Chapter 5, Lock and Load

There wasn't too much time to lose, it was already late afternoon. Sam downed a couple of pain killers, cursing himself for injuring his hand is such a stupid way. Note to self: try not to use broken glass to cushion your fall next time, genius. Glancing nervously at the sun, gleaming low in the sky, Sam found himself wishing for more advanced warning than his visions usually allowed. The violence of the vision caused the searing pain to lance through his head and he couldn't shake the woman's panicked expression from his thoughts.

It was the other clues from the vision, however, that Sam knew were more important. With his good hand, Sam sketched out what he could remember about the shape of the amulet. There were some sort of runes etched in the outer circle, they looked Celtic in origin. Sam wished he had though to bring some of his reference books, particularly one that had proved useful when Dean was dealing with a swarm of malevolent sprites in Ohio last fall. He seemed to remember some extensive discussion of Irish mythology, which might be useful here.

He could run an internet search later, but he found most of those sources highly unreliable. Since Sam had "settled down" in Colorado, he had devoted much of his free time to cataloging the journals of hunters like Elkins, his father, Jim Murphy and Caleb. It was fascinating, if at some points frustrating and heart wrenching work. Sam was determined to make the sacrifices of these brave men meaningful. Cross referencing the entries with his own research, Sam was gradually compiling an encyclopedic tome of the supernatural phenomena of North America. His library, much of which was inherited from Pastor Jim, now took up more than half of the considerable basement at the Winchester Manor (as the family jokingly referred to the massive house Sam and Grace now occupied with their brood of children). He also had a training room set up down there, a corner delegated for laundry and a guest bedroom and bath where John liked to stay when he visited the family. Sam had spent many late nights working out the puzzles his father, brother and various other family friends would pose. He was in his element there, digging up the archaic references, amending exorcism rituals, researching the almost forgotten horrors that stained the pages of human history. It was the field work that left him feeling exposed, though Sam had enough experience to nip those types of insecurities in the bud. He spared only a moment to pine for hearth and home before he pushed the homesickness away and forced himself to focus on the problem at hand.

Dean, who seemed unaware of Sam's angsty contemplation—which is probably the only reason he wasn't making disparaging comments about Sam going soft—had rung Cassie to inform her of the state of the apartment and let her know that he and Sam would be working late. When the conversation disintegrated into flirtatious sexual innuendo, Sam rolled his eyes and pointedly suggested they return to the hunt before someone got killed.

"Alright, Cassie, I've gotta go. We're making Captain Kill-joy over here jealous."

"You are just so, so funny bro." Sam countered as Dean snapped his cell closed. "So I checked out the play from that poster in my vision. It's a local production, some theater over by Columbia. I think we should head up the 7th ave line, see if the thing left any tracks or we run across something that… looks familiar."

"Man, you serious?"

"What?" Sam demanded.

"We're taking the subway?"

Sam shook his head incredulously, "Says the man who didn't blink at trudging a mile through the sewer after a shapeshifter."

"That's different." Sam raised his eyebrows. "I've got a rep to keep."

"Shut up."

Dean smirked and grabbed his jacket. "Don't say shut up, Sammy. What would the wife think?"

"You're an ass."

"Well, you're a bitch."

"Come on, Dean."

The two continued to bicker as they headed out to the car to load up. As Dean opened the trunk, Sam leafed through a book to find the passage on zombies he had marked earlier. "There are two ways we could go about this. Either we, make the corpse unusable somehow, fry the body, break the spinal cord or we break the animation spell. Usually there's some mark or symbol that the necromancer uses to bind the undead spirit. Marring the mark is unlikely to be enough. I would try a counter spell and purification ritual to counter the necromancy."

"Okay, so we are going to need holy water," Dean tossed a vial to Sam. "Flare guns." He handed Sam a gun and a couple refills to Sam, who stored them deftly in his bag. "Salt gun."

As he started to pull out the shotguns, Sam protested, "Dean, we can't walk into a subway with a loaded shot gun. Are you trying to get us arrested? We're going to have to go old school on this one. Salt pellets" He grabbed a box as Dean grunted his grudging agreement. "They won't do much except slow the spirit down, anyway" he added.

"Machete?" Dean offered, concealing his own blade in a sheath that was only fairly suspicious-looking.

"I'm good," Sam snorted, revealing the scimitar that was his prefered weapon.

Slamming the trunk, Dean gave Sam a half smile. Sam could see the unmerciful glint shine in his brother's eyes. "Let's do this," He said. And Sam followed him down into the subway.

TBC