Chapter 6: Summer Breeze
The next day was bright and clear despite the scary, gloomy note on which the previous night had finished. It was also remarkably domestic. For some reason they never did their laundry at Bobby's, even though he had a perfectly good wringer-washer, or maybe because he had a perfectly good wringer-washer. Here at Ellen's, she'd at least installed the latest water-efficient front loaders from Asia and she had actual dryers, although travellers were encouraged to use the clothes lines as gas had to be paid for and convertors had to be maintained but the great outdoors did not.
Dean was pinning up their shirts, humming some slow moving Lynyrd Skynyrd, and enjoying the warmth of the sun.
Sam had been pulled into the women's compound because one of their sons, Michael Fitch, was turning out to be a talented airhead and none of the women here were all that good at casting except for Pamela who couldn't see to correct the boy's sigils. It was the perfect activity for the big geek, Dean mused, because one thing Sammy liked to do was explain stuff, in great detail, to anyone who would listen.
It was also a good place for Sam to avoid Meg Masters and her not-so-helpless brother. Since she wasn't part of Ellen's Den, she wouldn't be allowed into the compound. Children were rare and too precious to allow unknowns close. Sam would be safe there.
He saw Jo walking over to him… by herself and out in the open. He frowned in disapproval. He knew she carried a gun in a side holster and a knife at her ankle but she was still taking a risk. He looked around, seeking potential threats even though the day was calm.
"It's the middle of the day," she said before he could open his mouth. "Ash put together a tracking system and we carry transmitters at all times, plus Dad's watching from the back window." Bill returned her wave. "I'm perfectly safe. Now can I get a proper hello instead of just a smirk in passing?"
"You know you can, darlin'," he answered, finally smiling as he opened his arms and lifted her up in a hug. "You've gained weight," he said as he put her down.
She hit him. "I've grown, you ass, at least an inch." He smiled. She grabbed the other end of the blanket and held it while he pinned. "So where you guys been? You haven't been here in ages."
"We had some jobs up north, in Wisconsin, Wyoming, then out to Colorado and back to Kansas. You know how it goes." Jo nodded because she did know; her father—Ellen's actual husband from before the Storm—was a hunter too.
Or had been until the Roadhouse became so busy. Now he mostly hung around, helping Ellen wrangle all the hopeful Sires and protecting his godchildren.
"I heard your Dad's gone missing," she said after a time.
Dean shrugged. "Hard to go missing when the world's so small but, yeah, he's making it tough for us to run into him."
"Hmm," she responded neutrally. She grabbed a pair of his boxers from the basket and pinned them. She didn't seem concerned by the action but to Dean it was more intimate than his kiss with Pamela. "I imagine Ash told you he came through here a couple months ago." It wasn't a question but Dean made an affirmative noise. "I heard him talking to Mom and Dad one night."
"You mean you were eavesdropping."
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Do you want to know what they were talking about?"
"Do you really think you'll be able to keep it secret much longer?" He was laughing openly now. "I know you, Joanna Beth, and it's busting you not to tell me."
She glared at him but told him anyway… as expected. "They were talking about this gun."
"Ooo, hunters talking about a gun."
This time she punched him with feeling unlike the little love tap earlier. "You're an ass, you know that? It was a special gun; a legendary gun a lot of people don't believe exists. The story is in 1835, when Halley's Comet was in the sky, Samuel Colt made a gun for a hunter, and I mean a supernatural hunter not bears and stuff. He carved it, inscribed it and blessed it. He also made thirteen bullets, also carved, inscribed and blessed, and because of that it can kill anything."
"Kill anything," he repeated, "like supernatural anything?" He was still hanging the laundry but he was moving slower as Jo's information pulled his attention away from the mundane.
"Like the thing that killed your mother and your step-dad," she confirmed. "Your dad also said he thought he'd figured out where it was." Dean lifted his brow, his hand halfway to the clothesline with a pin. "The gun, not the other," she hastened to clarify. "He thought the Colt was with an old hunter, Daniel Elkins, in Colorado."
Dean jumped and Jo stopped. "Have you heard of him?" she asked.
"I think so. Hang on."
Like all good hunters, Dean kept his weapon-filled duffel close. Even in the middle of a settled area like the Roadhouse the wards could fail or a Bunny could sneak in some other way. It was how Pamela was attacked not twenty yards from the compound. Also like most hunters, his weapon bag contained his most precious possessions, the ones he didn't want to leave unattended. His was a short list, since things could usually be replaced, but he'd added his dad's journal to it. He dug it out now and turned to the early pages.
