the job but left the case on the wall. Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong yet. But something was definitely wrong. It had been a while since he had seen Dean, but not so long since he’d talked to his brother. They spoke nearly every week, and he was starting to get the feeling that this wasn’t his Dean. That maybe he was looking for his father and his brother. For now, though, he would just watch and wait.
He sighed. “We might as well see what we can learn about this five mile stretch. If we follow the job, we follow Dad.” He watched as 494 nodded, and resisted the urge to shake the not-Dean until his teeth rattled.
XXXXX
They had left the car by the edge of the road and were scanning the area with the EMF detector and camcorder. Sam seemed to know what he was doing; 494 thought he was doing a pretty good job of faking it. He was damned surprised when the EMF detector started to throw a fit. He was good at faking nonchalance, too, but Sam was going to catch on. No one had really counted on there being a ‘case’ to finish. Lydecker had figured that 494 would get Sam to leave with him, they would get to Jericho, and that he would arrange some sort of clue to lead Sam to Gillette. That left no need to know about things like EMF detectors or knowing what a Woman in White was. And yet here he was on a back country road at midnight, the witching hour, Sam had said with a laugh, looking for Electro Magnetic Field disturbances. And hell if he didn’t find them.
Sam had come up behind him as soon as the damned meter had started squawking, and was looking over his shoulder with the camcorder. “Dude, you gonna stand there all day?”
“I’m going. Don’t get your undies in a wad.” 494 moved forward, still thinking that Sam was going to catch on soon. There were just too many unknown variables. He knew Dean’s walk and speech patterns, but he knew jack shit about hunting ghosts, even if they were imaginary. So far he had been lucky and been able to bullshit well enough to fool Sam, because the kid hadn’t called him on anything except the radio – not that he was sure what he’d done wrong there.
The EMF meter sounded like it was going to burn itself out when they hit the bridge, and he turned it off, figuring they couldn’t get a better, or maybe worse, depending on how you looked at it, reading than constant. “She’s been here all right. I’m betting this is where she died. Take a look.” Sam handed him the camcorder, and 494 took it and looked at the little display screen the way Sam clearly expected. Then he wondered what the hell all the glowing balls of light were. “Holy shit,” he said, and hoped that was the right response, because it was at least truthful.
“Yeah.” Sam stood next to him as he lowered the camera and looked down over the edge of the bridge. “What I want to know is what she does with the bodies of the men she kills.”
Honestly, 494 was sort of wondering that too. The ghost had to be a freakin’ delusion, but one couldn’t argue that there had been a lot of men missing here. He and Sam had seen Troy’s car, and it had been dead empty, only a little pun intended.
“Maybe she drags them into the river with her.” Sam continued to speculate, looking down into the water. It was late, nearly midnight, and getting a bit chilly. Sam shivered and shifted so he was looking farther onto the bridge.
Between one blink and the next, she was there, standing on the railing to the bridge. There was no doubt in Sam’s mind that this was their ghost. She was beautiful, tall and slim, long dark hair, and obligatory flowing white nightgown. Sam was never clear on how that worked. Did the clothing of their ghostly forms just change, or did fate and circumstance allow them to meet their ends dressed for the weather, as it were? “Huh.” He looked down at his watch, wondering if she had actually jumped at midnight, or if this was for show.
“Huh, what?” 494 was still looking over the rail, trying to fathom where the bodies went.
“Our Woman in White. I’m going to guess that this is how she went.” Sam was watching her intently.
494 followed Sam’s line of sight and managed to control his startle response. “When’d she get here?” He hadn’t heard her. Even if she had been able to walk past him without him noticing, there was no way in hell that she could have climbed the railing like that.
Sam shrugged. “Just now. Do you think she does this every night?”
“How the hell should I know?” 494 was wondering how Sam could be so damned calm. 494 was not one to admit fear, but this was just flat out creepy.
She wasn’t there. At least, not in the way people and objects were. She didn’t have a human scent. He smelled water. She turned and pinned first Sam, who looked back unflinchingly, and then 494 with her eyes. Her gaze lingered on him for a long moment, and he shivered. There was nothing in her eyes. They were empty, not physically and not in the same way that a corpse’s eyes were empty of life. They were just empty, in an indescribable way, and that may have been the most frightening thing. His mind was just stuttering. This woman was a ghost. The Winchesters weren’t crazy. This woman was a GHOST.
