TWENTY-FIVE

Marcus Wallace lay dying.

The heart attack had come out of nowhere. But then, that was the way of the heart attack—that most unpredictable of killers. Marcus had always laughed at reports of “a sudden heart attack.”

As if there were any other kind.

He’d been sitting in his office, grading papers, when his left arm started to hurt. Then he’d had trouble breathing, with fatigue overwhelming him, his body tensing even as he lost control of his limbs.

Somehow, he wound up on the floor.

The new secretary—the one whose name he couldn’t quite remember—came running in, cried out in shock, and then grabbed Marcus’s desk phone and called 911.

And after that, he must have been hallucinating, because the secretary looked down at him.

And smiled viciously.

He woke up in the emergency room of the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center on Ashby Avenue, surrounded by a doctor and five nurses who told him he was lucky to be alive.

Since then, they’d admitted him, UC-Berkeley’s medical coverage being more than sufficient to pay for a stay in a four-person room that currently only had three people occupying it.

For twenty-four hours, nurses came in and checked on him and ran tests and poked and prodded. None of them would answer any of Marcus’s questions beyond the platitudes he’d received when he woke up in the ER.

Marcus was pushing seventy. He had gotten used to medical professionals being parsimonious with useful information. Everything was “precautionary,” they didn’t want to “jump to conclusions,” it was always “too early to tell.”

Finally, a doctor came in. He was a familiar-looking Asian man with a crew-cut and round cheeks.

“Hi, Mr. Wallace, I’m Doctor—”

“Takashi Iwamura.”

The doctor grinned sheepishly as he reached for the clipboard that hung from a hook at the foot of the bed.

“I was rather hoping you wouldn’t remember me, Professor.”

Marcus laughed, an action that sent shooting pains through his entire ribcage.

“No, I, uh—woo.”

The grin fell.

“Take it easy, Professor.”

Marcus waved him off.

“I’m fine—just shouldn’t have laughed,” he said, and he caught his breath. “No, it’s good to see you. Been a few years since you were three steps from flunking out of my folklore class, Hash. You still go by ‘Hash’?”

That prompted another sheepish grin.

“No matter how hard I try not to.”

“Well, as long as my heart’s in your hands, I’ll stick with ‘Dr. Iwamura.’”

“Hash is fine, Professor. And speaking of your heart....”

“Yeah.” Marcus tugged at the sheets that covered him from the chest down. “What’s the verdict? And please—no crap, all right? I prefer Gregory House to Marcus Welby.”

Iwamura shrugged as he hung the clipboard back on the hook.

“Fair enough. You had a cardiac infarction and came within a hairsbreadth of dying.” He paused briefly before continuing. “Now, this is the part where I’d give you all kinds of reassurances, tell you that there are treatments and medications and diets and all sorts of things. But you want straight, so you’ll get straight.

“You’ve got a heart that doesn’t like you very much. It’s like a fight with your wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whoever—you can buy all the flowers you want and apologize all you want, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be taken back.”

Marcus thought about that for a moment.

“So I could take meds that make me sick, eat food I can’t stand, and still keel over in six months?”

Iwamura nodded.

“But the chances are reduced significantly, if you do all that.”

“Great.” Marcus let out a long breath. “Okay, thanks for the straight shooting, Hash.”

Putting a hand on his shoulder, Iwamura spoke gently.

“Get some rest, Professor. You’ve got students to terrorize, after all.”

That prompted a smile.

“I only terrorize the students who don’t appreciate the material. I’m sure your med-school professors were a lot easier on you.”

Iwamura coughed a laugh.

“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far...” he said.

After Iwamura left, Marcus looked over at the telephone that sat on the table next to his bed. The siren call of voicemail nagged at him.

He looked around, and saw that the other patients in the room were unconscious. Pretty sure he wouldn’t disturb them, he reached for the receiver. When he’d started teaching forty-five years ago, he barely even used the phone in his office. He communicated with students in person, during office hours— which were posted on a piece of paper tacked to a bulletin board—and before and after classes.

Now, he rarely had a face-to-face with his students. It was all email or texting or instant messaging or cell phones. He even had his office phone automatically forward to his Treo. He spent little time in his office these days, anyhow.

At his age, and having had tenure for years, his class load was lighter than it had ever been, and he preferred to spend his leisure time relaxing. Sometimes he’d cross the Bay Bridge into San Francisco and browse through City Lights, or he’d wander the used bookstores here in Berkeley.

If a student needed to talk to him, the call would go right to his pocket.

Unlike many of his contemporaries—who bitched and moaned about it—Marcus actually preferred it this way.

His favorite was Dr. Wang.

“They can call me any time, now. What if I don’t want to talk to them?”

Marcus’s response was always the same.