He found the passage, short and cryptic like most of his dad's more personal notes, and handed the book over to Jo. "Here," he tapped the page. "Dad mentions Elkins. He specialized in hunting vampires."
"I thought vampires were extinct," she said absently.
"Maybe, who knows. Sam and I came across a freaking rugaru in Missouri."
"You're making that up."
"Hand to God," he lifted his arm, "I'd never heard of it either."
"You've added it to the book?" she asked, meaning the binder of information on monsters and the supernatural that hunters added to whenever they encountered something new. Most townships and settlements had a similar bestiary. He assured her Sam had added it this morning before heading in to work with Michael.
"You know this makes sense," he said, taking his journal back. "We'd heard Dad was in Colorado and we couldn't figure out why he'd be heading out there."
"He was looking for the gun," Jo said. Dean nodded. "Did you get to talk to this Elkins guy? It sounds like him and your old man were pretty close at one time."
"Nah. We ran into an ambushed convoy before we got to Manning. There were survivors so they took priority."
"Oh yeah, I heard about that. They're going back out to work on that road since that's the second time it's failed in the last couple years," she told him. "A lot of the hunters are looking to go out that way, make a few bucks. Probably more than most of them are worth."
The opinion was so purely Ellen that Dean had to laugh. "The Homies' attitude may stink but they do pay well," he agreed. "Actually, knowing all this is a big help. Sam and I were thinking of heading back out to Colorado but I don't suppose we'll bother now." He put the precious journal back in the lined side pocket.
"So you'll be hanging around for a bit then?" she asked, handing him the empty basket and carefully not looking at him. "That'll be good 'cuz Ash has some designs he needs a hand with. The man's a genius but he can't even draw a recognizable stick figure."
"I have to talk to Sam but I'll, uh, let you know." He smiled at her, trying to make sure the smile remained brotherly and not anything more. When she walked away, he didn't follow her.
Incest wasn't illegal and Jo wasn't even his real sister. So how come the thought of taking her to bed made him feel more like a pervert than anything he'd ever done with Sam?
The wire came in as predicted. The Homies were recruiting to reinforce the sigil lines along the road through Colorado; standard daily rates for all who responded. Dean and Sam watched the Roadhouse drain of people in one short hour. A few of the guys asked them to come too but Sam said he wanted to stick around, see if their dad dropped in for his mail, and the subject was dropped. Everyone knew the Winchester patriarch had taken the death of his partner hard, and everyone knew how worried his sons were.
Now Dean was hanging with Ash and Sam was still working with Michael, even though Meg and her brother had disappeared sometime the previous day.
"So this line goes like this?" Michael asked, carefully using the brush to demonstrate.
"Very good," Sam said admiringly before he explained further. "There is no set form for battle sigils. They're based on the language and the intent and the caster. My step-dad used to say 'Match the rhythm, catch the power'." Michael smiled and repeated it back. Sam smiled too—it felt right to use Pastor Jim's teachings here.
"Right now we're learning Latin," he continued. "Salvus es, you are safe. A standard shielding spell you'd use to protect your tinman or any other non-airhead in the field with you." He picked up his calligraphy brush. "This is the way I would draw it." He dipped it in the water they were using as ink since water was the only safe substance to use when learning sigils. All the things the old stories said about running water dispersing magic were true, and still water couldn't hold a charge because it evaporated too quickly so, like giving Asher blunt-tipped scissors so he couldn't cut himself accidentally, Michael was using water.
Then Sam remembered Meg had done spell work with water, in the condensation from the beer bottles that had pooled on the table to be exact, so she'd either been an extremely powerful airhead or she'd pricked her finger to add blood to the liquid—which he'd never heard of but could work in theory. Or she was something else entirely…
The hunter shook his head to clear it. Thoughts like those didn't belong here in a lesson, where lack of focus could be disastrous. He pushed them back and away to be looked at later and ignored the shiver of fear that ran through him. Meg had been a symptom of something big happening. Ever since Dad had taken off, Sam had had this sense of impending doom and, yes, he knew that sounded melodramatic—he didn't need Dean telling him that—but it was true. Something was hovering around his family, something big and probably awful, and despite the wards and the protections and the spells, Sam didn't feel safe and he couldn't figure out how to change it. He didn't know what to do…
He gave his head another shake. Right now he had a job and it was important. Michael had a gift that needed to be trained so that's what he was going to do. He corrected Michael's grip, laying his index finger down the length of the brush so it would feel like he was drawing with his finger, which is what Michael would be doing when he did this in the real world.
