“I’ve already told the detectives everything I know,” she mumbled in reply. “He left with Barney to go to work, and neither of them came home that night.”
“Barney?” Dean asked.
“... My son.”
“Of course,” Dean replied gently, feeling for the woman. He was certain her son was already dead. “But James reported for work the next day?”
Mrs. Doyle broke eye contact with Dean, and began turning a Saint Christopher medallion over in her hands. “Yes.”
Julia shot Dean a suspicious look. “Madam, have you been in contact with James?” Dean asked.
“No.”
“The only way we can find your son is if we know everything,” Dean persisted gently.
Mrs. Doyle recoiled in horror, her lip quivering intensely. She looked like she was on the verge of total emotional collapse.
“But...”
“What?” Dean asked.
“How could you not know? The detectives, they found...” she trailed off, tears spilling freely down her face. “They found his body.”
Smooth, Dean. Although Sam was the more emotionally sensitive of the Winchester brothers, Dean’s heart wasn’t made of stone. Mrs. Doyle had lost everything she had, and it was already too late for Dean to help her. After the gunshot wound and the fall that James had sustained, his host wouldn’t survive once the demon left his body. To all intents and purposes, James was just as dead as Barney.
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Doyle,” Dean said sincerely. “Of course, had I known...”
“You wouldn’t be wasting your time talking to me,” the woman finished.
“That’s not true,” Dean said. “I’ve still got some questions about James.”
Mrs. Doyle’s face went even whiter, but she nodded okay.
“He ever come home acting strangely? Like he was drunk, or not himself?”
“No.”
“He hang out with any shady characters? People that weren’t so... wholesome?” he asked, pointing at the largest crucifix in the room.
“He’s a good man.”
“You don’t think it’s possible he’s involved with this?”
“He’s a victim. I know it. Both of them are.”
“Did James go to church with you, Mrs. Doyle?”
She nodded, hesitantly.
“But not every week,” Dean stated flatly.
“Some Sundays he’d have work.”
Julia leaned in and grasped the woman’s shaking hands.
“It’s terrible this has happened to your family, Mrs. Doyle. But if James was here this morning, then you need to tell the agent.”
Where’s she getting that from? Dean wondered. Was he missing something obvious here?
Mrs. Doyle faltered under Julia’s scrutiny.
“He didn’t do anything wrong, I just know it. Please don’t hurt him.”
I’ll be damned, Dean thought. Julia’s good for something after all.
“Was he here? Did he say anything?” Julia continued her grilling.
“No. He didn’t say much at all... That was the strange part. He came in, looking a real mess, went upstairs. I heard him shuffling around. Then he came back down and did something, I don’t know, not like him.”
“What?” Dean asked.
“He asked if I knew how to get to the train station. But that’s not how he said it. It was like he didn’t know the word he was looking for.”
“And why is that strange?” Julia queried, moving forward in her seat.
“Well, because he worked at Grand Central Station for fifteen years as a desk clerk. How could he not know where it was?”
Julia and Dean exchanged glances. That was strange indeed.
“That was before you heard from the detective?” Julia asked.
Mrs. Doyle nodded sadly. “I don’t know where he’s going. I just don’t want him to get hurt.” She looked at Dean desperately. “Promise me you won’t hurt him.”
“We just want to bring your brother back. That’s all.” If only that were true.
Dean followed Julia out of the dimly lit house and into the bright morning sun in a somber mood. Whatever the demon’s interest in the scroll, it was clear he was willing to kill.
“How the hell did you get here before me?” he demanded as soon as they were out of earshot of the house. “And what the hell are you doing?”
Julia accelerated her pace, leaving Dean struggling to keep up.
“Hey! I’m talking to you,” Dean said, grabbing her elbow.
“What’s wrong with you?” Julia asked spinning around angrily. “You stop us from getting the scrolls, then you come barging in on my interview. You’re like a bull dressed in heels in a china shop. Skidding around, and breaking everything in its wake.”