“Cell phone’s got an ‘off’ button. Use it—I do. If I don’t want to be reached, I can shut the thing down and they can eat voicemail.”

He liked not subjecting himself—or his students—to the tyranny of office hours. So many issues that would have been disastrous twenty years ago never even came up, precisely because the students had improved access to their teachers.

His Treo had been in his jacket pocket when he’d suffered the heart attack, which meant it was still draped over the cracked leather chair where he’d left it. His laptop still sat on his desk. Without either of those, checking his email was impossible—despite the nurse’s reassurance that the hospital had wi-fi.

However, the landline next to his bed would, at least, allow him to remotely access his voicemail. So he gave in to temptation, and punched in the numbers.

He had six messages, so he grabbed a pen and paper.

The first three were from his students with assorted concerns, none of which he had to sweat until after he was released from the hospital. However, he did copy down their numbers so he could let them know that it would be more than a day or two to get back to them, and for good reason. Knowing the campus grapevine, he expected they already knew what had happened, but Marcus preferred the personal touch.

The next message was from his nephew, and Marcus was tempted to delete it without listening.

“Yo, Unc, some white dude was lookin’ for you. Said he met a friend’a yours in Chinatown or somethin’ like that. Bought me a beer, so I told him you worked at the hippie school. Just wanted to give you a heads-up, yo. Peace.”

Marcus sighed. At least he wasn’t asking for money this time. The final message came from an unfamiliar voice.

“Hi, Professor, this is Sam Winchester—I’m calling on behalf of myself and my brother Dean. Twenty years ago you met our father, John Winchester, and I think you know Bobby Singer, too. We’re in San Francisco because the Heart of the Dragon’s back, and we need your help. If you could call me back, please, that would be great.” Then he gave his cell number. The call ended, and Marcus just stared at the phone.

“Son of a bitch.”

He found it hard to believe that it had been twenty years since a frighteningly intense John Winchester had come into his office complaining about the hook sword he had given to Jack Bartow. Marcus had thought the man was going to take his head off. From the sound of it, his son was a lot nicer. At the very least, he was more polite.

But that thought was supplanted by another—this one much more ominous.

If Doragon Kokoro was back, all hell was gonna break loose. So reading the number off of the note pad, he returned Sam Winchester’s phone call.

“Hello?” It was the same voice, slightly out of breath.

“Sam Winchester? This is Marcus Wallace.”

“Oh, hi, Professor. Can you hold on one second?”

“Uh, sure,” Marcus said, and it sounded as if the young man set his phone down, followed by what sounded like a shovel digging into dirt.

After a few more seconds, Sam Winchester came back on the line.

“Sorry about that—needed to finish something up.” As he spoke, Marcus heard the sound of a car engine starting.

“That’s all right, son,” Marcus replied. “How’s your old man doing?”

“Uh, well, I’m afraid he passed a few years ago.”

Marcus winced.

“Damn. Sorry about that. He seemed like an okay guy.”

“Thanks.” Sam sounded awkward. In the background, the traffic noises increased—as if he had just entered a freeway. Whatever the case, he quickly got down to business.

“I’m glad you called, Professor. We’ve got a bit of a problem.”

“Your message said something about Doragon Kokoro’s return.”

“Uh, yeah, and it gets worse,” Sam said. “Some guys came by our hotel and took the hook sword away from us. We figure it was Albert Chao.”

“Probably, yeah.” Marcus blew out a very long breath. “Well, I’d say you guys are screwed then—and so are the rest of us. You gotta get that thing back.”

“That’s what I was hoping you could help us with. We need to find the sword again. Chao probably has it at his restaurant, but it’d be good if we could be sure before we try to retrieve it.”

“Crap.” Marcus closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He’d never needed to locate the sword before, because he always knew where it was. Or at least that it was in the right hands.

Even better, he’d put all his notes on Doragon Kokoro into a folder on his laptop. Which, of course, was back at his office.

Why is this never easy?

“All right,” he said, “I’m gonna need you or your brother to do me a favor.”

“Just name it.”

“You need to stop by my office. It’s at 2223 Fulton Street in Berkeley. There’s a laptop on my desk. Grab it and bring it to me here at the hospital.”

“Hospital?” Sam sounded confused.

Marcus shook his head. He couldn’t possibly have known.

“Yeah, had me a heart attack yesterday. I’m in Room 209 of the Medical Center on Ashby Avenue.”

“Where on Ashby?”

“Uh, dunno the address—it’s right off Telegraph.”

“Okay, I’ll find it,” Sam hesitated and continued. “And Professor, I’m sorry.”

Marcus dismissed the sentiment with a wave—not that there was anyone who could see it.

“Forget about it—you didn’t know,” he said. “And hurry—we can’t afford to screw around.”

“Okay. I’m on 580 heading toward Berkeley right now. Should be there in ten to fifteen minutes or so.”