He put one hand on each of the boys' shoulders and told Michael to draw it again, pulling the free-floating energy into the lines. Sam could feel it gathering under Michael's brush, not smooth, but enough.
"Salvus es," Michael said once he'd drawn the sigil. This time the energy flowed out cleanly. The power surrounded Michael's target, his little brother Asher, and Sam's fingers tingled. Asher laughed as the spell tickled him. It had been clean power, untainted and exactly how it was supposed to be.
"Excellent!" Sam congratulated him.
"Mike's gonna be a great airhead," Asher stated firmly from his seat across from his big brother. "The bestest in the world."
"You're a dork," said the world's bestest big brother, "but I love you anyway." Asher smiled.
Michael's little brother was doing his own drawings but with crayons instead of a calligraphy brush. They'd done the standard skill tests but they'd hardly been needed since anyone with eyes could tell Asher was going to be a tinman like his dad. The kid was already drawing machines with lasers and umbrellas that would protect the world from brain-stealing aliens. He was growing out his mullet too, just like his father's. Ash was crazy proud.
"Okay, let's try to find a second language you can use," Sam interrupted before the brotherly smack talk could get started. Michael obligingly dipped his brush in the water.
"Let's try Italian, since it's so close to Latin: siamo al sicuro." Sam put his hands back on Michael's shoulders but he could tell, even before the energy sputtered and broke apart, that Italian wouldn't be Michael's second spell language.
"Don't worry," he said calmly. "We'll try Polish: my jesteśmy bezpieczni." He listened to Michael stumble over the sounds, unable to find the language's rhythm and match it to the sigil he'd drawn. "Not Polish either. Try Hindi: hama surakṣita haiṁ."
It was odd, but standing behind Michael, Sam was echoing the exact same steps Jim had taken with him so long ago. It had taken a long time to discover Sam's control was best in Polish and nobody could figure that out: why Polish and not, say, Gaelic or French? Jim had laughed when John had nearly spat nails at the discovery. Where the hell were they going to get a Polish teacher? "The Lord will provide," Jim had said and they'd found one within the week.
John had ranted about the suspiciousness of coincidences but Jim had given thanks and taken the lessons right alongside him.
Sam knew he wouldn't get to do this with Ben who, like Asher, was already more interested in engines and power supplies. He'd still teach his son the basics of self-protection—I am safe, rather than we—but the change in pronoun was simple and completely altered the focus of the spellwords. Most tinmen could only manage casting basic spells Latin. He only knew of one exception…
And Asher wasn't going to change the statistic.
Michael's brother was muttering the words with them, mangling the pronunciation and totally not caring. It was a good thing he wasn't drawing random shapes, Sam thought with a chuckle. God knew what he could accidentally conjure up.
"Not Hindi either," Sam pronounced after feeling absolutely nothing come from the young airhead
"Thank god!" Michael moaned dramatically. "That made my tongue hurt. Why can't I just use English?"
Sam laughed out loud—it was almost exactly what Dean said when he'd been finding his second language. Of course, second languages were usually tougher to learn as a person got older and for an airhead Dean had been ancient.
"Because English only works if it's not your first language. No one knows why; just as no one knows why we have magic now and we didn't before."
"It came with the Storm," Asher commented. He'd switched to pencil crayons and was sharpening the red to sawdust. "Everyone knows that."
"But what was in the Storm that made magic real?" Sam countered. "That's what nobody knows."
Asher thought about it, brow furrowed in his seriousness. "Aliens," he finally announced. "It was aliens." Both Sam and Michael laughed. Right now, everything was aliens with the young boy.
"What if I don't have a second language?" Michael asked, looking worried. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing," Sam assured him. My dad's partner used Latin exclusively and he was a really good airhead. You know Demian and Barnes, right?" Michael nodded. "Both of them cast only in Latin. On the other hand, Andy Gallagher uses Klingon, which isn't even real language but it works for him."
"Yeah but he's an über-airhead, like you."
Sam laughed uncomfortably; it sounded like hunter gossip, labeling him, making him stand out. He changed the subject. "Let's try something weird. I don't know Klingon but maybe… Enochian? Bransg gea."
Michael repeated the phrase but stumbled badly, wrinkling his nose as he spoke and coughing when he was done. Grimacing as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. Sam wasn't surprised. He'd only known two people who could handle Enochian in his whole life and Jim had only learned because his step-son had needed him to. It had been another Winchester weirdness the Pastor had been able to accept.
