Supernatural: War of the Sons (17 page)

“This gear ain’t designed for two,” the Italian stated.

Glancing around the roof, Sam tried to come up with another option. If he could tell which room Dean was outside of now, he could break the window and pull him inside. Of course, the police were just as likely to come up with that plan, and they were a lot closer to Dean.

“How long’s the rope?” Sam asked as mental gears clicked into place.

“Long.”

“Long enough to lower them to the ground?” The man mulled that for a beat, examining the thick coil of rope. “Should be.”

Sam wasn’t reassured but he knew they didn’t have another choice. He nodded and the two of them began rapidly unspooling the line. At ground level, a cluster of police cruisers had assembled at the 50th Street entrance.

Either way, up or down, I’m handing Dean over to the cops. Better that than waiting for him to fall
, Sam thought, continuing to turn the crank.

When roughly half the line had been let out, a shotgun blast echoed between the buildings. Sam peered over the edge and saw Dean scrambling through an open window— presumably one he had just broken with the other shotgun in his duffel.

“Change of plans,” Sam called out to Walter, who was leaning woozily against the railing. “We’re going to the subway.”

Dean had chosen the window at random. That the room belonged to an attractive Asian woman was mere happy coincidence. That she was drying off after a shower had to be, in Dean’s opinion, God’s cosmic reward to him for saving Julia’s life.
If there is a God
, the logical half of Dean’s brain chimed in.
All signs point to absentee Father
.

Unfortunately, the situation demanded that Dean hurry along. Though if cell phone numbers had existed in 1954, he certainly would have left his.

Dean decided that the stairwell was less of a risk than the elevator. Skipping two steps at a time, he practically galloped down the stairs, his duffel jostling on his back. Julia kept up the pace despite everything her body had just been put through. When they reached the bottom floor, Dean knew they’d have to switch stairwells—and that meant going through the lobby.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Julia demanded.

Dean’s snort was his only response.

“Because if you don’t, I’d just as soon go my own way.”

“You and me both, sugar. But if you want to get out of here a free woman, the only way is my way.” That seemed to shut her up, for the time being. “From the look of things, you royally jacked our plan back there.”

“Likewise.”

“Hey! I saved your ass. Without me, you’d be just another spot of bird poop to clean off the sidewalk.”

Julia opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out.

“Yeah, that’s right. What have you done for me, ’sides throwing me out of a window? I knew you were trouble the minute I saw you.”

“You wanted to sleep with me the minute you saw me,” Julia shot back.

‘But I didn’t.
Because you looked like trouble
.” They had arrived at the bottom floor, where a myriad voices were audible outside the stairwell door.

“Quiet.”

Julia scowled. “You’re the one who’s ranting,” she hissed.

Timing their dash perfectly, Dean and Julia were able to slip into the Park Avenue lobby unnoticed. Most everyone had hurried outside after hearing that a man had jumped. Dean held open the door to the garage-access stairwell— but Julia was no longer behind him. Scouring the lobby, he clocked her walking toward the main entrance.

“You trying to get yourself arrested?” Dean asked as he caught up with her.

She turned to face him, now ice cold.

“I need what’s in that briefcase. You have no idea how important it is.”

“You’ve got it all backwards.
I
need that scroll.
You
don’t know how important it is. But
neither
of us is gonna go out there after it.”

“You can’t stop me.”

Dean leaned in intimately close. “If you’re going to go out there, at least tell me you still have your gun.”

Julia reached down to her waist, but the pistol wasn’t there. She looked mournfully out on to the street where it had fallen.

“Thought so. Let’s get one thing straight—I’m not helping you get away. You know things about the scroll, and I need to know those things too. You’re my
prisoner
.”

Slapping the side of his duffel, Dean smirked.

“Now unless you want to get an ass full of rock salt, how about you follow me?”

The Presidential Siding was a custom-built underground train station, constructed to allow Presidents, dignitaries and celebrities direct access to the Waldorf Astoria. Their train cars could pull directly up to the hotel, bypassing the need to secure Grand Central Terminal, or sit in New York traffic. Most of the time, the rail siding sat unused, which made it perfect for their getaway.

By the time Sam and Walter made it to the rail platform, Dean and Julia were already there. Sam wasn’t overjoyed to see Julia again after her actions upstairs, but watching the tender moment she shared with her father helped take the edge off the hostility.

“You okay, Dean?” Sam asked.

“I will be, soon as we get out of here.”

Walter steadied himself against the platform wall.

“I’m almost afraid to ask, but are we meant to cross this?” He pointed at the vast expanse of tracks in front of them. Since they were underground, with almost no lighting, the tracks seemed to extend forever. A steady stream of trains was moving in and out of the area. The mayhem of Grand Central Terminal was just audible over the din of the engines.

“That’s the idea,” Sam answered. “Before anybody thinks to look down here.”

Julia’s eyes caught on her father’s pant leg, which was dripping with blood.

“He can’t dodge a train like that,” she said.

Dean pumped his shotgun with conviction. He threw the duffel at Sam.

“He doesn’t have to dodge one. He’s got to catch one,” he said.

The group made their way across the tracks in silence, none of them comfortable with their new-found fellowship. Sam noticed that Dean kept his shotgun leveled at Julia the whole time, which was probably a smart move. Even if they were playing for the same team, Julia had been a little too gung-ho during her aborted heist. He also still wondered if she had been the one to swipe the knife.