Instinct was telling him to bare his teeth and back away. If he had had the form to match his feline DNA, there would have been a line of fur raised from nose to tail, and all claws would have been extended. He didn’t know it, but that DNA most likely made the situation worse for him. Humans could wrap themselves in lies to rationalize, but animals saw the truth of things and knew when they couldn’t fight.
She looked 494 in the eye and then stepped off the bridge, her nightgown fluttering around her as she fell. Instinctively, they both leaned over the rail to watch her fall, but she was already gone. “Well, that was weird,” was all 494 could manage, when he could finally manage anything.
Both their heads whipped around as they heard the Impala’s engine start. “Dean,” was all Sam managed as he pulled out his keys, just to be sure they hadn’t been stolen somehow.
494 couldn’t make anything coherent come out of his mouth, even though his mind was going at an insane speed. He pulled out Dean’s keys and held them up. “What the fuck?”
“Huh,” Sam said, as he was saying a lot lately, and the car dropped into gear and started for them. They both put their keys back into their pockets. “Run!” he said, and put his long legs to good use.
494 kept pace with him easily, but the car was going to run them down. He might have been able to outrun it for a short distance, or just simply back flip over it, but not Sam. “Sam! Over the rail!” He grabbed Sam’s sleeve and dug in his heels, swinging both of them towards the bridge railing and a possible watery grave. In 494’s eyes, death by broken limbs and drowning was far more appealing than having to tell the colonel that, yes, ghosts were real, and one of them had run Sam over.
Sam hit the railing hard and then scrambled over. 494 was simply not able to slow his momentum that well, though his cat reflexes kicked in as his hands hit the railing. He simply boosted himself up so he was doing a handstand of top of it, spun on one hand, and tucked his body back down to land in a crouch. His feet were braced on the edge of the bridge, and fingers gripped the lattice-work below the heavy railing.
Sam saw none of this, as he was busy clinging to a strut where he had caught himself before he fell. They both watched with wide eyes as the car slammed to a halt inches from the rail, headlights nearly blinding them.
“This sucks,” Sam said breathlessly.
494 looked over. “You okay, Sammy?” He didn’t want to be held responsible if the kid was broken. He started to reach over to help him and was pulled up short. Sam swung his body to the side until he hooked a foot under the lattice-work and started to haul himself up.
“Fine. Annoyed.” He climbed over the rail. “I have to find a way to stop things from possessing the car.”
494 scrambled over the rail. “What a bitch!” He started inspecting the car.
Sam did the same. “She seems fine. Let’s get the hell out of here before something else happens.”
“Yeah.” 494 unlocked the door and slid the key into the ignition, even though it was already running, and waited for Sam to get in. Once Sam had settled, he threw the car into reverse and backed off the bridge, then turned her around and headed back to town.
XXXXX
If Dean was to judge time by his internal clock and the meals being served, the break in routine came on the third day. Two men about his own age or a little younger opened the door to his cell while he was doing what might had been his eight hundredth pushup of the day. He pushed himself to his feet and raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little short for Storm Troopers?” he asked, noting that he was taller than they were.
They blinked at him in confusion. “What?”
“Star Wars?” He received another blank look. “They don’t let you out much, do they?” He surveyed the two before him. Both moved with a strange sort of ease that sat a little strangely on a human, but the people that had kidnapped him hadn’t been normal, so there was no reason to assume anyone here was. That Mia chick had certainly put one hell of a whammy on him. Unlike Mia, they were both in winter camo pants and grey T-shirts, as well as standard military issue combat boots. Despite the heavy footwear, they made no noise as they walked. Each was holding a gun that clearly wasn’t designed for normal ammunition. Both were outside of his reach. “Okay, you two need to loosen up. So what is this, my execution?” He was sincerely hoping not. In fact, he was hoping that he could maybe get out of this hole.
“We’re taking you to the showers, ordinary.” The guard backed out of the room with the gun trained on him, and the other gestured that he should move forward.
“Hell of a lot more pleasant then death. Don’t suppose I get to go free after that?” He was met with stony silence. “Right, guess not.” He went where they wanted.
“And don’t try anything.”
“You gonna shoot me? If you’d wanted me dead, you wouldn’t be letting me clean up.”
