CHAPTER TWO

[POV: SAM WINCHESTER, 18 HOURS EARLIER]

Two things I can't say I really care for are car shows and the desert. And, well, here I was.

My brother was having the time of his life in the driver's seat of his black Impala. As usual, the radio dial had been carefully spun until the local classic rock station snapped into clarity, and now he was pounding on his car's steering wheel in time with the music. I folded my arms, blew through my lips, and stared out the window. There really wasn't much to look at, just sand, sand, and more sand. Oh yeah, and cacti. My favorite.

"Look alive, Sammy." Dean stopped drumming to the Def Leppard long enough to glance over at me. The wheel hissed against his palms, which had me worried for a split second before I remembered he wasn't actually driving. The Impala could handle herself, thank you very much. Dean was behind the wheel more as a formality than anything else.

"Look alive? Dude, it's like four in the morning," I said through a yawn. Even the paper cup of coffee I had clutched in my good hand hadn't helped yet, and I'd downed nearly half of it.

"Seven," Dean corrected.

"Whatever. I'm running off two hours of sleep here. Cut me some slack."

"You're the one who stayed up 'til all hours watching porn." We were in stop-and-go traffic now, and I freaked out for a split second because Dean wasn't even holding the steering wheel and was instead going through a bag he'd stashed on the floorboards.

I exhaled and looked up toward the car's headliner. "I wasn't watching porn, Dean—I was doing research. You should try it every once and a while."

He paused for a minute, then snickered, and I bristled under my clothing. As strange as it was to think the Impala was completely sentient, it bothered me even more when I knew she'd made some snide comment about me, a comment only Dean could hear. His face twisted into a grin, the healing gash on his forehead crinkling with the gesture, and I wanted to slap it right off his face.

"Got that right," he snickered out the side of his mouth, then sobered up and caught my gaze in the rearview. "We'll find everything we need here."

"You sure?"

He shrugged. I glared at him.

We eased past a sign: PHOENIX AUTO EXPO. At least we were close to the parking lot. The faster we got through with the car show, the sooner I could head back to our air-conditioned motel room, and… wait a minute. I twisted around in my seat when we came to a fork in the road. "Uh, Dean? Parking lot's back there."

"I know." Dean produced an envelope from the canvas bag and nudged it back under the bench seat. I noticed the cars around us had changed. No more mundane daily drivers. We'd fallen into the tail end of a long line of perfectly waxed classics. I gritted my teeth and looked up the line of eye-piercing cars, and that's when I saw it: EXHIBITOR CHECK-IN, bannered over a cruelly small shed in desperate need of a paint job. Dean opened the envelope, withdrew a piece of paper with the word REGISTRATION in bold letters across the top.

Then it clicked. The obsession with keeping the Impala completely spot-free after we got her back from the body shop a few days ago, desperate searches for car washes every night, a pretty penny spent at the auto parts store on wax and tire shine… it all made sense.

"You entered the car show?!"

He grinned.

"Dean!" I rounded on my brother. "What the hell are you thinking? We don't have time for this!"

"Aww, Sammy, it just wouldn't be right to leave Baby in the parking lot." Dean affectionately patted the dashboard. The Impala responded by picking herself up on her suspension, engine purring, and I rolled my eyes. I couldn't lie, Dean and the Impala were worrying me a little bit. (Is there a word for people who are, uh, attracted to cars? Because I'm pretty sure Dean would qualify.)

I put a hand to my forehead and leaned on it. "Look, I agree this is a good place to look around, but spending all day here probably isn't the best use of our time. The blood car won't be here, Dean."

"Three days," Dean corrected. I resisted the urge to bludgeon my fist into my skull. "First off, you don't know it won't be here. Its last twelve victims had one thing in common: they showed in the Auto Expo." He looked at me in the rearview again. "We have free roam of the blood car's hunting ground, Sammy, and a captive audience of locals who are hip to the legend."

I wanted to point out we could've done that as visitors to the show, but knew the argument was pointless.

Dean was quiet, nodding to himself, deep in silent conversation with the damn car. Hard to think that just two and a half weeks ago, this machine was just that: a machine. Who would've thought our Colorado excursion to kill a skinwalker would result in an earth-shattering revelation that seriously altered a fundamental part of our lives?

Dean relayed, "This was her idea. I just went along with it."

"Thanks, car," I grumbled. The Impala responded by stopping short, which would've sent me into the dashboard if I hadn't thrown my good arm out and braced my cast across my chest.

Dean shook himself out and said, "I know. I know!" And then turned to me. "She doesn't like it when you call her that."

I threw out my hands. "She doesn't like it when I call her Baby, either! What am I supposed to do?!"

Dean shrugged. So did the Impala with a tilt of the wheels.


"Don't lean on her!" Dean snapped a rag at me. "You'll fuck up the wax!"

I jerked back, slightly offended and ready to square off against my brother, but he was too busy attacking the Impala's paint with the rag where I'd apparently smudged it. I rolled my eyes and sidled away from the car, debating whether or not I really wanted to take off my light plaid shirt. Even this early in the morning, I could tell already the Sonoran's heat was going to quickly become smothering. Problem was… I wasn't wearing anything underneath. I thought I was being smart when I negated putting on an undershirt because of the heat. Now I regretted it.