With some difficulty, they were able to hoist Walter onto the back of a south-bound train. For the first time in hours, Sam relaxed. They had completely failed in their mission, but somehow, they had survived. Seated across from him, Dean looked glum.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

Rubbing the train’s shoddy upholstery with distaste, Dean sighed.

“I miss the Impala.”

James McMannon felt as if a heavy burden was lifting off his back. A white light appeared before him, and he wanted to go toward it.

There was an eruption of noise.

The light disappeared. James forced his eyes open. In front of him, he could see a wavering group of people—they looked like they were in an enormous, swirling heat devil— as if they were caught in the hot air that rose off the black streets of the city in the middle of summer.

He heard a voice in his left ear.

“Hey. Stay still, the ambulance is coming.”

James thought he was answering to the voice, but he realized that all he could hear was ringing. Then he saw that white light again. He got up, at least he thought he did, and walked toward its beckoning glimmer.

At that moment, everything that James McMannon had every thought, felt, or loved left his body.

All that was left was the animal.

In all of Hank Caprezie’s years on the force, he had never seen a man fall thirty floors and live, but here he was. And he was one of the family, a security guard.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hank peered into the guy’s eyes. “You need to go to the hospital, stay still.”

Without responding, the man slid himself off the crushed taxi. Standing in the middle of the crowd, he looked around, as though searching for something. His neck was at an unnatural angle, which he corrected by grasping it on both sides and twisting his head back into place. When he turned back to Hank, his eyes were pitch black. Hank took an involuntary step back.

“Hey man, I really think you should stay!” Hank called.

The guy didn’t listen. Instead, he walked toward the throng of people and disappeared.

I’m going to have a hell of a time explaining this to the captain
, Hank thought.

Dean spent the train ride trying to interrogate Walter and Julia. Unfortunately for him, they weren’t talking. It was clear they knew much more about the scrolls than Walter had let on in his meeting with Sam, but their motivations were still hazy.
Do they want to protect the scrolls, or destroy them?
Dean wondered. It was possible that they were all on the same side, working toward the exact same goal, but without more information from Walter and Julia, Dean had no way of knowing.

When the group got off the train in lower Manhattan, the bleeding from Walter’s leg had slowed, but he was still in need of a doctor’s care. They looked at one another. They didn’t have the scrolls, nor any idea how to find them. They had reached an impasse.

Sam looked at Dean, his feelings obvious.
It’s time to go.

Just like that, the Winchesters turned and started walking uptown.

“You’re just going to leave us here?” Julia cried. “I thought I was your prisoner?”

Dean turned on his heel. “I release you. And from what I can tell, sweet cheeks, you’ll do fine on your own. Both of you.”

“You’re going to need us,” Julia called as Walter faltered a step. Sam’s face registered a slight flash of sympathy. What Julia really meant, of course, was that she needed them.
Are we really going to leave a bleeding old man on the street, especially if his daughter might be in possession of our stolen knife?

Dean punched him in the shoulder. “Let’s get going.” Apparently, they were.

That evening, Sam and Dean checked into a dive hotel on the Lower East Side. With all the chaos they had caused at the Waldorf that day, it was too much of a risk to go back to the apartment, even if they had used aliases. They bought a pizza and took it back to their room. Despite their exhaustion, they still had to eat, and neither of them was in the mood for the human interaction a restaurant visit would require.

Sam wondered how much Walter and Julia really knew. It seemed likely now that they had been the ones to ransack the Villard House apartment, and Walter had spoken at length about the scrolls at the Bible Society. But did they know the true significance of the War Scroll? Could they possibly comprehend how important it was for Sam and Dean to take possession of it?

Neither of them knew any of the answers. All they knew was that in the morning, they’d come up with a new plan. Until then, they’d eat pizza and bask in the hopelessness of their cause.

Long past nightfall, Dean stepped out onto the building’s front stoop. Sam was already there, staring quietly at the black sky.

“Can’t see stars for shit here,” Dean said.

Sam’s lips curled into a half-smile—the one he reserved for Dean’s attempts to cheer him up.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Good work today, Sammy.”

“Good work? We got hosed, Dean. We had to run away with our tails between our legs, and now we don’t even have a clue where the scroll is. For all we know, it really was destroyed.”

“You kept it together in there. Me, I wouldn’t have taken well to Julia barging in like that.”

Sam nodded. Then, after a moment’s silence, said, “Dean... is that a shotgun down your pants?”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Dean produced the shotgun, then hid it once more down the back of his jeans.

“After everything, I wanted to keep it handy. But I don’t want to get arrested for firearm possession after what we got away with today.”

“Actually, I think the only real crime was destruction of property,” Sam said, thinking back.

“Plus breaking and entering.”

“And resisting arrest.”

“And assault with a deadly weapon.”

Sam’s brow furrowed in confusion. “When was that? I didn’t shoot anybody that wasn’t a demon.”

Dean smirked. “I shot you.”

That was enough to get a small laugh out of Sam.

“Sorry about that, by the way.”

Sam reached for his neck, where tiny bits of glass and rock salt were no doubt still embedded.

“No, Dean, I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Hey now, let’s not start with this. One ‘I’m sorry’ is the daily limit.”

“I’m serious. I’m sorry I brought us here. We didn’t know what we were getting into, and now...”

“Now we’re stuck, is that what you’re getting at?”

“Maybe. What if Don leaves us here to rot, chasing after a scroll that doesn’t exist?”

“No angel douche is gonna leave me stranded with the Cleavers. We’ll find a way, Sam. I promise you that.”

They sat quietly for a minute, then Sam said hesitantly, “Am I a coward?”