The television show "Numb3rs," including the characters Don Eppes, Charlie Eppes, Alan Eppes, and Margaret Eppes, is copyrighted by CBS Paramount Network Television and Scott Free Productions. The television show "Supernatural," including the characters Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, and John Winchester, is copyrighted by Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc.

Dean hesitated. "I have no idea. But you guys have done more than your share. Don, you got us all that information, and Professor, I think you upgraded her condition just by turning up. I'll take you on back to the party and pick up our dad, and we'll get out of your hair."

"I would really like to be part of this," Charlie said quietly.

Don laughed. "Give it up now, Dean. I know that tone. What he means is, he's part of this no matter what."

"This could take days. Don't you have classes tomorrow?"

"I have friends who can cover for me."

"Don't you have to be at work on Monday?" Don asked Dean bluntly.

"I can get some kind of handyman job anywhere. Or work in a garage. You might've figured out, Dad and I aren't the type to punch a timeclock."

"And I'm on vacation, so we're set."

"You're sure this is how you want to spend your vacation?"

"What, looking for a secret society's magic jar? Absolutely." Don grinned right into Dean's face, and after a moment Dean returned the smile.

"Good news, Sam," he said. Don turned; Sam was walking up behind them. "The Eppes brothers have nothing better to do than help us look for the jar."

"Great. Except where are we going to put Dad? The trunk?"

Dean snickered. "I'll give him a call, see what he wants to do."

As Dean placed the call, Don asked, "Did you find your wallet?"

Sam looked a little embarrassed. "Yeah. I had it in my pants pocket."

Don nodded slowly. Sam didn't look like the type who lied easily, but maybe he was. He certainly didn't expect other people to be especially observant. Before he had gone back to Pam's room, Sam had been wearing a thin black cord around his neck; the pendant presumably hanging from it was underneath his worn T-shirt. The cord was gone now.

"Hey Dad. We saw Charlie's student, and we're running an errand now. Give us a call if you need a lift." Dean clicked the phone shut and looked at Sam. "Cell phone's on voicemail. He's probably gone to see that old friend of his. I'll tell you about that later."

"Uh, we have the car," Don said.

"Dad's pretty self-sufficient. And his truck's back at the motel."

"There's a bus stop six blocks from the house," Charlie said as they started again down the hall. "The schedule's reduced on Saturday, but – " he looked at a clock on the wall as they passed – "yes, a bus to downtown left ten minutes ago. You can get almost anywhere from there."

"Now that's genius, when you have the bus schedule memorized," Sam said with a chuckle.

"It's the way that I get around, that and walking. I don't drive."

Dean stopped dead, the others going a step or two farther before they realized it. He was looking at Charlie as though Charlie had just announced that he didn't eat. "You. Don't. Drive?"

Charlie looked startled. "Um, no."

Sam said, "Come on, Dean, not everybody – "

"It's not as though driving is necessary to sustain life."

Don laughed. "I think Dean disagrees with you, buddy. Actually, I'm not sure I agree with you."

Dean shook his head a little and moved forward. "OK. Well. First thing, we need to find a gas station, the car's a little low. We can decide what to do next from there."

"Sounds good to me," Don said, and pushed the elevator button. Remarkably, a pair of doors slid open immediately.

They all got on, and Don pushed the button for ground level. As the doors slid shut, Dean again gave Charlie that look. "Seriously. You really don't drive?"

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At the gas station, Dean said he was going inside to get a snack, Sam said he'd do the same, Don said he'd hit the head, and Charlie, with a certain emphasis, announced that he could and would pump the gas. As he headed around to the side of the building where the restroom signs were, Don grinned. He actually doubted whether Charlie had ever pumped gas in his life, but the guy was a genius; he'd figure it out.

Standing by the outside wall, Don made his own phone call. "Dad? How's the party going?"

"It's going fine. Your mother wonders where you two are."

"We just left the hospital. Charlie's student's OK, she didn't try to kill herself, so Charlie feels better. She belonged to some kind of secret club and one of their members went over the edge, killed himself and tried to kill everyone else."

"Great club."

"Yeah. Is John Winchester still there?"

"No, he left on foot awhile ago. I offered to give him a lift, but he said he liked to walk."

