Supernatural 1 - Nevermore

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  "Thanks! Isn't the band just awe-some?"

  In a tight voice, Dean said, "That wasn't the first word that came to mind, but it'll do, yeah."

  "Hey, listen, fellas," Manfred said, "we got one more set, then we head over to this place in Yonkers for a few drinks and a smoke or two—th'owner lets us light up, 'long as we stay in the back, and it just ain't right smokin' a cigarette standin' outside."

  Dean was very grateful he was only talking about cigarettes. He didn't think he could take these guys high.

  "Anyways, you're welcome t'join us."

  "You should come, " Janine said, "it'll be fun."

  "You'll be there?" Dean asked.

  Janine let out a long sigh and rolled her eyes again. "Probably not. My stupid mother."

  "Don't make funna your mother, baby, she's the best cousin I got."

  Dean's eyes went wide. "Cousin?" He let out a relieved breath, since the idea that this young woman—who couldn't have been older than Sam—was hugging Manfred for sexual reasons filled him with a slightly queasy feeling. But he could live with simple familial affection.

  "Yup. My uncle Freddie's the best." She extricated herself from Manfred and said, "I gotta go pee. It was so great meeting you guys." With that, she flounced off to the restrooms in the back. Manfred smiled his almost-toothy grin. "She's a pistol, that kid. Hate when she calls me 'Uncle Freddie,' though—makes me feel old."

  He patted Dean on the shoulder, forcing Dean to resist the urge to punch him. Remember the record collection.

  "I'm glad you fellas are havin' fun." Then Manfred looked up and saw someone. "Hey, Aldo, come over here!"

  Dean winced for a second, then realized that it was the guitarist Manfred had yelled for. Aldo—who had hair as long as Manfred's, but styled a little more carefully, and also still all dark brown—came over with a big smile under a rather large nose. "Hey, what's up?"

  "Aldo, these are the friends'a Ash's I was tellin' y'about. Sam and Dean Winchester. These guys're a coupla pistols."

  Grinning, Aldo said, "Thought Winchesters was rifles."

  Dean gave that a sympathy chuckle. "Thanks. And congrats, you're the one thousandth person to make that joke."

  "Haw haw haw!" Dean almost recoiled from the powerful sound of Aldo's guffaw. Next to him, Sam actually jumped in his chair. "That's a good one."

  "Uh, thanks. Hey, listen," Dean said, grateful for the ability to say this to the one member of the band for whom it wouldn't be a lie, "you sounded fantastic tonight. You really nailed those licks."

  "Well, thank you very kindly, Sam."

  "Uh, I'm Dean, he's Sam."

  "Right, s'what I said, Dean. So you guys know Ash, huh?"

  "Yeah, he—"

  "That is one crazy-ass sumbitch," Aldo said, shaking his head. "Wouldn't know to look at him he went to no MIT, now wouldja?"

  Sam raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we thought that was a little weird, too. Can't imagine he fit in all that well there."

  "Hell, I can't see him fi ttin' in nowhere, Dean."

  "I'm Sam."

  "Right, s'what I said, Sam. Anyhow, look, I'd love to chat, but I got somethin' to take care of, know what I mean?" He actually waggled his eyebrows.

  "Long as you stay away from Janine," Manfred said sternly.

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Aldo said, putting his hand in front of Manfred's face and then walking to the bar, where he started talking with an older woman.

  "Listen, I gotta go drain the lizard, m'self. You fellas need anythin' at all, lemme know." Before Dean could even consider a response, Manfred went off to the bathroom.

  "So," Sam said after a second, "whatever's going on here, it's staying hidden real well. I'm not picking up any EMF in the bar, and I've checked the walls and pillars and stuff. Nothing's jumping out at me as being any kind of symbol or sigil."

  Chuckling, Dean said, "You sure 'Kilroy was here' wasn't a summoning?"

  Sam returned the chuckle. "Probably not. It was a long shot anyhow—I'm pretty sure that this thing is tied to Manfred directly, even if it does relate to the music."