Echoing my thoughts, Dean yanked his arms out of his plain gray button-up and slung it through the Impala's open window. Normally, I'd give him shit for stripping down to a ratty tank top, but today I bit my tongue because, well, I was kinda jealous. I focused on rolling my sleeves up as far as they could go.

"Baby says there are some house rules today." Dean shouldered the trunk open, and I got worried for a second because I thought he was going for our weapons stash, but no, he was just hauling our battered metal-sided cooler onto the grass. "You touch her, you clean her. Or she'll gut you."

The Impala laughed at me. I couldn't hear her. But I just knew.

"So. What do we know?" Dean raised a hand in greeting when another old muscle car idled into the slot next to us. "Should be a lot, since you were neck deep in research last night. Tell me, how'd you manage one-handed?"

"Oh, shut it." Yep, I was just about done with him. I lifted the collar of my shirt because I'd already begun to sweat through it. Awesome. I rolled my eyes, collecting my thoughts, and blew through my lips. Dean chuckled to himself and dropped into the grass in the shade of the Impala's fender, easing his back against her. She met him with a creak of the suspension as she gently repositioned herself to support him, and they both waited expectantly.

"Well," I began, unsure of what to do with myself. Did I join him in the shade? Stay standing? Part of me wanted to stay as far away from the black Chevy as I could because it still weirded me out that she was a living entity that could feel and think like I could. The decision was made for me, though, when I heard a searing engine behind me and realized I was standing in the slot a blue Corvette was trying to pull into. I gave an apologetic wave and bit the bullet, settling into the well-groomed grass next to Dean, but I kept myself from leaning on the Impala.

"Blood car." I looked out over the gathering of shiny machines. I didn't understand it, but I could definitely appreciate the care these people put into their cars. "Shows up once a year and that's the last you see of Uncle Joe. It seems to target a certain type of person."

"Car people."

"Yep."

"Guess you're safe," Dean said dryly.

I shrugged. "Probably. So, the person the blood car takes disappears for a week or two, and that's it. Until the body parts start showing up." I made a face and pulled out the newspaper clipping I had folded up in my pocket. "This is from last year. Look at that." I showed Dean the black and white image, which had him squinting at it, eyes narrowed and irises wobbling as he tried to focus in. That made me worry about his concussion all over again. He was still supposed to be on concussion protocol after getting nailed in the head by the skinwalker, but we'd both gotten kind of lax.

"Is that a hacked-off arm?"

"Yep," I said again. "Found off the side of Interstate 10 two weeks after one Todd Harvick disappeared last year. It was his arm," I clarified. "Then they found a foot. And a rib bone. And a chunk of skull…"

"And we're thinking the blood car took him and chewed him up?"

"That's what the legend says," I replied. "And it's not the first time—it's happened every spring for the past twenty-something years. Authorities say serial killer, but the lore says blood car. Nobody's ever been convicted."

Dean nodded to himself. "I'm thinking angry spirit attached to a car for some reason."

"Maybe. I couldn't find any violent deaths related to cars other than accidents, though. Nothing that would really cause something like that." I chewed my tongue. "It would help if somebody knew what model this blood car is. Then we could try to find out who it belonged to. But everyone who sees it…"

"…Gets dead," Dean finished.

"And only the victims actually see it. Nobody else." I breathed out. "So we've got no real eyewitness accounts. Just an urban legend and a couple dozen bodies."

"Might not even be a real car then," Dean said. "Just a manifestation." He furrowed his brow. "When cars die, can they come back as ghosts?"

I figured the Impala would answer that one, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Well then." After a moment, Dean grunted as he hauled himself to his feet. "Saw a bunch of food vendors by the entrance. I'm gonna go pick something up before we get swamped with adoring fans. You comin'?"

I didn't really want to move—save my energy for the heat later in the day—but I also didn't really want to let Dean out of my sight. I might be the one with a cast on a busted arm, but he was the one whose head had been kicked by a hoof the size of a dinner plate. Yep. I was still worried about him.

With some effort, I hefted myself into a standing position, shifting back and forth as blood powered back into my legs. "Where to?"

My brother didn't respond. He was staring out over the showgrounds at the literally hundreds of cars, and he had this weird look on his face: a distant sort of smile.

"Dean?" I walked up next to him, thinking, shit, the concussion's bad again, but then he gave a low whistle. "Check out Smokey and the Bandit," he said softly. "Now that's a good lookin' car."

"What?"

"That Trans Am." He nodded approvingly. "Like the one from the movie. Wrong color, but still."

"Pretend I don't know what that is."

"See? That white thing over there with the phoenix on the hood." He jerked a head in the direction of the car, but I still didn't see it. Not that I'd be able to recognize it among the literally hundreds of other cars, but Dean was giving me a look. "C'mon, Sammy. I taught you better'n that! It's a Pontiac Firebird!"

"Then why didn't you just call it that?"

"Because it's not just a Firebird, man, it's a…" he trailed off, squinted, and snapped out of his trance. "Huh. Must've moved it," he said under his breath. "Never mind. Let's get breakfast. You," he said to the Impala, thrusting a finger at her. "Don't go anywhere. And no flirting with that Corvette."

She blinked her lights in response.