“You’d never find me in heels.” Dean said, scowling. Then he smiled. “Listen, it’s clear we’re both after the same thing. And even though you’re obnoxious, it seems to me we’d be better off working together.”
“I get the jump on you one time and you want to team up?”
“I don’t need your help. I just don’t want to have to kill you.”
“Why should I team up with you? I’m always ahead of you, Dean Winchester.” Julia smiled, holding up Dean’s wallet. “And here I’ve been writing my love letters to Malcolm Young...”
Dean felt his jacket for his wallet.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he gasped. “Impressive. Not very many women can dip like that.”
“I’m not most women. That FBI shield is a piece of crap, by the way, totally unrealistic.” Julia stopped in front of the steps leading up to the raised subway platform.
“So what do you say? Partners?” Even as he said the words, Dean knew he was going to have trouble convincing Sam. Even though his brother was always the more trusting of the two, knowing Sam, he wouldn’t want other people to get hurt finding their way out of this mess.
Julia surveyed Dean. “I guess. For now.” She turned and took the stairs two at a time.
“Hey, how did you know?” Dean asked, following her.
“Know what?”
“That James had been there.”
“Are you kidding? The whole place smelled like wet dog.”
Dean pushed coins into the payphone on the subway platform. He waited for the operator and then asked for the Turtle Bay hotel, room thirty-three. Dean listened as the desk clerk rang up to the third floor. In that era, it seemed some hotels only had one telephone per level. Through the receiver, Dean heard his brother’s heavy footfall as he approached.
“Dean? What’s going on?”
“Meet me at Grand Central. The guard dog is taking a train today. Don’t know where or what time.”
“When are you going to get there?” Sam asked.
“Soon as I can. I’m at 111th street in Queens. Oh, and Sam? I might have company.”
“Um... I was going to say the same thing,” Sam admitted. “Walter was at his office. He has a book, and some ideas about what is possessing James.”
“Fair enough. Julia got to James’s sister before I did. Anyway, we’ll meet you at Grand Central.”
Sam hung up and retreated back to the room where Walter was rewrapping his injured leg with clean gauze.
“We’ve got to meet Julia and Dean at Grand Central.”
Walter looked up, surprised. “Grand Central? Is that where the scrolls are?”
“Seems guard dog James is taking a train ride. We need to follow him, he’s our only lead.”
“Well then, let’s go.”
Sam stuffed the shotguns into the bottom of the duffel bag and put his and Dean’s 2010 clothes on top. They’d used the clothes to conceal the shape of the weapons in the bag on their way to the Waldorf, which turned out to be fortuitous, since they hadn’t been able to return to their apartment. Walter had taken a small suitcase from his office. It was empty, but could hold the scrolls when and if they found them.
“How much money
do you have?” Sam asked.
“Not much. Three dollars.” Walter said, looking through his worn leather wallet.
Sam looked at the window and the fire escape beyond it. They were going to have to hoof it out the back. There was no telling who was watching the hotel. Plus, Sam didn’t want to pay for two nights. He opened up the creeky, dust-laden window. Down below, a large dumpster was about twenty feet too far away from them. It was going to be difficult getting an old man with a leg injury out of the window.
“I can make it,” Walter reassured Sam.
The two men scrambled down the fire escape to the platform that hung about twenty-five feet in the air. Sam was six-foot four—that meant he still had to drop nineteen feet to the ground. He hit the uneven pavement hard.
“You okay?” Walter called.
Sam gave him a thumbs up, and then rolled the dumpster underneath the fire escape. Walter slowly let himself down, dropping with a thud. Sam pulled him off the dumpster and they hurried to the sidewalk.
NINETEEN
Julia and Dean sat in silence on the train. She had grabbed a newspaper that had been left on the seat and behaved as though she was engrossed in its contents. Dean watched her with curiosity out of the corner of his eye. Here was a woman who was just as comfortable holding a gun in people’s faces and just as good at getting information out of them as he was. Dean shuddered a bit—She’s just like me, but hotter.
