Interstate 90, South Dakota

And you, my love, won't you take my hand?
We'll go back in time to that mystic land
where the dew drops cry, and the cats meow.
I will take you there. I will show you how.

"Yeah, I've got your message. Just opening it – wait a minute – " Dean leaned across and turned the radio down; it was a little hard to hold a phone conversation with Spinal Tap playing that loud. When the picture file opened, his eyes grew wide and round. "Oh, man!" he exclaimed. "That is awesome! I am . . . in awe!" He could hear chuckling from his cell and found himself grinning in response, but Sam was sucking lemons the other side of the bench seat so he decided to wind up the call. "Don't forget, now: you've got that number I gave you," he concluded. "If anything comes up, just call us." Dean continued to admire the photo after the call dropped out. The painting reminded him of something, but he couldn't bring the recollection to mind.

"You never mentioned the van," he complained idly. "That paint job is a work of art!"

"I didn't particularly notice at the time," Sam murmured, so Dean flashed the picture at him.

"It's a barbarian queen riding a polar bear. It's kinda hard to miss."

Sam just shrugged and kept his eyes on the road. "He's getting better at it," he observed, tightly.

Dean nodded. "He's been practicing. Training his brain with meditation. So now, it's not just thoughts he can beam out, but images, too." He chuckled as he recalled Andy Gallagher's account of his telepathic escapades. "There's this one guy he knows – total dick, right? So he used it on him: gay porn. All hours of the day. And he said his face . . ." He stammered to a halt when he saw Sam's face; it was a picture of shock and horror. And when Dean stopped to think about it, he supposed what Andy had done was a bit mind rapey. "O.K. Maybe he stepped over a line a bit there," he acknowledged. "But it's not like he's out there killing with his mind." Sam's recent revelations had made it sound like all the kids who'd initially survived Yellow Eyes' house fires were either mutant psychos or dead. Or dead mutant psychos. But Andy seemed like just a regular guy. "At least he's not trying to hide anything. He didn't have to tell me about the stuff he could do, but he was up front about it. Makes it easier to believe he's on the level."

Sam shot him a quick sideways glance, like maybe he thought Dean was taking a poke at him. And maybe he was. He looked down at Sam's journal, thicker now by a couple of pages since Sam had returned the ones with the information about the 'psychic' kids that he'd seen fit to keep to himself before. Dean had never noticed the binder had missing pages but, in retrospect, the fact that a section had ended mid-sentence should have been a clue. It had just never occurred to him to suppose Sam would keep stuff like this from him.

It was all back now, though: all the details of the other kids carefully documented in Sam's meticulously neat hand, and it wasn't like Dean couldn't see why he'd been reluctant to share:

Max Miller – telekinetic who killed his family in a bloody murder-suicide case.

Scott Carey – electrokinetic caught tampering with ATM machines. Suspected of killing a security guard who was later determined to have died by electrocution. Shot during pursuit by law enforcement.

Lily Baker – hanged herself after her girlfriend's sudden and unexplained heart failure.

Jake Talley – killed while serving in Afghanistan. Reports before his death claimed he'd once rescued a fellow combatant pinned beneath an overturned vehicle by lifting it off with his bare hands.

Gabe Hodge – suspected pyromaniac responsible for the deaths of up to 32 fire victims, including his aunt and two siblings. Died of a broken neck, cause unknown.

Isabelle Dubois – Broken neck, cause unknown. Ability, if any, unknown.

All of them had two things in common: they were all the same age as Sam and they'd all survived house fires that had originated in their nursery on the night of the kid's six month birthday. Now they were all dead. And Dean was trying not to show how disturbing he also found it that at least half the people on that list looked like they'd turned killer before they died, the one shining light being Jake Talley who seemed like a straight up hero.

Most of the information on the list the Campbells had learned after the fact, from other hunters or news reports, but the Miller case had thrown up a flag because Max just happened to live in Saginaw, only an hour or so from their base in Lansing. His first victim had seemed like a suicide at first, but when his uncle's head got sliced off by a sash window the Campbells started to suspect it might be their kind of thing. Sam had personally witnessed the last two deaths, walking in right at the moment the boy had shot his step-mother then turned the gun on himself. Thing was, though, Max hadn't been holding the gun. Until he died it had been floating in midair. That had prompted the hunter family to check on the other house fire survivors, only to find they were a little late to the parade.

