2 - Boy Division
Dean shook himself out of his paralysis, because he had to. He had to get Sam away from this horror show. But go where, exactly? What a time to blank on whether they'd decided on a secondary meeting spot or not.
The waitress came out, maybe because Dean hadn't paid for the coffee but she gasped and stilled as soon as she saw the killing spree going on down the street. "What the hell?"
"Go back inside," Dean told her, glad to have someone around he could issue instructions to. It made him feel like maybe he had a handle on this, when he was nowhere close to grasping it. Feign confidence while trying to be strong for other people. "Close up, call 9-1-1, hide in the back."
She nodded. It was all sensible. "You kids need to get back inside."
"No, we're getting out of here," he assured her, and started heading up the street, away from the carnage. At least no one had come for them yet, but Dean imagined it was only a matter of time.
Sam said, in a really strange voice, "Dean."
He looked back at the carnage, and saw a familiar figure walking up the street, although it took him a couple seconds to place him. Rob, the hunter Dad was working with today. He was striding up the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious to the multiple assaults happening around him. He was grinning ear to ear, holding a camping hatchet ... and had blood on his blue button down shirt. Was it his blood? Dean rapidly scanned him, but if Rob was bleeding, Dean couldn't see from where. "Where's our Dad?" Dean asked. He motioned for Sam to stay where he was, and started walking towards him. "Rob?"
Rob was a kind of nondescript looking guy. If there was an "average hunter" listed in an encyclopedia, his picture would be right beside it. Average height, maybe ten pounds overweight, with a scraggly, close cropped beard, and thinning brown hair perpetually covered by a baseball cap. What made Rob unique was he kind of always smelled like pencil shavings, which Dean thought was really weird. Why did he smell like pencils? He actually asked Dad once, and he could only shrug. It was simply a mystery never to be solved.
Dean stopped walking, because he was getting too close to the carnage zone, and Rob was approaching him anyways. Still smiling, still cradling his camping hatchet like a pet. Dean was getting major freakazoid vibes from even before he started speaking. "Rob, where's my Dad?" Dean tried, one last time.
Rob was speaking now, but it was so low Dean couldn't hear him until he got closer. And then what he heard was a sort of breathless ramble, with no beginning and no end. "-deadanditwasntmyfaultJohnyouweretoofarawayandtheyatemykidsankilledmywifeandwhyshouldyouhavelivingkidsyouneverseewhenmykidsaredeadanditwasntmyfaultJohn-"
Dean tried to make sense of what he was saying, and when he did, he was horrified, and knew that hatchet was for him and Sam. He was here to kill them. Was Dad warning them about Rob? "What did you do to our Dad?" Dean asked, fearing the answer.
When he was within range, Rob lunged at him, swinging the hatchet wildly. Dean knew it was coming, though, and dodged the initial swing, while planting a firm kick in Rob's midsection. It sent him staggering back a couple steps, and should have knocked the wind out of him, but no such luck. He attempted to chop him with the hatchet again, and Dean knew he had to get it out of his hands, so this time he grabbed his wrist as the slice was coming in, and attempted to wrest it from him. But Rob was stronger than he looked and crazed as well.
Dean really didn't want to hurt him, but he was here to hurt him and Sammy, and he may have hurt their Dad. He had no choice. Dean still felt bad when he stepped under Rob's arm, while still holding on to his wrist, and twisted.
His wrist snapped with a sound like a branch breaking under the weight of snow, and Dean expected the hatchet to fall, but even Rob's fingers weren't reacting correctly. Somehow they were still hanging on to the weapon.
Rob tried to overpower him even from his current awkward position, reaching for Dean's throat with his free, uninjured hand. "Sorry dude," Dean said, kicking the side of Rob's knee. He might have been acting weird, but basic physics should have been working.
And it was. That leg gave way beneath him, and Rob ended up on his knees on the asphalt, the hatchet finally jarred from his hand. Dean instantly kicked it away as Rob punched him right in the balls.
It was like a lightning bolt hit him right in the junk. The pain was overwhelming and indescribable - it felt like he blacked out for a second - and Dean fell against a parked car wondering if he was going to barf, and kind of hoping he'd drop dead right that second. He didn't.
But Rob was more than happy to help him get there, as he grabbed Dean by the throat with his one working hand and squeezed like he was a balloon in desperate need of popping. Dean didn't want to stab the guy, but he was on the verge of doing so when Sam slammed Rob over the head with an empty, severely dented metal garbage can.
That staggered Rob, and now Dean was sure he could move again, although goddamn, he was probably going to have to spend half the night with a bag of ice on his crotch. Dean poured his pain and frustration into a right upper cut, his best punching style by far, and he snapped Rob's head back so hard he collapsed to the sidewalk as if shot. Dean was kind of hoping he was still conscious because he wanted answers as to what he'd done to their Dad, but he was also glad he was unconscious, because he didn't want to keep beating on this guy. He was one of Dad's friends, before he tried to kill them. And maybe killed Dad. Okay, maybe he would like to keep beating on this guy.
"What the hell was he saying?" Sam asked.
Oh good, he hadn't heard it. "Something about his wife and kids being eaten," Dean said. It wasn't exactly a lie. It was one of the things he said.
Sam looked down at him, equally horrified and pitying. "What the ..? That was how he ended up widowed? What ate his family?"
Dean shrugged, and bent over to briefly try and catch his breath, and swallow back his nausea. Oh fuck, getting punched in the balls was the fucking worst. Honestly, he would have rather gotten a hatchet wound. "You okay?" Sam asked.
"Always wear a cup," Dean said. At least there was zero chance he was getting laid tonight.