Not being someone to let a tender moment go undisturbed, Dean leaned over her shoulder.
“What you reading?”
“The Times. Do you mind?” Julia turned the page and tried to ignore him.
He scooted closer, and she moved away.
“Aw, come on, don’t be like that,” Dean whispered. “I’m reading too.”
Julia peeled off a page of the paper and passed it to him.
“You gave me the comics.”
Julia’s small heart-shaped face beamed.
“Kids like the comics.”
Some twenty minutes later, the conductor announced that they were pulling into Grand Central Terminal.
Dean and Julia alighted from the train and quickly found Sam and Walter waiting for them underneath the large concourse sign. They all eyed each other suspiciously.
“So, now what?” Sam asked.
“We know he’s getting on a train,” Dean said, “we just don’t know which one.” Hundreds of people were rushing to make afternoon trains back to the suburbs, clogging the station’s hallways. There were dozens of possible destinations, and none of them seemed more likely than any other.
“Okay, well let’s just think a moment,” Julia said as she studied the departure board. “James is after the scrolls, right? But why?”
“Your dad and I were asking ourselves that,” Sam said, and Julia shot a look at her father. “James isn’t possessed by a typical demon,” Sam continued, “but something more like a guard dog.”
“Okay, but the question is why?” Walter said.
“Someone put the guard-dog demon in with the scrolls. I saw a symbol on one of the jars, something we see quite often.” Sam meant the Devil’s Trap he had seen on the inside of the lid on one of the jars. “The symbol traps a demon inside it, and we can only assume that James accidentally released the demon and it possessed him. And it seems that it will go to every length to protect the scroll.”
“Dad, did you know this?” Julia looked at her father with a glint of anger in her eyes. “Did you know they were cursed?”
“I didn’t know for sure,” Walter admitted.
Julia turned away from her father, clearly miffed that he hadn’t told her about the hidden danger.
“Was there anyone at the auction that you recognized, Julia?” Sam asked, trying to anticipate where James could be going.
“Well, there was one guy, but everything was moving so quickly.”
“Who?” Walter asked.
Julia searched in her purse and pulled out a billfold.
“The guy in the piano bar.”
Dean stared at her incredulously. “The guy whose wallet you lifted was at the auction? Why didn’t you tell us before now?”
Julia shrugged. “I lift a lot of wallets.”
Dean took the wallet. Inside was a California license.
“Eli Thurman, Berkeley address.”
“Wait, Eli the red-head?” Sam asked. “He disappeared right after the case fell. Slipped out while the cops were going after you guys.”
“That’s as good a guess as we can make,” Dean said. “We in agreement?”
Walter nodded, then, after a pause, Julia agreed.
“Good,” Dean said. “’Cause if we weren’t, I was going to ditch your asses. Let’s find that train.”
The four stepped up to the ticket counter and asked which train was leaving for California. The ticket clerk looked over his schedule.
“Not to California direct. Goes to Albany, Detroit, then Chicago. Then there is a Chicago-San Fran, the Overland Route.”
“Good enough. Four tickets, please.” Sam gestured for Julia to pay.
“I don’t have enough money for that,” Julia whispered.
“One hundred dollars and two cents,” the ticket guy said as he eyed the strange quartet. “You’ll have to re-ticket in Chicago.”
Dean drew his face close to Julia’s.
“Between all of those wallets, you don’t have a hundred bucks?”
“My father and I live off of these!” Julia hissed. When Dean didn’t relent, she stuffed her hand into her purse. “Fine. Give me a second.”
Instead of cash, she pulled out a locker key. She walked over to a bank of steel lockers running alongside one of the station walls. Popping open a locker, Julia took out a large leather suitcase. She popped the clasps on the case and took a pair of socks from inside. She then returned to the group carrying the case. She pulled out a wad of cash from the socks and handed it to her father.