“We will shoot you. These are tranquilizer darts, and you’ll be in restraints when you wake up. So don’t try anything stupid, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get this show on the road, ‘cause I think my clothes could walk on their own at this point.”
“We noticed.” At least one of them seemed to have a personality. They were both handsome, at least by Dean’s standards, which might have been skewed as he wasn’t in the habit of checking men out. Neither had a military haircut; the one on his left, the one with a personality, had neat and simple cornrows, the other was dirty blond with hair cut much like his father’s. Despite the standard issue clothes, effort had been but into their hair. Appearance-wise, they could walk down the street and look like everyone else. This was a frickin’ weird place.
“So what’s the deal after this?”
“You stay quiet and do as you’re told.”
“Aw, now where the hell is the fun in that?”
“We could just shoot you now.”
“No, I’m good, thanks. Take me to your shower.” Clearly they didn’t get that reference either. As they walked in silence, he made it a point to memorize their path and try not to think about how cold the cement floor felt against his bare feet.
The shower was communal, locker room style, but Dean really didn’t care. He’d grown up in close quarters with two other men. If they’d been lucky enough to have an apartment, he and Sam had still had to share a room, sometimes with their father because all they could afford or scam was a one-bedroom. Dean had given up modesty in place of practicality. All he cared about was that the water was hot and they’d given him shampoo and soap; everything else was gravy. The room was empty aside from him and his two guards, and he was sort of figuring that it had been arranged that way on purpose. Clearly they weren’t taking any chances.
Hell, he and Sam had often shared a bed until Sam had left for college. John never wanted then split up, so Sam and Dean never had a motel room to themselves, and neither one of them had ever wanted to sleep on the floor. Cheap places like they got hadn’t even heard of the word ‘rollaway’. When Dean turned fourteen, he had decided that he was old enough to have a bed to himself. John had obligingly bought a couple of sleeping bags and said that the three of them could take turns so that they all got a bed to themselves for two days. John only slept on the floor once before a wide-eyed Sam had said he’d rather just share every other night with Dean, rather than make Dad sleep on the floor. Dad was cranky when he had to sleep on the floor. So for a few days Sam and Dean had taken turns having the other bed.
They gave up quickly. First Sam had one of his grade A horror film worthy nightmares, and crawled into bed next to his big brother for comfort, and then a couple of nights later, the spare sleeping bag just didn’t give enough padding between the floor and Dean’s new bruises from their most recent hunt. After that, the sleeping bags just stayed in the trunk, and Sam and Dean went on like nothing had changed. No discussion was needed.
Things had gotten a little dicey when Dean had gradually put on height until he topped out at 6’1”, but Sam wasn’t a big kid, so he had just given Dean more space, pressing closer to the wall. Things got downright cramped when Sam had started to slowly gain height. Then he had that final growth spurt that shot him up to 6’4” so fast he had been left tripping over his own suddenly too long legs. The only reason Dean hadn’t killed him for being taller was because he was too busy laughing at him for suddenly being a klutz. Sam had eventually gotten control of his new long limbs and relearned all of his combat skills pretty quickly after that. Neither one of them said a word as they tried to sort out how two people that were over six feet in height were going to share one double bed. In the end, someone got to sprawl across the bed, but they paid for it by having to be a pillow to the other.
Truth be told, not that he would ever tell anyone, when Sam had left for college, Dean had first reveled in having a full bed to stretch his 6’1” frame out on, but missed the living warmth of having Sam nearby and knowing that he was safe. He had worried about Sam for the first week or two. His baby brother was alone for the first time ever. Without backup, without protection, without his big brother. And then Sam had called. He’d called to complain, which was so Sammy, that his roommate had a conniption every time he changed clothes without trying to hide in the closet at the same time, and that he couldn’t believe how much stuff people owned or moved in with them. After that, they would check up on each other once a week, whether they needed it or not.
