“Doesn’t anyone care that there were demons on this train!” Eli wailed in panic from his corner.
Dean, Sam, Julia, and Walter turned toward him in unison and shouted, “SHUT UP!”
Julia tried to speak soothingly to Dean. “I know you feel betrayed, but we were trying to protect ourselves just as much as you were. I didn’t steal it in order to put you at a disadvantage.”
“You sure about that?” Dean spat.
“Here.” Julia held out the knife. “I know I can’t make up for it.” She pulled out Sam’s BlackBerry and held it gingerly. “I took this as well, but I don’t know what it’s for.”
Sam grabbed it from her, and concealed it inside his jacket.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady,” Dean said.
“Right, well, maybe,” Walter conceded reluctantly, “but right now we need to get as much track in between us and that demon as possible.”
Dean scowled at Julia. Besides his hunter instincts, which told him never to trust her again, Dean felt a knot of discomfort in his stomach. His feelings were hurt.
Dean sublimated his anger and hurt while they looked at the rail line map of the Water Level Route. It ran from New York City to Albany along the Great Lakes to Chicago. They were just about at Albany.
“We need to get a move on,” Dean said as he grabbed a shotgun and headed for the engine car.
Sam and Dean made their way over the platform between the cars.
“Go easy on the guy, I already clocked him once,” Sam said as he knocked on the car’s door. No answer. Dean took the butt of the shotgun and slammed it against the wood.
The engineer immediately opened the door.
“Okay, okay.” He backed up from the doorway with his hands up. “I haven’t done nothin’. I’m driving her as fast as I can.”
“And you’re going to keep driving it all the way through Albany. Don’t stop until we’re outside of Chicago. You got that?”
“I’ll have to call ahead and get them to change the tracks. What do I tell them?” the engineer stuttered.
“Tell them Eisenhower is on board. Top secret mission and there’s no stopping,” Dean said.
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“Wow, okay. Yes sir. Right outside Chicago it is.”
Dean nodded and they headed back to the dining car.
“Do you have the feeling that people really are more innocent in the fifties?” Dean asked.
Everyone in the dining car looked a little the worse for wear. Julia sat with her legs up on a chair. Dean immediately noticed their slender shape, and the way her ankles tapered down to her feet. Walter mumbled to himself while sat at a table. Eli was a mess. But the waiters seemed to have taken everything, even the gruesome death of one of their own, in their stride.
“Everyone get some rest. We’re skipping Albany and going straight for Chicago. Good burger town,” Dean announced.
Everyone grabbed extra tablecloths and lay down on the floor or on tables pushed together. They had over 500 miles to sleep through.
Dean and Sam sat in the corner holding shotguns while everyone else slept.
“I don’t trust them,” Dean said quietly. “Even if they are hunters. Where do they get off stealing things like that?”
Sam shot Dean a look. Was he whining?
“We always steal things.”
“I know, but we need them. And, like, I would never steal from another hunter.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like we know hundreds of other hunters, either.”
“Whose side are you on?” Dean demanded.
“I’m on your side, Dean. Why are you PMSing?”
“I’m not PMSing. You are.”
Sam thought it best to change the subject. “So what do you want to do?”
Dean peered at Walter and Julia’s sleeping figures in the darkness.
“We have the scroll. First light we get the hell out of here.”
Sam shrugged. They would find a way to translate the last pages of the scroll somehow. If not, they could always have Abbandon do it for them. He was the one that had told them all about the scroll in the first place, so surely he could read it.
Sam watched as lights from tiny towns flickered across the dining car’s blood-red rug. For a moment, in all this craziness, he missed Ruby. It was an awful thing to feel, since she had betrayed Sam into thinking she was on their side. She had fed him her own blood, which made Sam incomprehensibly more powerful than he ever thought was possible for a human being. But, then again, he wasn’t really a human being in some senses. Would a human being drink demon blood? Sam doubted it.
“What do you think is on the scroll?” Dean asked.