Man, he missed Jim. He could use some of his confident support right now.
It had barely been a year since the yellow-eyed monster—calling it a Dust Bunny or a demon was too tame—had entered Jim's church and killed him. Two months after that, John had gone as well. Not dead, which would've been bad enough, but just…avoiding them, which was somehow worse. He said it was for their protection until he had a couple things figured out, and Dad wouldn't listen when both he and Dean said they'd be safer together: stronger together.
Their father was, without a doubt, one of the most stubborn sons-of-bitches Sam had ever known. He loved the guy but kind of hated him too. How could he do this to them, to Dean?
He wasn't sure what he'd do if John actually showed up. He might hug him or he might hit him, either was a possibility and the see-saw of emotions made him feel slightly ill. But what made Sam's throat clench up and his stomach bobble was the thought that somehow, for whatever mystic bullshit reason, he was responsible for Jim's death, John's disappearance, all of it. Dean said it wasn't but Dean would say that no matter what the truth.
"Try Vietnamese," he said to Michael. "Chúng ta được an toàn." We are safe.
He wished he could believe it.
The next telegram that came through was from Salvation, Iowa, a little settlement north-east of the Des Moines Township. It was easily an eight hour trip but Dean had decided they could do it in six.
The yellow-eyed monster had been sighted.
They stopped in Omaha to fill up the Impala, grab some lunch and check with Isaac and Tamara for the latest news on what was happening in Salvation. There wasn't much, a few signs and portents, a weakness in the wards. It was about as useful as owning an airplane. So it didn't explain why Dean sat behind the wheel outside Tamara's Den, running his hands over the seat.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
Dean gave a half-shrug. "Dunno."
And he didn't. It was only a feeling, like one those new age woo-woo things he loved to mock so much. There was no way he could discuss it with Sam without being teased to hell and back.
"We can go someplace else. Take another route," Sam suggested. The airhead paused and then, in his Important Voice, intoned, "There are many ways to find Salvation, my son."
The joke succeeded in jerking Dean out of his abstraction with a barking laugh. He turned a shit-eating grin on Sam. "That was awful."
"Only because I said it first," Sam stated seriously, although the twitching lips totally gave him away. "If you were the one who said it, you'd think it was brilliant."
"Because my delivery would've been much better," Dean said, "smoother."
"Your delivery sucks," was Sam's response and it was on.
Dean turned the key in the ignition and they took off down the road. Whatever feeling had crept over the older hunter was forgotten in the familiar bantering and crude put-downs. It made him feel better about this, though he wasn't sure why he needed to feel 'better'. They had a line on the thing that had killed Mary Winchester and their step-dad. That meant either they'd finally find John Winchester, because no way would he allow himself to stay out of the fight, or they'd trap the fucker and exorcise its ass back to the Stone Age. Win either way, Dean figured.
On the heel of that thought came another way he could get a win out of the trip.
"Y'know," he started then stopped to sip his coffee nervously. He cleared his throat and began again. "If this turns out to be a bust… we'll be halfway to Chicago, or near enough." Sam turned to look at him but Dean kept his eyes on the road. "Lots of Chicago left I heard and the pizza's supposed to be pretty good. We could, maybe, keep going, spend a few days, see the sights."
He could feel Sam's stunned stare and he could hear Sam's stuttered breath. He risked a sideways glance. Sure enough, the big Sasquatch was staring at him like he'd announced he was a werewolf.
Or like he hung the moon…
"I'd like that," Sam's voice was thick with unspoken—please God, let it remain unspoken—emotion.
Dean buried his face in his coffee cup, hoping the non-existent steam would explain his blush. "It's just a tourist thing; a few days then back to real life." Best to set the ground rules up front, he thought, so he was relieved when Sam agreed. He smiled back. "Let's go see what's there then," and he turned up the stereo and pushed the gas pedal down until they were a sleek black bullet moving over the asphalt. It was a fucking great feeling.
It lasted for barely an hour out of Omaha before the horizon darkened with a Dust Storm the last TV station had sworn would pass fifty miles south of them. Not that they'd believed the forecast but still… this was a little more than 'a thin cloud drifting lazily'.
Sam was staring through his window. "Should we turn back," he asked.
"It's an hour either way."
"Shit," Sam whispered. Dean's muttered agreement didn't help the tingle of foreboding running down his spine. "What's that?"