“That’s living in style,” Dean whispered to Sam.
“Two tickets in a sleeper car,” Walter said to the clerk. He took some of the bills and shoved them over the ticket counter, then looked at Dean and Sam. “You boys find your own way.”
The brothers were speechless. These dicks don’t understand who they’re dealing with, Dean thought. Walter took the tickets and led Julia away by the arm. Dean and Sam managed to lock step with them.
“You like jumping on moving trains,” Walter growled. “Here’s another opportunity.”
On the train platform, Julia pointed out Eli Thurman’s red hair. He was holding a large leather suitcase, which was wide enough to house at least four of the jars. James the security guard wasn’t far behind—he was skulking around a steel pillar, keeping out of sight of Eli.
He looked as if he’d been dragged through Hell and back. I know how that is, buddy, Dean thought.
The plan was that Walter and Julia would check into their sleeper car and keep an eye on Eli. Sam and Dean were instructed to jump down to the other side of the tracks and, once the train pulled out, they could run alongside and jump on board, ticket free. The only thing they had to do was keep moving if they saw a ticket guy, because he would ask for their names and car number.
When the porters weren’t looking, Sam and Dean walked to the end of the train and dropped down from the platform onto the rails. The platform was about chin high, giving them lots of cover to sneak around to the other side of the caboose.
“Not quite first class accommodations,” Dean said as he moved along the other side of the train, trying to pick a good area where they would have enough time to run and enough train to catch once it started to pull out.
“What do you think they make of us?” Sam asked as he and Dean walked through the filthy underbelly of the tracks.
“I don’t know. You’re the one that made friends with Wally the Wonder Professor.”
“He’s a scholar, Dean. He understands the Bible, he can read Aramaic or whatever those scrolls are
written in. Once we get that scroll he’s going to be useful.”
“Have you thought that these are regular people— well, sort of? They don’t handle the idea of possession, Satan and Armageddon well. You didn’t tell them about Armageddon did you?” Dean turned around, his eyes boring into his brother.
Sam moved past him, clipping him with the duffle bag.
“No, I didn’t Dean. Jeez.” Sam kept walking into the tunnel. Dean sighed, and followed him into the darkness.
Even though Leanne Keeny was almost a full head taller, she still struggled to follow Rose McGraw’s quick step to the penthouse. Rose’s large bottom swung from side to side, a movement that would have made any sailor think of home. Leanne on the other hand was lithe and leggy, a farm girl who had escaped to the big city. Getting a maid position at the Waldorf was a big thing, and her first real job besides castrating horses on her parents’ farm.
Leanne tried to concentrate as Rose explained that the Waldorf Astoria expects every employee to respect each guest’s privacy. Rose leaned closer, her onion breath making Leanne cringe. Rose said conspiratorially that once Joe DiMaggio was here with another woman, not Marilyn, but Leanne didn’t hear it from her. Rose wiggled her red eyebrows to further emphasize how confidential that information was.
At the penthouse door, Rose dug into her apron pocket and pulled out the maid’s skeleton key. She knocked, and then slipped the key into the latch.
The place was a mess, the shootout at the auction the day before had left everything in a shambles. Tufts of fluff dotted all the silk couches, there was blood on the Oriental rug and strange scratches on the floor, furniture was turned over—it was a war zone. Rose clucked her tongue, she needed to go get Maintenance. She told Leanne to get started cleaning up the pieces of glass. She would be back in a couple of minutes.
Leanne looked around the room. Then she pulled a waste bin from the maid’s cart, and got down on her hands and knees with a dustpan and brush. As she swept up the shards of glass, she noticed they weren’t actually glass but clay. Leanne pushed them into the basket. As she shifted her weight, she noticed in the other room that a jar had rolled underneath the bed, half obscured by the ruffled bedspread.
Supernatural: War of the Sons Page 14