TEN

In Dean’s pretty extensive life experience, there really wasn’t very much that could compare to a good bacon cheeseburger. Despite that, the hot dog—with everything—that he devoured as he and Sam marched back to their apartment came close.

Sam was decidedly less enthusiastic about their dinner.

“Nothing like mystery meat you bought from a guy wearing a skirt,” he said distastefully, swallowing the last of the bun and flicking ketchup off his fingers onto the sidewalk.

The sun had set behind the towering buildings, casting long inky shadows over the boys’ route. But as the city fell into darkness, it seemed to be coming alive.

“Can you imagine the kind of supernatural critters that must be running around these alleys?” Dean asked as they passed a particularly decrepit-looking apartment complex.

“Dad’s journal had a lot on New York,” Sam replied. “Wouldn’t be surprising if there were other hunters working the city—we know there are in the future,” he said thinking of General Cox. Sam gave his brother a cautious look, as if he was worried Dean wouldn’t like what he was going to say next. “It might be something to consider if we need backup.”

“Backup schmackup,” Dean responded. “What do we need other hunters for? We’ve got guns. Plus, you think we’d be able to convince anyone to help us once we start talking about the Apocalypse... and coming from the future?”

“Guess you’re right.”

“Damn straight. We tell anybody what we’re doing here, we risk them interfering,” Dean said definitively, knowing that interference may well be the least of their troubles. That certain people—and/or forces of Hell—would kill or worse in order to stop Sam and Dean was left unspoken. They both knew it, so it bore no repeating.

They walked up the cracked steps of Villard House. The sound of an ancient television set echoed out of the landlady’s open door as they passed by.

“Lady’s watching the DuMont Network in there,” Dean said with a grin.

“The what?” Sam asked, his brow furrowed.

Dean just stared at him, incredulous. He sometimes forgot how young Sam was. Not that Dean himself had been alive to watch the DuMont Network, which, in 1954, was due to be shut down in two years, but he watched enough TV to be familiar with its history.

“Cavalcade of Stars? The Honeymooners? Not ringing a bell? Seriously?”

“Do you watch those shows before or after Dr. Sexy, M.D.?” Sam asked, derisively.

“I’m off Dr. Sexy,” Dean said.

“Tell me again about the girl,” Sam said, his voice serious.

“Julia.”

“She was tailing you?”

Dean slipped the key into the door of their apartment.

“She was definitely interested,” he replied.

“Becky Rosen interested, or demon Meg interested?” Sam probed.

“Listen buddy, both of those chiquitas were after you,” Dean said, trying to keep the vision of Becky rubbing Sam’s chest out of his mind. “So, where are they?” Dean looked around the room. “You lose the guns just like you lost the knife?”

“Dean, it was stolen,” Sam retorted. Then, realization dawned on him. “... By a girl. Brunette, cute, about five-foot six?”

Dean nodded.

“Could be the same girl that brushed past me in the hall,” Sam continued. “Right before I realized the knife was gone.” He walked to the Murphy bed, pulled it down, and extracted the gun-filled duffel from the bed’s cavity. “As for these, they’re safe and sound.”

Dean watched Sam wistfully. The kid really has become a good hunter, despite everything, he thought. He grabbed the weapon-laden bag and opened it.

“Fifties women, dude,” he said as he appraised the contents. “It’s like a big riddle, and Betty Draper is the... thing you get for solving a riddle.”

“Wait, are you still into the girl who you know is on to you? We got robbed already, Dean. We don’t have time for you to get played.”

“Don’t start. I know. I’m not hitting on anything that was born before the microwave.” Dean hefted one of the shotguns, and expertly tilted the weight of it back and forth to feel its balance.

“I was thinking...” Sam began, then trailed off.

“Spit it out, big guy,” Dean said. “Thinking about taking a crap? Thinking of getting us some toothpaste? ’Cause your breath is ripe.”

“If this wasn’t 1954, we’d be loading these with salt, right?” Sam asked, grabbing a few of the shotgun shells. “But here, we’re not. Because we’re not just fighting demons and ghosts and things that go bump; we’re robbing humans. Humans who didn’t do anything to us, or to anyone, didn’t do anything wrong, and we’re going to hold guns to their heads? Doesn’t it faze you even a little to be the bad guys?”

“We ice Lucifer, nobody’s crying over a little bit of armed larceny,” Dean retorted.

“So the end justifies the means?” Sam paused. “’Cause it sure didn’t when it meant me juicing up on demon blood.”

Sam’s words drilled into Dean.

“That was different,” he growled.

Sam shook his head and started to pace the room, the creaky floorboards giving slightly under his weight.

Dean looked at his brother impatiently. Why does he always have to make things so complicated?

“It was different,” Dean persisted. “Look, I’m willing to go pretty damned far to get this stupid scroll. Whether that includes killing or maiming some poor bastard who gets in our way, I’m not sure yet. Won’t know that till my finger’s on the trigger. But Sammy, I sure as hell am not willing to lose my little brother.” Dean let out a sigh. “Saving you is the reason we’re here.”

But Sam’s face was resolved.

“Nobody else gets hurt,” he said. It wasn’t a statement, it was a command. “I have enough blood on me already.”

Dean reached into his pocket, felt the wad of bills, and started toward the door.

“Where are you going?” his brother demanded.

“To buy salt,” Dean responded, and the door shut on him.

James McMannon stood on the threshold of his sister’s brownstone house, bathed in the flashing red and blue of a police cruiser’s revolving lights. Peering through the open curtains, he saw his sister. Maria’s face was blotted with tears, her left cheek pressed into the thick of an older man’s shoulder. Maybe a neighbor, James thought, not recognizing the man. At least she has someone. If he went inside, they’d ask him to explain something that couldn’t be rationally explained, to tell a story that no sane person would believe.

Two uniformed officers were visible as well, both of them wearing the forlorn grimace of men sharing bad tidings. Your son is dead, they’re saying. We found his body. James didn’t need to read their lips, all he had to see was his sister’s anguished face.

The sight drove James off the stoop and back onto the narrow sidewalk. He began to shamble slowly northward.

Over the course of the evening, he had managed to piece together his shattered memories of what had happened to Barney—what he had done to Barney. He had never felt particularly in control of the direction his life was taking, but this was something different entirely. For a good chunk of the past few days, James hadn’t been in control of his hands, his feet, or anything in between. Now he felt like a stranger in his own body, just stopping by until the next occupant moved in. Every few hours, he would simply wake up in a new place, unsure of how he had got there. The memories might eventually return, or they might not. Only one had stuck—

I killed Barney. And people are going to be looking for me. New York was a city with a million small, dim corners to hide in, and his only option was to find one of them and disappear into it. My sister’s son, he thought, the words burning into his psyche. The only person she had left. Facing her was not an option. He had to vanish.

However, as the swirling light from the police cruiser faded into the distance, James found himself doing something peculiar. He was walking back toward Manhattan, toward the first place people would be looking for him—the Waldorf Astoria. A nagging voice in the back of his mind insisted that everything could be worked out, if only he was back at the hotel.

If only he was near the vault.