“Good—and hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“There are no guarantees here. I never needed to look for the sword before, so I don’t know if my notes will give us anything that’ll find it.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that.” Sam paused. “It’s still worth a shot, though.”

“Oh, definitely. I just don’t want you getting your hopes up.” Marcus remembered how persnickety Sam’s father got, and didn’t want to take the chance that the son had inherited that trait.

“I stopped getting my hopes up a long time ago, Professor,” Sam said, his voice sounding incredibly tired.

“Yeah, I can appreciate that. Call me when you get to the office.” He gave Sam the hospital phone number, then they disconnected.

Lying there in silence, he thought about John Winchester. The man had radiated intensity, a singularity of purpose. Jack Bartow had been a lot more laid back. He knew what he was doing and didn’t mess around, but he took things relatively easy.

Winchester, though, was different—he’d carried himself as if his entire existence depended on destroying the spirit.

Of course, neither of them had succeeded in doing so.

If Sam Winchester is anything like his father, then it’s no wonder he sounded the way he did.

The next thing Marcus knew, he was woken by the noise of the phone ringing. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep.

“Hello?”

A deep voice spoke.

“Is this Marcus Wallace?”

“Uh, yeah.” Who the hell...?

“Dean Winchester—Sam’s brother. We got the laptop, and we’re headin’ down to you right now.”

“Great—I’ll see you shortly.” He started to hang up, then pulled the receiver back again. “And hey, like I told your brother, I can’t promise nothin’. I may not be able to find the thing for you.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot.” Dean sounded at least as tired as his brother. “See you in a few.”

Marcus hung up the hospital phone, and then rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His connections to the weird world Bartow, Singer, and the Winchester family lived in were tenuous at best. These guys lived it.

It had to have taken its toll.

He glanced around to find that both of his roommates were gone. One bed still had a chart on it, so the guy was probably just off getting tests or something.

The other one had no chart—maybe he checked out.

One way or the other, he thought bleakly.

A knock came at the door.

“Hi, Professor!”

Looking up, Marcus saw the secretary whose name he still couldn’t remember. Despite this, he did recall that she’d been the one who found him and called 911.

“Hey!” he replied with enthusiasm.

She was a mousy little Japanese-American woman with dark hair tied into a ponytail. She had a very bright smile, and was wearing a gray trench coat.

As she walked up to the bed, she seemed to be clutching her purse, as if hanging on for dear life.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing, Professor,” she said. “I was so frightened when I saw you collapse like that.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Marcus admitted ruefully. “But hey, you were the one who called 911, so thanks for that.”

“Oh, of course! It would be terrible if you died!” Then she leaned in close and spoke in a whisper. “Heart attacks are so—so horrible, aren’t they?”

Marcus didn’t bother whispering back, since they were the only two people in the room.

“Definitely. I’m in no rush to have another one.”

Then something about her changed—and abruptly. Her bright smile took on a different aspect, though he couldn’t exactly say how. With a start, he remembered the strange look she’d given him, right before he blacked out, back at the office.

Her tone changed with her expression.

“Then you’d best tell me what I want to hear.”

The smile disappeared, and her eyes went completely black.

Marcus hadn’t thought there could be a worse sensation than having a heart attack, but seeing the secretary’s eyes suddenly go dark gave him a horrible feeling deep in the pit of his stomach.

“You’re gonna help me, Prof,” she said, a rumbling undertone to her words. “According to the grapevine, you’re the guy to talk to about the spirit of Yoshio Nakadai. I need to take charge of that spirit. Y’see, there’s a war on, and my side’s been taking a bit of a pounding. I just got my ass kicked and watched six of my buddies die a horrible death because I didn’t come through. I’m pretty damn pissed about that, so I’m tired of assing around. I want the Heart of the Dragon back. And that leads me oh-so-nicely to you.” As she spat out those last few words, the smile returned.

Marcus said nothing. Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t on the side of the angels.

Her face loomed over him, the black eyes deep, hypnotic pools.

“The sword that can be used to bring the spirit to heel,” she continued. “I need it. And you’re going to tell me where it is.”

Marcus stared back at the creature.

“Sorry. Can’t tell you,” he said, fighting to keep the fear out of his voice.

The creature snarled, a noise that was both frightening and repellant coming from such a delicate-looking form.

“Oh, you think so?”

“Think’s got nothing to do with it,” Marcus said. “I don’t know where it is, and I don’t know how to find it.” He assumed it was with Chao, but even the Winchester boys weren’t completely sure of that.

For several long moments those obsidian eyes stared at him. It was as if this monster was looking right into his soul.

“Huh,” she said finally. “Looks like you’re telling the truth. Well, that sucks.” Then the awful smile came back again. “For you, anyhow.”

Marcus’s left arm started to hurt.