The noises of fighting were still going on around them, and he knew he had to get Sam out of here as of five minutes ago but shit, he wished he got hazard pay for this. Or any pay really. And a health care plan would have been nice. "Come on, we hafta go."
"Where?" Sam asked.
Great question. Dean wished he'd had more time to think about it. "Away from here. Then we'll worry about the rest of it."
"That doesn't seem great," Sam said.
Dean took a moment to search Rob's pockets to see if he had left a clue or something of where he and Dad had been, but he found nothing, except a small velvet bag, sort of like the ones Dad had, only this had slightly different stuff in it. Stuff that didn't work? These bags might be their only clue, and Dean had no idea how to interpret them.
They took a couple of alley shortcuts Dean had learned, because one of the first things he ever learned wherever they were was the teen make out spots (too damn many in New York) and the reasonable shortcuts you could use if, say, a monster was after you. They were several blocks away before Dean remembered a trip he'd taken with Dad a couple of days ago. They went a few different places, picking up a bunch of supplies, some of which Dean didn't recognize. He found a concrete planter to sit on, and dug out the protection bag. He pulled out the coin, and studied it.
Sam leaned in for a look. "I think that's Japanese," he said, squinting at it.
"Which is kind of funny, because we picked it up in Chinatown," Dean said. He didn't actually remember Dad buying these, but that must have been where he picked it up. "This weird herbalist's shop. Probably a hunter's supply shop, but different than most. We need to go there. Maybe they can tell us what these are for."
"At least it's a destination." Sam said. Dean would have told him to stow the attitude, except he said it with a kind of exhaustion. He was still sick, no matter how much better he was, and also? Dean was with him. They had a place to go now. It was a start. A shitty one, sure, but more than they had five minutes ago. Before they left, Dean checked Dad's number again. No answer. If Rob had murdered him ... no, he couldn't think like that right now. He had to focus on the mission, getting Sam somewhere safe, and block all that other stuff out for now. Emotions interfered with the job - hadn't Dad always told him that? Drill down and focus, and don't let adrenaline or emotions or anything distract you. Do the job. Worry about the rest later.
Since it was quite a ways away, they ducked into the nearest subway tunnel. It was crowded, as it always seemed to be, but not so bad, considering it was Halloween. Dean always thought with their naturally flat, eerie lighting, and tons of city overhead, subways would be a great setting for a horror movie, and yet there weren't a lot of subway based horror movies. This was probably not the thing to be thinking about with what just happened above ground, but it got his mind off his balls, which continued to throb like zits ready to pop. He honestly hoped Rob didn't break something. If he had, maybe he should have stabbed him. Fair's fair.
Dean knew he wasn't smart enough to ever understand the subway system map or its arcane and surely richly symbolic guidebooks, but he knew the train they need to catch to get to Chinatown, and that was enough. Maybe if he lived in New York for years, he'd understand it, but right now, he could get by. He kept looking around, in case Rob or that wave of craziness had followed them, but he saw no signs of either. There were a lot of people around, though, and the subway could get pretty wild even without people suddenly going mental and attacking each other. For instance, there was a guy dressed as a hot dog currently heckling a busker. Dean didn't know what was going on there, and didn't care to know, because that was just a perfect New York moment. Context would spoil everything.
They didn't have to wait long. Their train was actually late, yet it was the one bit of good luck they'd had all night. The car was about three quarters full, but they found seats near the back. Sitting next to him, Dean could feel Sam was giving off heat like a furnace. On top of all of this, he still had to worry about the kid being sick. Maybe if they could take a break from the running and the fighting for a bit, it would help.
Sam looked around before leaning in and whispering, "Could it be a witch?"
Dean considered that. Could it be? The violence that overtook those people seemed spell like, and yet there were several problems with that idea. First, how powerful must they have been to cast such a far reaching spell? No hex bags were used there, unless she - or he - sprinkled them around the city like loose pennies. Even then, these protection bags they had hardly seemed super charged. Fuck, there were beans in it! Unless the witch was allergic to lentils, Dean failed to see how they helped at all. The coins were kind of interesting, because coins actually popped up a lot - as cursed objects, as protective wards, as symbols of luck or doom. Coins actually opened up the floor to way too many possibilities, so they needed to figure out which kind they were dealing with before options would fall away and certainties would emerge.
The train got under way, and Dean was still pondering options when the sea change began.
It started with the busker suddenly ripping off his guitar and beating the guy in the hot dog costume with it, sending wood and blood flying. A homeless guy started beating the shit out of someone in a Transit Authority uniform, while a middle aged woman who looked like someone's Great Aunt tackled a young guy in a leather jacket and started ripping his clothes off. A man in a business suit lit his briefcase on fire, and a teenage girl took off one of her high heeled shoes and started beating a man with it, making actual punctures with her stilettos. It look like she took out one of his eyes. It was insane, and Dean could only stare at it through the windows as the train picked up speed and disappeared into the tunnel.
He'd hoped Sam hadn't seen any of that, but he must have, because he stiffened, and whispered, "It can't be following us, can it?"
"No," Dean replied, but now he wondered. Could it? No, that was insane! How could it possibly be following them?
Could a spell follow them? Maybe. Definitely a creature of some sort could have although Dean hadn't noticed anything, and you'd think they'd have lost it at some point. New York was so crowded and hectic, even for pedestrians, tailing someone on foot was pretty difficult. But possibly not for this thing.
Maybe something was dogging them. He couldn't see it - or, most likely, simply hadn't noticed it yet - but it was on their trail. And it dragged this aura of crazy with them. For what reason? To what end?
That was the defcon one situation. A thing headed straight for them like a guided missile. But what could do this? And how was he supposed to stop it?
If Dad were here, he swear he'd punch him right in the nose.