By the time he had dried off – the guards kept out of reach of him and his towel – he found that his jeans and T-shirt were gone, though after living in them for three days nonstop he wasn’t sorry to see them go. In their place, he found a set of pale blue scrubs, and socks. “Institution chic. I like it.” One of his guards snorted, presumably in amusement. Or maybe in irritation. Dean hoped it was the second. If he had to be miserable, he hoped his captors were as well. He dressed, even putting the socks on to protect his feet from the cold. They would have to go if he were to make some sort of attempt at escape, because they made his traction practically non-existent. For now he wore them, since there was no reason to be cold. He figured that if they were willing to take him out of his cell and let him clean up once, they would do it again. If they meant to kill him, they wouldn’t have wasted the scrubs on him. He put on his socks and then went where they directed him, which he noted was not back the way they came. For the moment, he was just trying to get the lay of the land. Next time, he figured he might try to test out the competition, and figure out what he was up against.
His new cell was just as Goddamned small and boring as his old one, but this one apparently came with a couple of paperback novels. Apparently, they really did mean to keep him for a while. He wondered if it was possible to use a paperback as an effective weapon. He figured he would have time to work on it as his cell door clicked shut.
XXXXX
The day just wasn’t going the way 494 had planned. At all. He knew he was blowing his cover in a multitude of small unavoidable ways. That pissed him off, because he was good at his job. He was a good actor; he was good at details. He’d been pulled from deep cover missions because he was too good. Not because he was a fuck-up at pulling off the scam. There was a pause as he tried to remember the details of his last deep cover mission, but most of it was lost in a haze of reconditioning, and he shied away from the memories.
He just wanted to figure this mess out and find a way to get Sam moving toward Gillette and base. Instead, he had been picked up by the local cops as he left John’s room. At least Sam had avoided capture. How embarrassing was that? He had been picked up by the local backwater cops.
494 slumped backwards in the hard wooden chair, wrists cuffed together in his lap, head hanging back as he stared up at the ceiling. “This is just great.” The cops hadn’t come back in yet, which gave him a moment to formulate a plan.
He went over his options in his head. He could make a break for it. That wouldn’t be too difficult. Pick the lock on the cuffs or simply break them, as he was more than strong enough, and just cat-foot out a window. Hell, he could sit up in the rafters he was staring until they all bolted out the door looking for him. That might be problematic though. They’d have to dodge the cops for the rest of the so called ghost hunt. Or whatever this insanity should be called.
Then there was plan B. Plan B would be far more fun, and wipe the Winchester name off a record or two. That might be good. He sat up straight and let his irritation show and waited for the local point of authority to show its face again.
By the time the deputy sheriff showed again, 494 was almost as bored as he imagined Dean was back in his cell. He had his elbows resting on the table and his chin resting in one hand, wrists still bound together. He looked bored and sleepy, much like a cat. Utterly unconcerned.
“You might want to look alive, son, because you’re in a bit of trouble.”
494 let one eyebrow climb as if to say ‘oh really.’ What he actually said was, “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“I’m glad.” This guy didn’t seem like he had been glad about anything since before 494 had been born. “You can start all that talking by telling us where your two partners are, Dean.” 494 let his other eyebrow join the first, wondering how they had come up with Dean’s name, since he was pretty sure they didn’t have John’s. “I thought that might be your name,” the deputy continued. He reached into a box and pulled out a worn leather journal, dropped it on the table, and then flipped it open. He turned it and slid it across the table in front of 494.
He looked at it, seeing Dean’s name scrawled across the page and then underneath: 111, 32. It only took him a moment to figure out that they were coordinates. John was a military man, so it seemed logical. 494 grinned; John had just handed him the perfect way to get Sam to Gillette.
Deputy Jackson did not look pleased. “Let me lay this out for you. We have a growing list of missing persons, all of whom have a face stuck to that motel wall. We have a map depicting exactly where each one’s vehicle was found, and a whole lot of the craziest Satanic babble I’ve ever seen. If you’re aiding a serial killer, your goose is cooked. If you help us and tell us what you know, we might be able to work something less harsh out.”
“That does sound pretty damning,” 494 said agreeably.
“You gonna do the smart thing and talk?”
“See, here’s where things get complicated. I can’t tell you what I know. And I need you to let me go and get on with my job. We’ve been after this guy for a while. He’s part of a much bigger picture, and I’ve been assigned to the case.”
“Boy, do you actually expect me to buy that secret agent bullshit you’re slingin’?” At least the guy seem amused. 494 figured he had improved the man’s day.
“No, but I do expect you to run my ID.”
“Uh huh.”
“Come on, man, it’ll save all of us time and aggravation. It’s in my wallet.”