  "Well, we should cover all the bases," Dean said before taking a sip of beer. After he gulped it down, he added, "If nothing else, we check everything tonight, we don't have to come back tomorrow night." Although, he thought, if Jennifer's working again...

  "By the way, Dean," Sam said after a second, "I was thinking that tonight, after we deal with Manfred's spirit, we go check the house on Webb."

  "Why tonight?" Dean asked. "I mean, we're probably gonna have our hands full with Casper the Surly Ghost. Plus, who knows how long we'll be out drinking and lighting up?"

  Sam gave him his earnest look and spoke in a whisper. "Dean, if we're gonna break into a house, I want it to be as late at night as possible."

  Dean considered arguing, but his brother was right. "Yeah, okay, fine, but let's play it by ear with the spirit first."

  "Sure. But I really hope we find something, 'cause there wasn't anything at Cambreleng. Oh, by the way, you owe me ten bucks."

  "For what?"

  "You said I'd find something the cops didn't. I checked, and the place was clean—too clean for a New York street. The NYPD got everything."

  Dean picked up his beer. "Sam, I told you—"

  "It's got nothin' to do with what they're looking for, man. Remember what Frieda said at the zoo? That they'd been talking to everyone from cops to reporters to university lawyers. Those were Fordham students who died, and that means the college is in full CYA mode. I guarantee they put pressure on the cops to vacuum that crime scene within an inch of its life. It doesn't matter if they think it's important or not. Anything at that scene is in an NYPD lab somewhere."

  Gulping down the rest of his beer, Dean set it on the table with a thunk. "Fine, you know more about college administrations and their weird habits. But we still have to check the house." He thought for a second. "Thing is—we probably won't find anything."

  "Good," Sam said with a smirk, "I could use the ten bucks."

  "No, I'm serious, Sammy, let's think about this. I don't think this is for us. I mean, we know the ritual's fake."

  "Do we?"

  Dean looked over at his brother. Now he had on his insistent face. Dean hated the insistent face, because Sam only used it when he was arguing with him. As opposed to when he argued with Dad. That was always the angry face. "Of course we do."

  "Because Dad said so, right? Except what if he was wrong? I mean, he was the one telling us that vampires weren't real, but then in Manning, bingo, vampires."

  Shaking his head, Dean said, "Dad knew about vampires, he just thought they were extinct."

  "The point is, Dean, that we don't know everything. And Dad knew more than us, but he didn't know everything, either. I mean, this Samuels guy only tried the ritual a couple of times before he was arrested. How do we know it didn't work? Or that it won't?"

  "C'mon, Sammy, the ritual was only performed by Samuels, he lied about where it came from, and nobody's used it before or since."

  "That we know of."

  Dean glowered at Sam. "It's not even based on anything, it's just a big con."

  Holding up his hands in surrender, Sam said, "Fine, let's say it really is fake. We can't just not do anything. We know when the next murder will be, and we at least have an idea where. And the reasons why they're happening then are supernatural, and that is what we do."

  "No." Dean looked at his brother. "We hunt real monsters, not fakes."

  Quietly, Sam said, "I'd say someone who's killed three people and intends to kill more is a monster."

  Dean sighed, continuing the argument out of habit and an unwillingness to admit that his baby brother was right. "We could just tell the cops."

  "You really think they'd believe us? The only way to convince them would be to explain the ritual, and if we explain the ritual, they'll think we're nuts. And then they'd run our descriptions through their computer, and then—"

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah." H
e didn't need to be reminded of the fact that he was America's Most Wanted. At first he'd thought it was kind of fun, but the novelty had worn off once the real consequences kicked in. "I'm gonna get another beer. You want anything?"

  Insistent face came back. "So we're doing this, right?"

  "Yes, Mr. Worry Wart, we're doing it. We'll check the house tonight, and tomorrow we'll try to track Mr. Pym down."

  "Good. And I'll have another gin and tonic."

  Dean stopped, turned, and stared at his brother.

  "Dude, I'm so not ordering that. I'll get you a screwdriver, I'll get you a Scotch and soda, hell, I'll get you a glass of red wine, but a gin and freakin' tonic? What is this, Masterpiece Theatre?"

