"I seem to be quite the celebrity," he said dryly. "Yes, I'm Pym, and we can't dally when there's a killer to be caught."
Looking at Dean, Sam said, "He's not the killer?"
Dean shrugged. "I found him doing some kind of ritual in the mechanic's office."
"I was endeavoring to pinpoint the locus of the spell."
"It isn't a spell, Artie," Dean said.
Mackey recoiled as if Dean had slapped him. "I beg your pardon?"
Sam said, "We're pretty sure the spell's bogus, Mr. Pym. So if you were trying to do a locator spell, it wouldn't have worked. There's no real magic here, we don't think."
"Well, much as I'm often willing to take the words of two young thugs whom I've never met, I prefer to believe my own tried and true methods over the rantings and ravings of callow youth."
Holding up the pistol, Dean said, "Uh, Artie? Still have the gun."
"Let's get upstairs," Sam said, glancing around nervously, "before somebody else notices we're here."
The trio all came into the narrow hallway, which was covered in grime and dirt that looked to Dean as if it dated back to the Reagan administration.
"Where'd Omar come from, anyhow?" Dean asked.
Sam shrugged. "He just burst out into the hallway waving the gun around and babbling like an idiot. I wasn't sure I'd be able to talk him down, which is why I signaled you."
At the back of the hallway was a narrow staircase that twisted around 360 degrees by the time it reached the next floor. Dean wondered how the hell anybody got furniture up.
There was also a faint smell of urine in the hallway. As soon as they got to the top of the stairs, Dean took the lead, heading straight to the door with the shiny new 2B in gold on it. He assumed that since it was empty and being shown off to people, the landlord was trying to make it look good. It was the only one of the four apartments on the floor that even had a label on it, though he could see worn holes where the number 2 and accompanying letters used to be. Then he heard the sound of wood being snapped in half.
Turning to signal Sam, Dean was knocked aside by Mackey, who cried, "We've got to get in there, now!"
Next time yell a little louder, jackass, there are people in New Jersey who may not have heard you, Dean thought angrily as Mackey grabbed the doorknob with his gloved hand and pushed it open.
Now Dean could clearly hear wood snapping. Given that the apartment Mackey revealed was completely empty except for some shiny new hardwood on the floor, Dean figured it was the flooring. Wasn't one of Poe's stories about hiding a corpse in the floorboards?
Mackey ran in and promptly tripped and fell on his face.
Glancing down, Dean saw that someone had taken the precaution of laying down a trip wire a few feet into the front room.
Dean and Sam both ran in, jumping over the trip wire, and went into the next room, where the sound was coming from.
Or, rather, they tried to. Mackey chose the moment when Sam was stepping over him to try to get up, and his shoulder collided with Sam's long legs. The two of them went down in a tangle of denim and polyester.
Dean stepped over both of them, even as Sam practically kicked Mackey off him.
"Hold it!" Dean yelled as he ran in, pistol ready. But he only saw two legs going out the window onto the fire escape. The stench of decaying meat made Dean's nostril hairs stand at attention. Dean went straight for the window, pausing to turn around for only a second. "Stay with that jackass!" he said to Sam, pointing at Mackey, who was stumbling into the room, brushing dust off his polyester suit. Dean also caught sight of several pieces of ripped-up hardwood and bits of wormwood. He turned and climbed through the window. How the hell did we miss this? If he was remembering the Poe story right, the victim was killed and cut into pieces and buried under the floorboards. It was "The Tell-Tale Heart," one of the good ones—if nothing else, it was short. Did their bad guy commit murder quietly?
That was a question for later. Right now he had a scumbag to catch. The dark figure was already on the 199th Street sidewalk. Dean squeezed himself into the tiny opening that took him to the metal ladder that went down to the street. His feet hit the pavement and Dean bent his knees with the impact. Turning, he saw that his prey had run up to the next street—Decatur Avenue—and turned left. Dean gave chase, thrilled to have some action after sitting on his ass for so long. As he ran up the hill to the next street, he started going over the different ways he was going to kick this guy's ass, especially since he'd managed to commit another murder right under their noses.