Maybe it was easy to be smart with twenty-twenty hindsight, but it seemed to Dean like the Campbells had dropped the ball on this. Sure, things had been quiet with those families for more than twenty years, and then the hunters had their focus drawn by a spate of new fires, but Dean couldn't help feeling like they should have been keeping closer tabs on those people. Then maybe they might have picked up on something sooner, maybe even saved a few lives.

There were three more kids still surviving: a law student from Maine, a young mother from Florida, and Andy Gallagher, a drifter from Guthrie, Oklahoma. Andy had once had a twin brother, Ansen Weems, but the two boys had been adopted out to different families when they were babies, and there'd been no house fires, nothing out of the ordinary in Weems' history. That is, until the kid drowned in a swimming pool accident when he was six. It looked like a legit accident, but who knows whether he would ever have developed some freaky power, too, if he'd lived.

Sam had assured Dean that the family was keeping a close watch on the remaining three now, but he'd still insisted on speaking to them himself. They'd all listened patiently when he'd called and explained he was writing a book about possible connections between childhood trauma and paranormal phenomena, and obligingly answered his detailed questionnaire about their experiences. Neither of the first two had shown any sign of developing any kind of ability and, to all intents and purposes, seemed to be leading normal lives. Andy had seemed mostly harmless, albeit a little stoned, when Dean was talking to him. His worst crime was using his mind control powers to stiff credit agencies . . . and, yeah, maybe that mind porn thing . . .

"Well, I'm sorry, I'm starting to like the dude," Dean insisted, stubbornly. "That van is sweet." He studied the picture of the two bears again and then he realized what they reminded him of: the two horses from the tarot card, the Chariot. What was it the spirit of Donald Helfer had told Dean about the card? The light and dark horses wanted to go in different directions, but they had to pull together to keep the chariot moving forward . . . wait . . . what was that?

Dean looked up. "Did you feel that?" he demanded.

"What?"

He wasn't sure . . . but he was . . . he'd felt something wrong . . . through the seat, like maybe a faint bump or something except not like when you run over something rough on the road. It felt closer, more personal. He switched off the radio and listened. He couldn't put his finger on it but something definitely felt off. "Pull over," he said.

Sam just shot him a blank look. "Dean, we're on the Interstate – "

"I said pull over! Something's wrong! . . . With the car!" he added when Sam looked alarmed but mystified, and then he just looked more mystified, but less alarmed, and that was a bad development in Dean's opinion.

"We're almost at the interchange," Sam assured him, with rather less urgency in his tone than Dean felt the situation called for. "I'll get off there."

Dean sat tensely listening to the engine as they turned onto the highway. "Come on, baby, talk to me," he murmured. "Tell me what's wrong."

As soon as Sam found a side road and pulled over Dean hustled him out of the car and slid behind the wheel. He tapped the gas a few times. "How's she been driving?" he asked.

"Fine."

"Really?" Like Sam would know. He didn't drive her enough. He didn't know her, didn't feel her, the way Dean did. He wasn't tuned into her moods. Dean sat and listened to the idle for a minute or two. She definitely wasn't happy. "She sounds grumpy," he muttered.

"Grumpy?" Sam repeated skeptically.

"I dunno, the rhythm's off." It made Dean think of hiccoughs somehow, but he wasn't about to put it that way out loud. "There! Did you hear that?"

Sam looked baffled. "What? I can't hear anything, nothing out the ordinary," he insisted. Dean wished he'd paid more attention all those times when Dad had tried to teach him about this stuff, so he could express what he was hearing in technical terms that Sam would understand, respect. "Just listen!" he snapped testily.

Sam did for a bit but then just shook his head, so Dean popped the hood, went round to the front and opened her up. He stared meaningfully and Sam joined him. "Tell me that sounds right to you!" he pressed.

"It's rough," Sam acknowledged presently, "but she's an old car, Dean. She always sounds rough."