  Sam stared at him with his mouth slightly open. "I like gin and tonic. What, that's a crime now?"

  "Yes, actually." He put up his hands. "Forget it—get your own froofy drinks. I'm gettin' a beer."

  With that, he grabbed his empty beer glass, stepped down from the raised area and squeezed his way between two people to get at Jennifer's side of the bar.

  "You're back," she said with a raised eyebrow. Dean noticed that a sheen of perspiration beaded her forehead.

  "Big as life and twice as cute," Dean said with a smile, wincing even as he said it.

  "Well, you're one'a those, anyhow," Jennifer said with a cheeky smile, which Dean found himself liking. "'Nother beer?"

  He nodded. "So I gotta ask—what kind of music do you like?"

  As she poured another Brooklyn lager, Jennifer shook her head. "Don't ask me that."

  Frowning, Dean asked, "Why not?"

  Jennifer shuddered, though her hand remained steady on the tap. "Because you're flirtin' with me, and that's really sweet, and I'm kinda likin' it, and the minute I answer that question, you're gonna run away."

  "C'mon, it can't be that bad," he said with a grin. "I mean, it's not like you listen to boy bands or anything, right?"

  After she finished pouring the beer, Jennifer just stared at him.

  His face fell. "No!"

  Setting the beer down on a napkin, Jennifer held up her other hand. "I can't explain it, all right? I'm, like, twenty years too old for this stuff, but I can't help it. I love it! The harmonies, the dancing—and dammit, they're pretty." She pointed an accusatory finger at Dean before he could speak. "Don't say a goddamn word, Dean, I get enough crap about this from my kids."

  That caught Dean off guard. "Kids?"

  "Yeah, a ten-year-old daughter with a smart mouth and an eight-year-old son with a bad attitude."

  "I guess they're home with their father."

  Jennifer laughed. "Dean, you're about as subtle as a nuclear explosion, y'know that? Nah, I'm whatcha call your single mom. I got a girlfriend who takes care of 'em at night when I work, and I take care'a her kids during the day when they come home from school until she gets back from work." She chuckled. "In fact, tomorrow I gotta take Billy to soccer practice."

  Dean raised his glass. "A regular soccer mom."

  "Damn right. Excuse me." She went off to help another customer. Dean watched her go, surprised at how much more attractive she seemed now than she did a few minutes ago. Which made no sense at all to him, since he hated soccer moms, generally preferred younger women, wasn't all that big a fan of kids, and despised boy bands with a fervor he usually reserved for creatures of evil. Of course, none of that changes how hot she looks in that T-shirt.

  After taking a long sip of his beer, he heard Manfred say, "Okay pals'n'gals, Scottso's back."

  Turning, Dean saw the band members gathering up their instruments and getting ready to play. The band started to play the opening to David Essex's "Rock On."

  As soon as he heard Manfred's dreadful crooning of "Hey kids, rock and roll" to start the song, Dean drained most of the rest of his beer.

  "Hey, it's Dean, right?"

  Whirling around, Dean saw Janine, still wearing her Iona sweatshirt. Only now did Dean notice how tight her hip-hugging jeans were, and how short the sweatshirt was. She had a blue belly-button piercing that actually sparkled in the dim light of the bar.

  "Uh, yeah—Janine."

  "You rem-em-bered!" She stared past Dean at the stage area and said, just as the drummer went completely off the rails, "God, they're so good."

  Dean decided there just wasn't enough beer in the world.

  NINE

  Shamrock Bar & Grill

  Yonkers, New York

  Saturday 18, November 2006

  Over the course of his life, Sam Winchester had had many occasions to ponder on the exact nature of hell.

  Raised more or less Christian—Dad was surprisingly devout, all things considered—Sam believed in God and in most things that your average, white American Christian believed in. He didn't often make it to church on Sunday—the only times he entered a church these days was as part of an investigation for a hunt—but he prayed every day. And he'd read the Bible, both as a child and again when he was at Stanford, taking a comparative religion class as a theology elective.

