TWENTY-THREE

The bar car plummeted into the darkness of the night. Sam and Dean shut the door behind them. They had gotten rid of Eisheth for now, but she would be after them as soon as she realized that the scroll had been switched.

Inside the dining car, Julia tried to avoid Dean’s gaze. He walked up to her and roughly grabbed her arm.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“Get your hands off her!” Walter protested.

“Wait your turn, old man, you’re in on this too. You have our knife! Do you know how useful that could have been the last couple of days? We’re fighting demons, and it’s the only thing that kills them. Hello, fighting demons.” Dean motioned to the carnage around him. “Not to mention the fact that you did steal it from us. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Julia looked up at Dean. “I’m sorry. We needed to find out who you were. And I took it. I didn’t know what it was for, until today.”

“Which begs the question: Who are you?” Dean stood beside Sam glaring at Walter and Julia.

Walter stepped forward. “We’re hunters. Just like you.”

“And you were going to tell us this when?” Sam asked.

“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.”

“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?”