“I don’t know. Hopefully a step-by-step recipe, like a brownie mix. Something that tells us what Lucifer’s weaknesses are. There has to be another way.”
Sam hoped that was true.
At first light the train was on the edges of Gary, Indiana. The morning was grey, low clouds hung over the lake, threatening summer thunderstorms. Dean woke up first, nudged Sam, and they got to their feet quietly. In the half-light Dean could see Julia and Walter covered with tablecloths, still sleeping.
Dean and Sam crept out of the dining car. Sam had the scroll secure in the duffle bag hung over his shoulder. Up ahead, the train tracks took a lazy swing to the left—the train would slow enough for the brothers to leap off. They climbed down the ladder on the side of the kitchen car and waited as the train slowed. Sam took the first jump. He rolled down a six-foot incline into a soft green field. Dean then jumped after him. He hit the incline at the wrong angle and tumbled ass over elbows to the bottom.
“I miss my Impala,” he said, dusting his suit off.
The train disappeared into the distance. Julia, Walter, and Eli would all find their way. The most important thing was they had the scroll. Now all they had to do was find a way home—back to 2010.
The boys walked alongside the train tracks. In front of them the town of Gary was beginning to come to life. Small trails of smoke rose from the stacks looming above the steel mills.
“You know who grew up in Gary?” Dean said.
“Who?” Sam asked, looking at his brother—he had a feeling this was going to be bad.
It was. Dean did his best moonwalk, crotch pull and fake head dip.
“Michael Jackson.”
“Highly disturbing, Dean.” Sam increased his pace.
They reached a dirt road that headed west.
“You’re no fun,” Dean said. “Let’s get to town, get a car and figure out where the hell we’re going.”
They climbed up a small incline to the road.
“Nice morning,” a voice called breezily.
Both brothers swung around. Standing on the other side of the road were Walter and Julia. Julia walked with a sexy swagger toward Dean.
“Shame on you for not waking us first. We wouldn’t want you to leave without saying goodbye.” She gave him a push and her tone switched from playful to angry. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Dean and Sam exchanged looks. Loaded question.
“That scroll is just as much ours as it is yours. You’re not taking it from us.”
“Listen lady,” Dean said, “I get it, you’re tough. But we’ve come a long way for this scroll. A lot further than you have. So you and Daddy Warbucks just go on back to New York. We have stuff to do.”
Sam and Dean continued to walk toward town. Julia raced to keep up with them, while Walter struggled with his bad leg.
“I didn’t risk my behind so you could take it from us,” Julia cried.
“Your behind?” Dean smirked. “That’s exhibit A that you’re over your head.”
He and Sam continued walking.
“Take one more step and I blow your balls off.”
They paused, and turned around slowly. Julia was aiming a pistol at them.
“This isn’t full of rock salt either.”
&nb
sp; “Aww, man,” Dean whined, “are you really going to do this? Where’d you get that?”
“It’s the engineer’s. Now let’s all get to town and have a nice long talk, shall we?”
TWENTY-FOUR
The ragtag group walked in silence. Dean was clearly pissed. Sam was trying to figure out if there was any other way to get Walter to translate the last pages of the scroll.
Julia glared at the nape of Dean’s neck.
He turned around.
“You’re burning a hole in my head, sweet-stuff. Look somewhere else.”
Julia shot Dean a look of distaste.
On the outskirts of Gary they spotted a lone diner on a corner. It was oblong, all glass windows and steel. The rest of the area was basically empty gravel lots.
They headed for the diner. Inside, a Formica countertop ran the length of the narrow restaurant. Each table had an individual jukebox and a window view. Sam could see two waitresses, both of whom wore yellow dresses with frilly white aprons.
Three steel workers made a rowdy group, cracking jokes at a corner table. Clearly they had just come off the night shift at one of the mills.
Walter and Julia slid onto the benches at one of the tables, while Sam and Dean headed for the men’s room.