  But the Bible wasn't particularly helpful on the subject of what hell was like. In the New Testament there was plenty of stuff about the kingdom of heaven—though, again, specifics were avoided. Was hell a place? The evidence he had seen indicated that it was, as the demons had to come from somewhere. And, while he'd seen his share of restless spirits who couldn't move on, they were a tiny fraction of the number of people who actually had died—which meant that most people had moved on, which implied that they went somewhere. Of course, it was possible they just faded into the ether, but he couldn't believe that. After all, he knew there were Reapers—they'd encountered one in Nebraska, and Dean had met another one when he was in the hospital after the car crash—and their existence led one to believe that they were preparing the dead for something. After all, if people were just going to fade away, why bother having Reapers?

  And then there were the demons who'd taunted them. The one on the plane who told him how much Jess was suffering, and the crossroad demon who'd said something similar to Dean about Dad. Now, demons lied, but still and all, there might have been some truth to it. Sam hated the idea that Jess was suffering in some weird nether realm just because she was stupid enough to fall in love with him. In fact, that was the focus of most of his daily prayers.

  Even if he knew there was some place that resembled the hell that folks like Pastor Jim always talked about, he had less evidence of heaven. But Sam had gotten a lot out of that comparative religion class, which he took for the same reason that he took "American Hauntings"—he wanted to see how people in the normal world dealt with the abnormal that had been part and parcel of his life since he was six months old. What particularly intrigued him was the concept of yin and yang from Eastern belief systems. It was impossible to have black without an equal amount of white—and there was a little white in the black and a little black in the white.

  He'd heard it best expressed by a folk singer named Arlo Guthrie on an old album belonging to his freshman year roommate: "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in. You can't have one thing without the other thing." So if there was a hell, and Sam had compelling evidence to indicate that there was, then there just had to be a heaven. But still, there was always the question of what hell was. Was it the way Milton described it in Paradise Lost, the home of the fallen angels who had warred with God and lost? Was it the fiery pit that so many Calvinists portrayed in their brimstoneladen sermons?

  Or was it the old joke about how hell is other people? Jean-Paul Sartre had embodied that in his play Huis Clos, in which hell was three people stuck in a room together. Right here and now in the Shamrock Bar & Grill in Yonkers late Friday night—or early Saturday morning, however you looked at it—Sam was coming around to Sartre's way of thinking, that hell was being stuck between Janine Molina and Dean. Janine had apparently called her mother, and after Manfred got on the cell phone and assured said mother that he'd get her home safe, she was given permission
to join them for their aftergig drink and smoke. Dean was having trouble reconciling Janine's looks—which, Sam freely admitted, were incredible—with her love for Scottso's music, which meant that his usually frisky brother was trying to avoid being caught in her web. So when they came in, Dean had been careful to make sure Sam was between him and Janine.

  To add insult to injury, Aldo had sat on the other side of Dean and immediately started in on the Impala: "Where the hell'd you get a 'sixty-eight Impala in such fine shape, Sam?"

  "Well, it's Dean, and it's a 'sixty-seven."

  "S'what I said. Anyhow, it looks fantastic."

  Grinning, Dean had said, "Rebuilt it myself."

  That started the ball rolling on an in-depth conversation on the subject of motors, transmissions, various and sundry fluids, and other minutiae about cars that Sam had right near the top of his list of Conversations that Bored the Holy Crap Out of Him, just before Dean's Favorite Music and just after Dean's Sex Life.

  This wouldn't have been so bad, except that Janine, having been stymied in her attempts to sit next to Dean, instead decided to sit next to him. In the brighter light of the Shamrock, Sam could see that her large eyes were brown, and wouldn't have been out of place on Bambi. In fact, the name Bambi wouldn't have been out of place on her. She proceeded to talk to him—about Dean.

  "So what's your brother do for fun?"

  Several uncharitable answers flew through Sam's head. He likes to flirt with women who look a lot like you and pretend to be something really impressive and sexy so he can get into bed with them. He and I troll newspapers and the internet looking for supernatural phenomena so we can hunt them down and destroy them before they hurt people. He hustles pool and plays poker, which are the two legal ways we make enough money to actually survive, money that mostly goes into crappy hotels, crappy food, laundromats, and gas for the Impala.