As soon as he got to the corner of 199th and Decatur, however, headlights shone right in his face. Holding up one arm to protect his eyes, Dean raised his pistol with the other, but the car attached to the headlights was moving toward him down Decatur.
Dean couldn't see anybody on the street as the car zoomed past, and between the headlights and the darkness—it was a new moon, and there weren't that many streetlights around here—he couldn't make out anything distinctive about the car, beyond the fact that it was a dark sedan.
"Dammit!" he screamed, not caring who noticed him right now.
Dean went back to the building and climbed back up the fire escape. Going in the front door would risk another confrontation with Omar, and he didn't trust himself not to just shoot the bastard in the mood he was in.
Of course, Artie Mackey was another story. Climbing back in through the window, Dean said before Sam could ask: "I lost him."
"Blast," Mackey said.
Sam looked at Mackey. "I didn't think anybody said that outside of comic books."
Mackey shrugged. "I have two children, so I endeavor to use proper language. It's a pity you weren't able to apprehend our killer."
"Yeah," Dean said, not putting his pistol away, "well, if you hadn't barreled in like a rank amateur, Artie, we might've caught the bastard."
Again, Mackey looked like he'd been slapped, which was the least of what Dean wanted to do to him. "I beg your pardon?"
"Beg all you want, you ain't gettin' it. We'd've had the mother if we weren't so busy tripping over you—or if we coulda snuck in quiet-like. Now someone's dead." Dean held up his pistol and pointed it at Mackey. "Any reason why I shouldn't make you just as dead, Artie?"
A sheen of sweat beaded on Mackey's high forehead. "Look, it's hardly my fault—"
"Dean." That was Sam's insistent voice.
"What?"
"We couldn't have saved anyone."
"The hell's that supposed to—"
"These remains—they've been here for days."
Mackey looked over at Sam. "What?"
Dean lowered his pistol and put it back in his jeans. The metal of the barrel felt cold on the small of his back.
He peered down under the floorboards that had been ripped up. A rotten meat smell came crashing down on him, and he had to turn away, but not before he saw a lot of individual body parts, all cut to pieces and rotting.
"You're right," Mackey said, "that poor unfortunate was killed several days ago." He shook his head. "But that makes no sense. The wormwood's fresh, and tonight's the new moon."
Sam looked like a lightbulb went off over his head. "It makes perfect sense."
"How?" Dean asked. "The guy in the brick wall was killed on the full moon, and the kids got beat up by the monkey on the last quarter, right?"
Sam shook his head and started gesturing emphatically. "Yeah, but the critical moments in those two stories were the deaths. In 'Rue Morgue,' the climax is revealing that the orangutan did it. In 'Amontillado,' it's bricking Fortunato up. But in 'Tell-Tale Heart'—"
"Of course!" Mackey exclaimed. "It isn't the old man's murder that provides the story's climax, but rather when the murderer rips up the floorboards to reveal the sliced-up corpse!"
Nodding at Mackey, Sam then looked at Dean.
"That's what he was re-creating."
"Whoever he is." Dean glared at Mackey. "Thanks to you, we'll never—"
Holding up both glove
d hands, Mackey said, "All right, that's quite enough. I don't even know who you two are, and—"
"I'm Sam Winchester, this is my brother, Dean."
Dean shot his brother an annoyed glance. He wasn't anywhere near ready to start sharing anything with this nimrod. But then Mackey's jaw fell open. "Oh, good heavens—you two are the Winchester brothers? I must say, it's an honor to meet you! I've heard so much about the pair of you—and, of course, I've met your father. Strange man, he is."
The brothers exchanged another glance. Somehow, this latest revelation wasn't much of a surprise.
"I must say, everything I've heard about you two is good—and tonight would seem to bear that out, especially given how easily you got the drop on me." Mackey clapped his hands, which made a slapping sound as latex hit latex. "Well, I wish you'd said something sooner. I'd have gladly defaulted to a pair of veteran hunters such as yourselves. I'm afraid I'm more of a researcher than a field man, but when I saw these Poe-related murders happening, I had to act. It's rather my specialty, after all. Besides, it's not as if the police believed me."
Dean pointedly ignored the I-told-you-so look Sam was giving him.
"And you say that this spell is a fake, eh?"