Dean peered in the same direction and wondered if it was time for Sam to look at getting glasses because there was nothing there. A minute later he switched to thinking his co-pilot had the eyes of a frigging hawk because there, on the road a good ways ahead of them, was a car. Its hood was up in the universal signal of 'I need help' but Dean couldn't see anyone hanging around the clunky hybrid.
"I think that's Meg," Sam said in disbelief.
Definitely hawk, Dean decided. He didn't say that of course. "Meg," he repeated, "all the way out here."
"Yeah."
"You gettin' a bad feeling about this?"
"Oh yeah…"
Dean had already slowed down some but now he slowed down to way below the old speed limit. To another hunter it would be a clear signal they were suspicious but Dean was hoping that, whoever Meg was, she didn't know the signs.
"Okay," he said, "If this is a trap then you're the target." Sam opened his mouth to protest but Dean raised his finger. "She glommed onto you at the Roadhouse, tried to ensorcel you, and now she's here—where we had no idea we would be going—with car troubles." He waited until Sam shut his mouth. "So, since you're the prize, you're going to stay in the car while I go check it out." Sam was already shaking his head.
"It's logical." Dean argued. "Broken down cars are things tinmen deal with."
"No, Dean, just no," Sam said firmly. "If it's a trap then you're out there exposed. I should have your back–"
"And you will," Dean broke in. "If this goes south, which I admit it's probably gonna, then you will get your ass behind the wheel and boot it for Des Moines and you will call out the dogs on that bitch. Got it?" Dean knew his voice was hard, uncompromising. It was the voice John had used on them when he wanted to be obeyed and he knew Sam hated it. But this was too important. Sam was too important.
Sam sat beside him with his mulish pouty face on, chewing on Dean's order but not, thank the Lord, arguing with him out of habit. He was thinking about it, wondering if he could come up with a better plan. Dean knew he wouldn't, not in the… three minutes they had left. Finally, the brat gave a single nod of his head and Dean sighed out a relieved breath.
He rolled past the pukey-blue box-on-wheels dealers called cars these days and saw Meg and her brother sitting inside. He pulled up in front of them but didn't turn off the car. He turned to Sam, his co-pilot and lover, "I'm counting on you to rescue me, bitch, so don't mess it up." It was as close to a farewell as Dean would go under the circumstances—he sucked at mushy stuff and didn't want to get better—but Sam understood him anyway because he smiled weirdly and nodded, eyes glittering.
Dean got out and shut the door, running his hand over the frame and muttering 'bransg'—protect—so the wards activated. The Impala would pull energy from the engine while it ran because that was the way he'd designed her. Then she'd switch to the power he and Sam had built up in her over the years and the convertor he'd installed after Dad had gone missing a year ago. The wards wouldn't stop everything, but they would hopefully give Sam enough time to get away.
He stepped away from the Impala and noticed the wind was stronger than it had seemed while they were driving. The Streamers behind the wall swirled and twisted like smoke effects in a cheap horror movie. He could practically smell them on the other side of the sigils. Despite the experts who swore it didn't have a scent, to him the Dust always smelled like sulfur. Jim had believed him. Jim had always believed him about that stuff.
Another couple steps then he stopped and smiled at the lying-ass blonde who was climbing out of the wheeled cube. "Hey! Meg, isn't it?" She frowned pretending not to know him. "Dean. Dean Winchester. Sam's brother," he said, watching obliquely as Tom got out on the far side. "You know with the–" he waved at this face "–mouth."
A fake look of recognition flowed over her face and she smiled. If it hadn't been for the malicious twist of it, Dean would've said it was a great smile. No wonder Sam had followed her in the bar. "With the nachos," she said.
"That's the one." Dean widened his smile but still didn't approach—after all this was the Midwest and she was the female and she hadn't invited him in closer. "So what's the problem?"
"Damned if I know." She chuckled as if he were an idiot for asking. "I'm not a, uh, tinman. Isn't that what you call mechanics out here?"
"Or you could call them mechanics," Dean suggested mildly and she sneered in return. Cute as she was, Meg Masters was a condescending hag underneath. "Maybe you should get in the car," he said after letting the silence become tense. "Turn it over, see what happens."
She gave another one of those 'I am superior to you' sneers and sauntered closer to him instead. "Is Sammy with you?" she asked. "I'd like to say hello."
"Only I get to call him, Sammy," Dean replied. "His rules, not mine. And he's in the car researching. There was a distress call sent out. We're heading there now and it's best to be prepared, you know."
Her smile widened and yet somehow became meaner, colder. "I know all about being prepared," she purred and the Dust closed in.