"What do you make of him?" If there was anyone whose judgment about other people Don trusted more than his own, it was his father's.

"He's polite. Rough around the edges. We talked for about fifteen minutes and afterward I realized that all I really know about him is that he used to be a Marine."

"Interesting."

"You know, someone like that – ex-military, doesn't talk about his family or his work – normally I'd have red flags running up. But I don't. Obviously there's something he's not talking about, but I don't think he's – "

Alan hesitated, and Don filled in, " – a danger to society. Right. I'm getting the same vibe from Dean. But there's something weird about this whole setup, you know? The Winchesters are supposedly members of this same secret club, and the girl actually seemed to recognize their names. But if something like this happened at, oh, a Masonic lodge, would a father-and-son team of Masons come rushing into town the next day?"

"Well – actually, we don't know, do we?"

"Good point. The girl asked us – supposedly us, I think was really more the Winchesters – to find something that was stolen from her. The Winchesters want to start looking yesterday, Charlie insists on going along, and I think I'll just be a barnacle for a while."

"You don't think Charlie could get in any trouble, do you?"

"Nah. I don't think anyone will. Although I suppose it's possible. Maybe it's just weird. Maybe it's just more interesting than listening to Mrs. Levinson talk about meeting Al Gore for the fourth time."

"Don't let your mother hear you say that. You give me a call if you need anything. Do you have your gun?"

"Dad, I was at a family party. No, I'm not armed. But believe me, if I thought this was going to turn into anything that needed a weapon, I'd have Charlie home before – before even he could count to ten."

"All right. Keep me posted."

"'Bye."

Don called Detective Alvarez and filled him in on the details they'd learned from Pam. As he started for the front of the gas station, just before he rounded the corner, he heard Dean's voice saying, " – going after hunters with a vengeance."

Instinctively, Don backed up a step. There was a full, two-tier rack of tires next to the station's front door. Dean and Sam were standing next to it, and by standing still on the other side, Don was pretty sure he could overhear them without their noticing that he was there.

"But I'm not a hunter anymore, Dean," Sam said.

"And you figure, what, that every living being in the cosmos knows this?"

There was a moment of silence, then Sam said, "So that's really what this is all about, Dad was worried. This has nothing to do with talking me into dropping out of college and rejoining the family business."

"You know, Sammy, as far as I'm concerned you can do anything you want." Then in a less edged tone, "I've got to say though, we miss you. You are good. 'Secret society!'" Dean chuckled.

"The sad part is, I have the feeling that's the way they thought about it. Excitement! Adventure! Anonymous good deeds!"

"Amateur night!" Dean said in the same tone. "Geez."

A bell clanked as the station's door opened and Don heard Charlie. "Filled up and paid for. My treat. Where's Don?"

By this time, Don had begun rounding the rack of tires. "Are we all ready?"

"If you are."

"So," Don said cheerfully once they were back in the car, "how do we start finding the magic jar?"

"Well, to begin with we stop referring to it as 'the magic jar,'" Dean said.

"Do you know of any fences in this area?" Charlie asked Don.

"They wouldn't fence something like that. The TV, the laptop – maybe. But more likely they're selling the stuff to friends of friends or passing it off at swap meets or pawnbrokers. Especially for a ceramic jar – a fence takes such a huge cut, it wouldn't be worth it."

"Why do you suppose they took it?" Charlie asked.

"Probably Pam was right, they thought it was more valuable than it is. Or maybe they're going to say the magic words and suck a demon into it."

"You know, Don, I'm a little surprised at you," Sam said. "You're in law enforcement. Are you telling me you've never been in the presence of evil?"

"Well – I mean, yeah, I've seen some things. But I've gotta tell you, ninety-nine percent of the guys we go after are just people who are stupid and greedy in various proportions."

"And the other one percent?"

"The other one percent, I don't worry about whether they're chemically imbalanced or demonic or what the problem is. The important job is getting them someplace where they won't be hurting anyone else. After that, I'll let the religious folks and the psychiatrists argue over them. What I do know is, they're not running around on cloven hooves."