"Yeah," Dean said, "Samuels was running a scam. Only really stupid and gullible people believed it," he added pointedly. Sam took out his Treo.
"Who you calling?" Dean asked.
"McBain. No sense in her sitting around anymore."
"You know Detective McBain?" Mackey asked.
"Yeah," Sam said, "she's checking at Fordham Road and—"
"What, at St. Nicholas of Tolentine?" Mackey laughed, which sounded to Dean like a squirrel dying. Or maybe Manfred Afiri's singing voice.
"Don't be ridiculous. The sigil at that intersection is the last one. If the sigil isn't traced in the proper order, the resurrection won't work."
"It won't work no matter what," Dean said through clenched teeth.
"None of our documentation said that," Sam said, then talked into the phone. "Detective McBain? Sam Winchester. I've got good news and bad news."
While Sam filled McBain in, Dean looked again at the ripped-up floorboards. Then he went over to the window, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. "Gimme a hand here, Artie."
"What is it you're—oh, I see, you're eliminating fingerprint traces. You know, for someone who called me an amateur, I'm rather surprised you don't take so simple a precaution as gloves."
Dean focused on wiping the entire windowsill and ignoring Mackey's barb. The fact was, he hated rubber gloves, and they seriously messed with his ability to use the gun. Wiping the sill probably got rid of the bad guy's prints, too, but he would have to live with that. As he wiped, he asked, "Hey, Artie, you said you have kids?"
"Yes. It's one of the reasons why I don't do much in the field. Can't leave the kids fatherless, now, can I?"
Somehow, Dean forced himself not to react. When Mackey had mentioned Dad, it was in the present tense, so he didn't know about Dad's death. Not that he was about to go all chick-flick sharing with Mackey now. In fact, he still considered shooting the twerp in the head to be a viable option.
Sam put away his Treo. "McBain said to meet her where she is."
"To do what?" Dean asked.
"Work out our next move."
Dean snarled. "Oh, come on, Sammy, it's bad enough we got Masterpiece Theatre here, but now we gotta have the Cop Who Came to Dinner?"
All that got him was the patented Sam Winchester Glare of Outraged Confusion, and Dean just waved him off and said, "Fine, what-the-hell-ever." But he didn't like how crowded this was getting. Every time they added someone to the mix, it went badly: Jo in Philadelphia; Gordon the Vampire Slayer in Montana; hell, even when they hooked up with Dad it went south. But Sammy had to be Mr. Share and Care Alike, so he just let it go.
They went downstairs, Mackey closing the door to 2B behind him, since he had the stupid gloves, and then they drove—Sam and Dean in the Impala, Mackey in a beat-up old Civic—to Fordham Road and MLK Boulevard. Sam found a spot to park on Fordham, and McBain was waiting for them at the gate to the park, which was closed and locked at this late hour. Unlike the nice suit she wore the other night, this time she was dressed in a snug-fitting John Jay College of Criminal Justice sweatshirt and blue jeans, a wool topcoat over it covering her shoulder holster.
Fordham was a major thoroughfare, and the intersection was a wide one, with plenty of cars about even this late at night. One corner was dominated by a huge gray, two-towered church prominently proclaiming that it was celebrating its hundredth birthday this year.
Without preamble McBain said, "Please tell me you guys wiped the place down."
"We didn't touch or bleed on anything," Sam said, holding up his hands defensively.
"Except the windowsill," Dean said, "and I wiped that down."
"Er," Mackey said, "I wore gloves."
McBain noticed Mackey for the first time. "Arthur, what the hell're you doin' here?"
"You know this guy?" Dean asked.
"He's the one who tipped me off to this nonsense in the first place." She glared down at him. "He also said he wasn't gonna get involved."
Mackey scuffed a toe on the sidewalk. "Yes, well, I could hardly just sit around, could I?"
"Yeah, actually, you coulda."
Dean couldn't help but smile at the way Mackey tried to make himself smaller. But the smile fell in short order, since they were basically screwed.
"Look, we got nothin' now. It's another eight freak in' days until the first quarter, and we don't have jack."