“Right next to your fake ID, I’m sure.”
“Uh, actually, yeah.” He grinned up at the man. “I can promise you that the driver’s license and all of that is trumped up, but the military ID is real. Wallet’s in my back pocket. You want to uncuff me or get it yourself?” He didn’t think the guy would be uncuffing him any time soon.
The cops sighed, figuring it wasn’t worth it to keep going around in circles like this. He might as well call the kid’s bluff. And he was a kid, looking like he was barely old enough to drink, if that old. No way he was working for any sort of agency. “Stand up, and if you try anything you’ll be in lock-up and we’ll forget you exist until dinner tomorrow.”
With a slight sigh, 494 rose smoothly to his feet and held still while the cop took Dean’s wallet out of his back pocket. Then he sat back down. He hadn’t planned to try anything, but he still took the threat seriously. He had been locked up and denied food before. X5s could go for nearly a week without food and almost as long without water, but it was damned unpleasant and weakened them quickly. An X5 had a much faster metabolism than an Ordinary, and would eat nearly twice as much when given the opportunity.
494 watched as the man riffled through the wallet until he found the ID in question. It did look like a military ID, complete with reflective image and seal in the upper left hand corner and the kid’s photo in the center, but some of the info was strange. It listed the kid as Army, and status was left blank, but rank was given as Company Command 2nd. There was no pay rank. It too was simply left blank. The section for his SSN said X5-331845739494, which was obviously too long. Instead of a signature, there was a phone number, and where the kid’s name should have been it said simply ‘call for verification.’ The back of the card showed everything as it should be.
He didn’t think it was faked. Why leave something blank when fake information could be filled in easily? Also, leaving a phone number was just an easy way to call a forger’s bluff. The man looked up at the kid sitting there, perfectly calm. He sighed and pulled a second pair of cuffs out of a desk drawer and slapped one around the kid’s already cuffed wrist and the other around the arm of his chair. “Just so you don’t get any bright ideas.”
“Whatever makes you happy, officer,” 494 shot back with a grin. He settled back into his chair to wait, pulling the journal into his lap. Deputy Jackson left. As soon as he was gone, 494 began to flip through the journal. He started with the front cover, hoping to learn as much about John and his sons as was humanly possible. Instinct told him he couldn’t afford any more mistakes. He didn’t know what mistakes he had made, but he was sure he had made them. The problem was that Sam never reacted any differently, no matter what he did.
He looked down at the cover and noted all the medals and badge, some for service and some for skill proficiency. He had seen all of those in his mission brief. His eyes caught the corner of what looked like a photo, and he pulled it out. It was a wallet sized photo of a smiling woman in a sundress with long blonde hair. He tucked it back away.
494 began to leaf through the journal, wondering if you had to be a Winchester for the rambling to make sense. Then he paused to examine a drawing that looked interesting, and started reading the scribbles and jots around it. He found he could understand it, and that if he ignored that fact that it was about a creature that didn’t actually exist, it would have been really informative. 494 understood it, and he decided he didn’t want to know what that said about him.
Unfortunately, it seemed more like a guide to the supernatural than an actual journal, but he certainly frickin’ read the page on Women In White and memorized every detail. He noticed the paper clip sticking out and thought about using it to pick the lock on the cuffs, but decided to wait. He was sure that Deputy Jackson would be letting him go as soon as he was off the phone.
Instead, he pulled the pen that had been tucked into the spine of the journal and flipped to the back where the message to Dean was written. He pulled a blank sheet out of the book and taught himself to copy John’s hand writing. It only took two tries, and then 494 pulled out the page to Dean and forged one with Gillette, Wyoming’s coordinates instead of where John had been trying to send them.
XXXXX
Sam was oddly glad that Dean or whoever that was had been picked up by the local 5-O. As a general rule, Sam was better at talking to the victims, even if the weirdness was nearly twenty years ago. Dean was too blunt. He didn’t have to be; he knew how to take slow. He just never liked to. He was impatient, so Sam preferred to question people alone. If a gentle hand was needed, Sam went in first; if they needed brash confidence to carry a scam or cover off, Dean went in first. Sam wondered with some guilt and regret what Dean did now that Sam wasn’t there. Sending John in was sort of like turning it into an official interrogation sometimes.