Dean glared at him. "She doesn't sound like that!" He hung over the engine, trying to hear, trying to sense where the trouble was coming from, while Sam ran through his inventory of standard checks - mainly to humor him, Dean suspected. The sound was starting to give him a bad, winded kind of feeling, like he'd been punched in his gut. The sensation was vaguely familiar.

Sam returned and stood at his side once more. "Maybe she's misfiring," he grudgingly admitted.

"And what would cause that?"

"Could be a couple of things. Bad plugs or coils, fuel pump, low compression – "

"That's it!" Dean interrupted. "It's the head gasket."

Sam stared at him. "Why would you say that?"

He remembered having the same feeling in an old car when he was younger. "I've come across this before. That's what it turned out to be."

"It's not the head gasket," Sam said dismissively.

"How can you be sure?"

"Because there'd be other symptoms. I've already checked the oil, the coolant, the exhaust; they're fine – "

"Well, check them again!" Dean snapped. "You must have missed something!" Sam scowled at him and, yeah, maybe he'd come off more belligerent than he meant to be, but it was frustrating not having the tools to argue the logic. All he had was a gut feeling about the car and he couldn't explain how that translated for him into mechanical terms. Sam wouldn't get it.

Sam bitch-stomped to the back, opened the trunk and came back with the tool box. The next item on his inventory apparently involved sticking an oversized turkey baster into the radiator neck. At least, that's kinda what it looked like.

"What's that?" Dean asked.

"Hydro-carbon test." Sam glanced up. "You never saw John do this?"

Dean shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe." Truth is, he hadn't spent nearly as much time with Dad as he should have. Maybe that was partly down to Dad. When Dean had been young his father hadn't had much patience with a dreamy kid with too much restless energy running all over the brake shop, and by the time Dean had been old enough to teach he'd been off at football, chasing girls or, later, playing with his band a lot of the time. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in engines, but back then he'd lacked discipline, focus. He'd never had the commitment to learn this stuff properly. He always figured there'd be plenty of time and he'd get round to it.

Dad should have been stricter with him.

Sam pulled out the turkey baster and showed it to him. "Hydrocarbons in the coolant would turn the liquid yellow," he explained.

It didn't look like it had changed color at all. "So, that proves it isn't the head gasket?" Dean asked.

"Probably."

"Probably?"

Sam hesitated then let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, you'd better hope it isn't! Because if that's gone, you can bet that it won't be the only thing wrong, and getting parts for this engine won't be easy!" Dean didn't really need that reminder and it must have shown in his face because Sam continued in a softer tone. "Dean, the car's forty years old. The fact that it's idling a little rough doesn't have to mean – "

"How far are we out of Sioux Falls?" Dean demanded. "Can we get there?"

"If the head gasket's blown? I don't know. But, Dean, she's been running fine – "

"If it is," Dean snapped. Sam was just trying to be reassuring, he guessed, but it wasn't working.

"Maybe. If we take it easy. If the engine was running hot I'd be more worried, but so long as it isn't overheating – "

"OK, well I know a guy just out of town who can help. If she needs parts he's the guy who can get them if anyone can."

Sam stopped dead and stared at Dean. "You know someone in Sioux Falls? You never mentioned that before!"

As soon as Sam said it, Dean could see what he was thinking. Demon-Gemma had dropped a breadcrumb trail for them to follow through six other towns, and it had already turned out that Dean had a personal connection to two of them. He hadn't known about those, though. He felt a little stupid that he'd forgotten about this one. "Oh, you're gonna get on my back for not sharing?" he shot back.

Sam's face clouded and his gaze dropped to the ground. "It could be important, Dean," he murmured.

"I don't think so," Dean replied, and he truly didn't. Not like he'd known anyone in Sunrise, and he was sure there was no one he knew in Salvation, Pontiac or New Harmony, either. He was still pretty sure the clues were all connected to the Colt somehow. "It's just an old scrap dealer who always came through for Dad when he couldn't get parts anywhere else. I've only met the guy once in my life, but he and Dad exchanged Christmas cards now and then." At least, Dad would have sent cards, as he did with all his trade contacts. Dean wasn't too sure he ever got one back, though. "I never even thought about him until just now."