"Well, since you guys didn't contaminate the crime scene too much, I'll call it in. Maybe the lab'll get somethin'." McBain sighed. "Wouldn't count on it, though. Lab's backed up to next year. Only crime scene that's got any kinda priority is the two kids, 'cause the university's leanin' on us, but there ain't nothin' more useless than an outdoor scene on a windy night. But Reyes and whoever you two just found, that'll take weeks to process."
Smirking, Dean said, "So what it boils down to is—we don't have jack."
"Yeah, brushy-top, we got jack, happy?"
"Not really. Only thing we know for sure is that the last part's happenin' next Tuesday somewhere at this intersection," he pointed to the road behind him, "and no idea who. Hell, until tonight, this guy," now he pointed at Mackey, "was who I had my money on."
"Thanks so much," Mackey muttered.
McBain shook her head. "Nah, I coulda told you he was a bum lead. I've known this guy for years."
"Yeah, well, I've known you for two and a half seconds," Dean said, "and I'm still not convinced that he wasn't working with our guy."
"I tried to aid you!" Mackey's voice went all squeaky.
Sam, finally, spoke up. "And mostly you got in our way. I'm sorry, Mr. Mackey, but you fit the profile. You're obsessed with Poe, you—"
"I am not obsessed. Yes, I've studied Poe quite a bit, that doesn't make me homicidal. Or will you go after every academic who's studied Poe's life in far greater depth than I can in a simple website?" He shook his head. "In fact, one of them has been sending me e-mails, telling me that it's all a coincidence."
That got Dean's attention. "Who has?"
"Someone at Fordham, actually—a nineteenth-century literature scholar over there. Ironic, since it was in one of his papers that I first found out about Percival Samuels, though that only discussed him as one of many spiritualists."
Dean looked at Sam. "Sounds like someone we should talk to."
McBain looked at them. "What, you're just gonna waltz onto the campus and talk to this guy?"
Mackey said quietly, "Er, his name is Dr. Ross Vincent."
"Fine." Dean shrugged. "We'll go in, say we're with the 'Journal of Poe Studies' or something."
Rolling her eyes, McBain said, "You guys really suck at this, don't you?"
"What's the problem?" Sam asked.
"He's an academic, dumbass, he's gonna know everyone
from the journals."
Dean said, "Then we'll go as cops."
At that, McBain burst out laughing. "You two. As cops. Right. Tell me, brushy-top—how have you two managed not to be dead, exactly?"
Bristling, Dean said, "We've been doing just fine, thanks. And I wish—"
Sam cut him off, which was probably a good idea, since McBain was also armed, and her gun was in a nice easy-to-access shoulder holster instead of tucked in her pants, so she could probably draw faster than he could. "We usually don't stick around long enough for people to check our credentials." Sam smiled. "Or, by the time they do, things have gotten bad enough that they're more concerned with getting our help than who we are."
"Yeah, well," McBain said, shaking her head, "you been lucky. And luck always runs out eventually. That's the first thing you learn in this job."
Frowning, Sam asked, "You mean the job of hunter or being a cop?"
McBain stared right at Sam with her large brown eyes. "Both."
Everyone was quiet for a moment before Mackey said, "Well, it's late, and the wife will be getting worried. If there's nothing else?"
"Just stay out of our way, okay, Artie?" Dean said.
Mackey twisted his thin lips. "Yes, well, I'd say I've had more than enough excitement for one night. I'll happily leave it to the pair of you. Unlike your father, I'm sure that you two will handle things well."
That got Dean's back up. "The hell's that supposed to mean?"
As Mackey walked over to his Civic, he said, "I mean that the two of you are a good deal better at this than your father is. Which, I suppose, is encouraging—better to see that the next generation is improving."
With that, he got into his car and drove down the steep hill that Fordham Road became, heading toward the Major Deegan Expressway. Dean found he had no idea how to feel about that. This wasn't the first time he'd discovered that he and Sam had any kind of reputation. Gordon had mentioned it back in Montana as well, and it still threw him for a loop. Hell, he was still having trouble wrapping his brain around the notion that there was this whole community of other hunters they didn't know about. He and Sam had always assumed that the few people Dad had introduced them to—Pastor Jim, Caleb, Bobby—were the only ones out there fighting demons.
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