“I’ve had enough of the goon suits. Now that we’re back in the real America, I’m putting my jeans on,” Dean said as he unbuttoned.
“Good thinkin’ Palin,” Sam said as he too began to undress.
Walter and Julia were speaking in hushed tones when Dean and Sam reappeared. They broke off as the brothers approached. Four cups of coffee steamed in front of them. Dean sat down next to Julia and leaned across her, essentially putting his armpit in her face.
“Excuse me, got to get the sugar.” Dean grabbed at the sugar shaker. Julia bristled.
“Okay. First things first,” Walter said, “you don’t leave without us. We all worked to get the scroll. None of us can lay claim over the others.”
Dean huffed. “Walter, we came a long way for this—”
“So did we,” Julia insisted.
Just then a heavy-set woman with a large beehive hairdo sashayed up. She slid menus onto the table.
“Hi there. I’m Marge. I own this place. Let me know if you need anyth—”
She trailed off as her eye lit on something outside the diner. Dean followed her gaze out of the window and clocked the deserted lot across the street. Picking their way over the gravel were Eisheth and her cronies, among them several people in Metropolitan Museum of Art uniforms.
“Incoming,” Dean said quietly. He got up and pulled a shotgun from Sam’s duffel bag.
“Young man, shotguns are not allowed in my restaurant,” Marge chided.
“Listen Marge,” Dean said firmly, “out there is a group of very dangerous people. So I apologize if your place gets a little messy.”
The steel workers in the corner got up to leave.
“I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” Dean warned them, glancing over his shoulder. He had the shotgun trained on Eisheth.
“Buddy, what the hell you doing with that rifle?” one of the steel workers demanded.
“Believe me, it’s safer in here,” Dean said.
Julia pushed Walter toward the kitchen. “Dad, get the salt.”
A waitress walked out with a couple of plates of eggs. Catching sight of the shotgun, she promptly spun on her heel and headed back into the kitchen.
“Barricade any doors in the back too,” Dean called after Walter.
Ignoring Dean’s warning, the steel workers walked out of the door onto the sidewalk. Not two seconds later they were attacked by Eisheth’s group.
A little girl in a Catholic school uniform approached the first steel worker. She kneed him in the groin. When he stumbled and fell to the ground, she smiled sweetly, then slit his throat with a jagged rock.
The other two men tried to run. A uniformed Met worker shot out his hand and grabbed one of them by the throat. The demon’s strength meant the guy was choked to death in seconds. The third man managed to escape.
Eisheth stood on the sidewalk, looking up at Sam and Dean. The thin strip of macadam that served as the parking lot was the only thing that separated them from her. That and the salt that Walter and Julia were spreading on the window sills.
“Game plan?” Sam asked.
Dean stared out at the waiting group of demons.
“We can stand and fight or make a run for it. Either option is probably a death wish. Though not for you — they’ll keep you alive.”
Sam looked solemn. He knew it was true. The demons wouldn’t hurt a hair on his head. For the rest of them, however, it was a different story.
Eisheth made the first move, but was thwarted by the Devil’s Trap Julia had hastily drawn in front of the glass doors.
“Aww, why don’t you come out and play Sammy?” she called plaintively. “I mean, we’re practically family. I never thought I would get to meet you—my husband’s favorite vessel.”
Julia looked at Sam with suspicion. “What does she mean by that?”
“Why, you don’t know? Sammy here has been chosen—”
Dean blasted Eisheth with a salt shotgun, sending her sailing through the air. She landed on her back, but it didn’t seem to faze her one bit.
“You can’t stay in there forever,” she said levelly.
She gave a signal and the demons attacked. The first wave came from a handful of demons crawling up onto the roof.
“Can they get through that?” Walter asked.
The creaking sound of ripping metal from above signified that indeed the demons could.
“What the hell is going on—they better not be taking off my roof!” Marge went behind the counter and pulled out her own shotgun. She let a couple of rounds loose at the ceiling, right below where the demons were trying to break in. “Damn, I just put a hole in my own roof.”