Sam was staring into a space just ahead of him, and Dean guessed his computer brain was sifting through his memory of the time he'd spent working in the brake shop with Dad, trying to recall anyone he'd dealt with who might have some relevance now. After a while it was clear he'd come up empty. "We should check it out, all the same," he said.

Dean grunted and got back behind the wheel while Sam cleaned up and returned the tools to the trunk. This should be interesting. He wondered how Sam planned to subtly bring up the subject of demonic possession with some random auto parts dealer.

Sam climbed in the other door looking pissy that he'd been relegated back to the passenger side, but he dropped all the attitude abruptly when Dean practically had to floor the gas pedal to get the car moving.

"Oh, come on!" Dean cried. "You're telling me you couldn't feel that?" It was like she'd had the wind knocked right out of her.

Sam stared back at him all wide-eyed and guilty looking. "It wasn't doing that before, I swear!"

Dean drove like a little old lady all the way to SF, but by the time they reached the outskirts the engine was starting to run warm and even Sam could smell something was off. At that point Dean decided to park and walk the rest of the way, just to be safe.

When they got there the gates were padlocked closed.

"Is it Sunday?" Dean asked.

"All day," Sam confirmed. He squinted through the wire, trying to see if he could spot the main building through all the rows of cannibalized cars and piles of old wrecks stacked up to four deep. He was just wondering if maybe there was another entrance somewhere when he heard the sound of Dean's feet hitting the dirt at a run, and the rattle of the wire as he cat walked his way up the gate and swung himself over the top.

"You know, you could just call the guy . . ." Sam suggested.

"If I remembered the number I'd have done that already," Dean called back, already heading down one of the aisles between the cars.

Sam shrugged and joined him on the other side of the gate, but before he'd hit the ground Dean turned and held out a hand to detain him.

"You'd better stay there," he warned. "Rumsfeld can be funny with strangers."

Sam frowned and glanced back at the sign over the gate. It said 'B & E Scrap Metal'.

"Who's Rumsf – "

Dean was already out of sight.

Sam stood by the gate and waited patiently. Then impatiently, then anxiously. Dean was taking too long. Sam strained to hear the sound of approaching voices, or anything to indicate he'd found the dealer. There was nothing. He began to edge his way along the aisle, peering between the cars. As he reached a clearing he stiffened when he heard a familiar and unwelcome sound just behind him: the distinctive click of a revolver.

"Just hold still and keep your hands where I can see 'em," a woman's voice drawled.

Just a woman, Sam assumed. Demons and monsters don't typically bother to threaten you at gunpoint. He spread his arms and hands out slowly, and as unthreateningly as possible. "Hey, it's O.K. I'm not here to rob the place or anything," he assured her. "I know the owner."

"Yeah? Well, I don't know you," she retorted. "So you just lace those pretty fingers behind your head and start walking, boy."

Sam did as he was told, following her directions as he waited for a chance to get the gun away from her, but she was smart – staying just far enough back that he couldn't just turn and grab it. All the while, he kept trying to explain himself.

"I was just hoping to get help here," he said, "with some car trouble I'm having – "

"You and your friend didn't come in a car."

"It's down the road. It was overheating . . ." Crap. So she knew about Dean. Maybe she'd already got him locked up somewhere. As they turned a corner the side of a house came into view and, as if to confirm Sam's misgivings, he heard Dean's agitated voice call out to him:

"Sam! Need some help here!"

Now he could see the porch where Dean was being held at the business end of a rifle by a young girl half his size. To add to the indignity, it appeared she'd somehow managed to get a strike in. Tears streamed from his eyes as he clutched his nose whining "I can't see! I can't even see!"

"Sorry, Dean, I can't right now. I'm . . . a little tied up," Sam admitted, indicating the woman behind him, who abruptly came to a halt.

"Sam? Dean?" she repeated. "Winchester?" she quizzed Dean, and he owned to it.

"Mom, you know these guys?" the girl asked.

"Yeah, I think this is John Winchester's boy." She lowered the gun, and laughed. "And you must be Sam Campbell," she concluded, offering her hand. "Hey, I'm Ellen. This is my daughter, Jo."