"Well, I think evil operates as a force in the universe," Sam said. "People can fight it or cave into it. Sometimes it preys on them. And yeah, most people who go wrong are just greedy. Greed is a normal human thing, they're just headed toward one end of the human spectrum. But someone who would kill a bunch of other people and himself – some sadistic bastard who enjoys torturing people – that's not even on the spectrum of normal humanity."

"Of course it is," Charlie said. "It's the extreme end, but we're not talking about one-time occurrences here. There's enough mass murder and sadism among most sizeable populations that you could plot it on any bell curve of human behavior. Once we better understand the chemistry of the human brain, we'll be able to diagnose and treat the pathology that causes the behavior, and we won't need myths and fairy-tale monsters to explain it."

"Just dose us with enough of the right stuff and we'll all be good, huh?" Dean asked.

"And I presume that when you go home tonight you'll be reading your sheepskin scrolls by candlelight?"

Dean laughed. "Don't get me wrong, Professor, I've got nothing against science." He patted the steering wheel. "Science brought me my baby here. But I figure there's a reason why human beings are the only ones who are aware of evil and the only ones who fight it. If we don't know that and we don't work against it, what are we? Monkeys. Or nicely working little cogs. It's the fight that makes us. And it doesn't matter whether we fight evil in ourselves or fight it outside. Without the fight, we're not human."

There was a moment's pause.

"Well. Glad we settled that," Sam said, and they all laughed. "Meantime, about the jar. Don, you thought maybe pawn shops or swap meets?"

"Given our resources, that's our best bet."

"Well, the PCC Flea Market is today," Sam said. "It's still on for another couple of hours, and it's big enough that we can all four work it. After that's over, we can split up and hit pawnshops."

"Sound good to everyone?" Dean started the car. "Where do I go?"

It was pretty clear where the Flea Market was, once you got near PCC; a huge parking lot crowded with cars and people, and circled by traffic looking for a parking space. Dean finagled a space a block away, and they discussed who would search each area as they walked.

"We'll call each other if we spot the jar," Dean said. "Do we all have cell phones?"

He was looking directly at Charlie; fortunately, Charlie had one. They exchanged numbers.

"And Don," Dean continued, "if we find – I respect the law, I do. But if we find the jar, it goes straight to Pam. No calling the cops, it's evidence in a crime, it sits in some police storeroom for six months. We see it, we buy it and deliver. Right?"

Don actually hesitated before he remembered the odds against its happening and laughed. "Dean, if we walk into that flea market and that jar is sitting there, I'll deliver it to Pam today myself."

Actually, he thought as he walked his own section, this was a lot more interesting than listening to Mrs. Levinson's Al Gore saga. The afternoon was sunny and warm. SUVs and trucks and a few cars lined up side by side, the back ends opened to show merchandise, the owners sitting on a stool or standing behind a folding table that displayed more wares.

He discovered that, at least in his section, there were almost no dealers in housewares specifically. But that didn't mean there weren't enough jars and jar-like objects to keep him on his toes. At handicrafts booths there were vases; at antiques booths there were everything from cigarette caddies to umbrella stands; a lamp dealer had wired up nine different receptacles, by Don's count; a lady at a booth selling sheet music and small instruments was collecting coins for a charity in a terra cotta jar.

It worked best if he focused his visual attention sharply and just let the sounds of the place wash over him in a diffuse, unfocused way. "Well – how much are you asking?" " . . . kind of intriguing, check him out on AskART, would you?"; dogs owned by two shoppers trying to out-bark each other; "Well – how much do you want for it?"; a lecture by a guy dressed in black on the superiority of New Mexican art glass, delivered to a tolerant-looking crafts dealer; laughing girls rustling through racks of vintage clothing; ""Well – how much are you asking?" At one point he raised his eyes enough from table level to see Sam peering behind a couple of chimineas in the back of a truck; at another point he saw Dean, the leather jacket a triumph of style over practicality in this warmth, eating a tamale while he chatted up the pretty girl who'd sold it to him.

A few times Don asked a dealer if they had seen a jar matching Pam's description, hoping it might surface from a trunk or a back seat, but it never did. Just after he'd tried that a third time, his cell phone rang. "Don Eppes."

Charlie was speaking quietly. "What do you suppose Pam Villiers' middle initial is?"

"I don't know. Why – Whoa. Where are you?"