The first demon that dropped down into the diner was a woman of about Julia’s age. Her eyes flashed black as she sped toward Walter. Julia drop-kicked her, then tried to shoot her with her pistol. But the demon was too fast. She knocked Julia’s pistol away, and pounced on her. Julia twisted, grabbed the demon’s neck, and with a mighty kick threw her over her head.
The demon landed flat on her back. Julia crawled over to her pistol just as the demon attacked again. Julia turned and shot the woman. Black smoke poured out of her mouth and her body crumpled to the ground.
“Watch out!” Dean called to her. He spun and started unloading more rock salt bullets at the ceiling as another two demons dropped down onto the counter top. One kicked over the metal cake stand that displayed a cherry pie.
“Hey man, show some respect to the pies,” Dean shouted.
He shot the guy in the shoulder. Black smoke shot up and out of his mouth, disappearing into an air vent.
Outside, the rest of the demons looked like they were itching to join the fight.
Julia spun and drop-kicked another demon.
“How are we going to get out of here?” she cried.
They all heard the rumble at the same time. The cab of a large diesel eighteen-wheeler was barreling over the gravel lot toward the diner. Five demons were dispatched as the grill of the truck ran them over.
“Get out of the way!” Dean yelled.
The truck cab hit the front part of the diner. It tore open like tin foil. Inside the cab was the third steel worker.
“I know trouble when I see it. Get in!” he called.
Sam continued to shoot at Eisheth.
“Not the last you’ve seen of me, baby doll,” Eisheth purred.
Walter, Julia, Sam, and Dean scrambled onto the front of the cab.
“Not so fast.” Marge shot out her hand and grabbed Walter’s foot. Her eyes flashed black. “Someone needs to stay here and help me clean up this mess.”
Walter struggled to hold on to the truck’s hood.
The steel worker looked at his side mirr
or.
“We gotta roll. More are comin’ our way.”
Marge slashed and pulled on Walter’s ankle as Julia tugged at her father’s wrists. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean kept Eisheth and the others at bay.
“Dean, help!” Julia cried.
Dean twisted and shot Marge between the eyes. She rolled off the front of the cab and dropped to the ground. Black smoke poured out of her mouth.
“Go, go, go!” Sam shouted.
The driver punched the cab into reverse and swung wide, running over a couple more demons. As they perched on each side of the cab, Sam and Dean shot at the demons. The truck barreled off. Julia pulled her father into the cab.
“Thank you so much!” Julia exclaimed, wiping the sweat from her brow.
“My pleasure.” The steel worked introduced himself. “Name’s Mike. It looked like you needed some help. Once I saw what those things did to Benny and Jim, I knew I had to do something. I just gotta return this cab to the mill by nighttime.”
“No problem. Can you take us past Chicago?” Dean called.
The truck sped down the streets of Gary and then swung onto a two lane interstate highway.
With the horizon clear of demons, Sam and Dean ducked inside the cab.
“How do you think she found us?” Julia asked. “Wasn’t James supposed to be her bloodhound?”
“Dumb luck,” Dean said. “We should have headed the other way. She won’t find us again. We’re going to be long gone.” He was sure of it.
Mike let them off 200 miles west of Chicago, just before Davenport. Walter, Julia, Sam, and Dean got off at an unmarked exit ramp. They thanked Mike for saving their lives.
“So now what?” Julia asked.
Dean noticed that Julia had ripped her skirt and her blouse had lost buttons.
“You need to get yourself some demon-fighting clothes,” he commented. “Those things aren’t going to cut it anymore.”
The four of them walked up the road in the twilight. Soon they came upon a friendly looking motel where each room was an individual little house. A small café was attached to the office.
“I think I’m going to check in, then go to bed,” Walter said wearily.
“Me too,” Sam said. “Dean?”
“Going to stay up for a bit. Sort of jacked up.”
Supernatural: War of the Sons Page 17