All that would have gotten them from Mr. Welch was a punch in the face. Sam had spent some time at the local library and managed to figure out who their Woman was. It hadn’t been too hard. In a town this small, there just couldn’t be that many women who threw themselves to their death from the local bridge. Constance Welch had been beautiful; her husband was right on that count.
He knew that the cops wouldn’t be taking Dean anywhere because if they knew enough to pick Dean up, then they knew he wasn’t alone, and Dean would remain here in custody while they tried to get him to talk. That meant that Sam had time to himself without Dean, or whoever, hovering. He was more and more convinced that the person he was with was not his brother, but he had to play it cool for now and wait until he had an undeniable advantage. He’d made sure he behaved perfectly normally, and he could keep it up for a few more hours.
Sam turned his attention back to the article and stared at it blankly for a few moments, then pulled out his cell phone and hit the third number on his speed dial before he could think better of it. After three rings, his father’s voice mail picked up. He listened for a second just to hear his father’s voice, then snapped his phone closed and stared at it morosely. After a long minute, he opened it and dialed again, this time staying on the line when the message ended. “Hi, Dad. It’s Sam. I was just hoping that you would answer, though I guess that was pretty stupid since you’re missing, but I can hope. It’s just that . . . you’re missing and I think Dean is too. I don’t know who this is that I’m with, but I just don’t think it’s Dean. No one’s tried to hurt me or anything, it’s just this bad feeling I have. I don’t know.” He sighed. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but . . . oh, never mind. I hope you aren’t dead.” And he snapped the phone closed.
He sat there with his phone in his hand for a long moment, much like his father had done, not that he knew it, and then stood abruptly. Time to get this Dean look-alike free, because he wasn’t digging up Constance’s grave alone.
XXXXX
Both X5-494 and the Deputy Sheriff looked up as another officer stepped into the room, clearly in a rush. 494 had long ago been uncuffed, and now he and Jackson were ‘going over the case’, which was mostly the Deputy going over what he knew. That wasn’t bad, given that he was after a Winchester who seemed to have a natural God-given talent for scatter-and-evade. The X5 would offer an opinion here and there, just enough to keep the local law enforcement guessing. 494 wanted them confused and to keep their damned noses out of this.
No one at Manticore cared about John. 494 figured that they wouldn’t want anyone else like himself and 493. He had noticed that there were no children in any of the newer X series based on his genetic code. It was flawed, he knew, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if Renfro had had him sterilized at some point just to prevent him from ever breeding. However, the Colonel had made it clear that they had a vested interest in Sammy. Questions about John led to Dean and Sam, and 494 was trying to avoid that. People that asked too many questions about Manticore died, and 494 didn’t want to kill anyone today. He was feeling lazy.
The officer in the doorway looked a little confused and frantic. “Sir, we just got a 911 call about shots fired behind the Pierce place.”
“What? What the hell is happening to this place?” He stood abruptly, turning to the young man sitting at the table. “We gotta deal with this. Give me a call if you need anything.” And the Deputy bolted out of the room.
The X5 sat there for a long moment and then grinned. Maybe Sammy wasn’t quite as boring as he thought. He was almost positive the call was fake, because a simple domestic violence type shooting wouldn’t requite the Sheriff or Deputy unless it was an unusual occurrence. And if it was, it brought the timing into question. 494’s day was perking up quite a bit. After all, why would Sammy buy him a way out of incarceration if he didn’t believe 494 was his brother.
XXXXX
It didn’t take 494 long to walk from the police station to his and Sam’s motel room. He let himself in, being careful of the salt, and sure enough Sam was there waiting.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Sam quipped as soon as the door closed.
“You could have picked me up. Nice with the fake 911 call.”
“I know. I’m a genius.” Sam grinned.
494 fished around in a bag until he got a bottle of water and a bag of peanut M&Ms. He was starving, and even Dean’s candy sounded good right now. “Why’d it take you so long to call?”
“I waited on purpose. In the beginning they would have been busy watching how you reacted to being arrested and then with your interrogation. In a small town like this, that would have damned near enthralled every cop on duty.”
“Did you just use the word ‘enthralled’ in casual conversation?”
“Shut up, jerk. That would have kept them busy, which meant that I had freedom to move. I found out who our jumper is and where she’s buried.” He nodded over to the new mark on the map, a red circle at the end of Beckenridge Road. There was also a computer generated printout of an article on Constance Welch.
He looked at the article for a moment, then turned to Sam, pulling the journal from inside Dean’s coat. “Good thing I got picked up, though. Got this from the local point of authority.” He held the journal up and then tossed it into Sam’s hands when he held them out for it. “Look in the back,” he directed, as he slipped Dean’s jacket off and slung it over a chair.
Sam did as he was told, and his jaw tightened a little upon seeing the message. “More of his damned Marine crap. Don’t suppose you know where this is?” Sam didn’t seem to expect an answer, so 494 made sure to not provide one. “Right. We can look it up after we toast this bitch.” Sam snapped the journal closed and ran his fingers over the cover and the pins on it. He had been fascinated by them when he was little. What sort of stories went with each one. Those stories had been the Winchester version of a bedtime tale, because monsters and brave knights had been his normal life. Even if the knight carried a shotgun instead of a sword most of the time. Sam was the only one of the three of them that could handle a sword effectively.
“Might as well get dinner and wait until after dark at this point,” 494 suggested. “Stay out of sight.”
“Yeah, we can order pizza or something. No point in tempting fate.” His eyes caught the corner of the same picture that had caught 494’s attention early. He pulled it out and gave it even less attention than 494 had. He had slipped it away again like he used to see it all time. 494 tossed the bag of M&Ms onto the nightstand and hunted around the room until he found a phone book, then looked for a pizza place that would deliver. He wondered how the hell Sammy and Dean stayed so thin eating this sort of crap.
Sam looked down at his dad’s journal, John Winchester’s Bible, and his mind couldn’t let go of the photo of his mother. It didn’t belong there. It belonged with his father. It was one of the few pictures of her that had made it out of the fire. Dean had one of the four of them together. Sam had one at school of his father with his arms wrapped around his mother. His father was smiling, maybe even laughing. Sam had never known Mary, so it was hard to miss her, especially when Dean knew what Mom had done for him and he made sure that Sam received that same sort of care. It was hard to miss his Mom because Dean filled in. But Dad . . . he missed knowing a man that could laugh like that. He wished he had known his father when he had been happy.
XXXXX
John had gotten himself a new journal, an atlas of the U.S., and a wide array of colored post-it notes. He was finally putting together a pattern. All it had taken was one fire. One dead mother and one heartbroken father. John had gotten there just in time to stop the man from giving his little girl up. He had thought he was losing his mind, and was going to give her away because he thought it would have been the best thing for her.
John had been able to convince him of the truth. It hadn’t been hard. After all, how many people knew exactly how this demon killed? The details were a little weird. He showed the man how to salt himself into a safe room and the few protection symbols that could be used without any sort of real education, then sent him to Pastor Jim. He’d called ahead to tell Jim to expect them and to please try to convince the man that taking John’s path wasn’t the way to go. John knew that Sammy may never forgive him for giving him nothing steady or normal in life, and hoped that he could prevent that sort of rift from happening to someone else. There were lots of ways to fight evil without being a warrior.
Then John had set to work with the first solid lead he had had in nearly twenty years. He had found a lot of irregularities in the area in the two weeks preceding the fire. Abrupt shifts in weather. Lightning storms with no rain. Animals going missing and then turning up dead in some truly bizarre ways. The entire block around the little girl’s house had had a nasty frost far too late in the year. The rest of the city was unaffected. Notes were written on the post-its and stuck to the map. Theories sprawled across the journal pages.
He was closing in on the bastard, and knew that if he answered the phone when he saw Sammy’s number, he would want to go back to his children. So he just let it ring and go to voice mail. He would listen to it later, when he knew they would have moved on from Jericho. When he knew it would be too late to catch up with them.
XXXXX
Sam slipped from his bed by the door onto the floor. From under his pillow, he pulled the .45 and the knife he had put next to it earlier, after they had finished with Constance. The gun didn’t have silver bullets in it, so they might not kill the shifter, but very few things could get up after being shot with a Winchester Black Talon hollow point bullet. If he needed to kill the shifter, the knife with its heavy silver inlay behind the edge would do the trick.
He ghosted across the small space separating the beds and simultaneously aimed the gun and laid the edge of the knife against the imposter’s throat. He watched its eyes snap open. “Where’s my brother?”
XXXXX