Bone Key (3 page)

“Where are you staying, Megan?” Alberto asked in his silky voice.

“Uh . . .” She couldn’t remember the name of the place. Hell, she suddenly found she couldn’t remember her
name
.
Jesus, what’s wrong with me?

I only had a couple of beers for Christ’s sake.

“It’s, uhm, a B&B on Duval—down past Margaritaville.”

Fedra said, “I know which one she means. C’mon, honey, let’s get you back.”

Dimly, Megan registered that several people in the Hog’s Breath—Liza among them—were giving her looks of concern as Alberto and Fedra picked her up off the floor and led her toward the back entrance.
Okay, why are we going to the back?

That’s Front Street. We need to go to Duval, and
that means going through the parking lot.
Then again, once sunset was over, Front was comparatively deserted, and maybe the couple thought Megan would prefer fewer crowds.

Right now I just want a bed. And a blanket.
And my teddy bear.
She still had Mikey Bear, the Toys R Us stuffed bear that her father had given to her the Christmas before he died, and always slept 18 SUPERNATURAL

with it. That was another thing that had screwed with her ability to maintain a relationship: All the boys she dated kept laughing at her sleeping with a bear.

Where are we?
She couldn’t remember. Her feet were shuffling forward, and she felt Alberto on one side, Fedra on the other. It was weird, because Alberto was tall and skinny, and Fedra was short and round, and they were holding her up on different parts of her body. It was like she was listing to the left.

What the heck is going on?

“It’s all right, Megan,” Alberto was saying. “We will take care of everything.”

Fedra was talking, too, but Megan couldn’t make it out.

They turned a corner, and Megan realized that she had no idea where they were. She’d only been on Front during sunset, and didn’t even know what it would look like without hundreds of people crowding it. She could hear distant sounds, bass lines, shouts, drums, voices—but they were all impossibly far away. Suddenly, Megan realized that Fedra was still talking. No, she was
chanting. What the hell?
It seemed to be in some foreign language. She caught the occasional word here and there—
invictus,
spiritus, phasmae, ligata.

Why is Fedra chanting in Latin?

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They stopped moving. Megan tried to ask what was going on, but she couldn’t make her mouth work.

Fedra kept chanting, louder this time. Megan could only hear the chant, as well as Alberto saying, “Do not worry, Megan—it will be over very soon.”

Looking over at Alberto, she saw that he was holding this really nice sparkly knife. And his eyes had gone all black.
That’s such a
cool effect.

The knife moved toward her throat.

Suddenly, the wooziness was gone, and Megan tried to scream, even as the blade touched her throat.

Oh God, no, help me, please, Mom where are
you, somebody please, oh God, help!

The scream came out as a bloody gurgle, and she collapsed to the pavement. All she could see was her own blood squirting all
over
the place. All she could hear were Fedra’s chants.
Oh God . . .

The last thing she heard was Alberto’s beautiful voice. “It is done.”

TWO

“Happy New Year, boys!”

Sam Winchester held up the whiskey glass full of champagne—Bobby Singer didn’t have any champagne flutes in his cupboard—and said, “Happy New Year, Bobby.”

His older brother, Dean Winchester, just held up his glass and gulped down the champagne. Staring at the inappropriate glass, Sam said,

“You never struck me as the champagne type, Bobby.”

Bobby smiled under his beard. “Yeah, I mostly stick to a shot and a beer, but it’s New Year’s. When I was growin’ up, we always had champagne on New Year’s while we watched the ball drop. I still make sure to have a bottle in time for the end of December.”

Sam looked over at the small television in the living room, which was showing the huge crowd Bone

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of people in Times Square. Many were wearing silly red hats and glasses shaped like the numerals of the new year, with the middle zeros of 2008 as the eyepieces.

Dean was also staring at the screen, which had just switched to one of the hosts. “Who’s the genius who thought replacing Dick Clark with Ryan Seacrest was a
good
idea?”

Swallowing the last of his champagne, Bobby said, “The man had a stroke, Dean.”

“I get that—but why replace him with
this
guy?

I mean, Dick Clark did
American Bandstand.
All this guy’s done is deny that he’s gay.”

“Well, he
was
on
American Idol,
” Sam said. Fixing his younger brother with a glower that meant that Sam had trod on some beloved piece of pop culture that Dean held dear and Sam didn’t care about, Dean said, “Dude, you are
not
equating being on that lame-ass
Star Search
wannabe show with hosting
American Bandstand,
are you?”

Rather than subject himself to one of Dean’s rants, Sam didn’t answer. “I have a theory, actually.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Oh,
this
oughtta be good.”

“Eventually, the long-term plan is to remove Dick Clark’s brain from his own body and place it inside Seacrest’s head.” He gestured at the screen.

“I mean, c’mon, there’s plenty of room in there.”

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Sam was quite proud of the straight face he managed to keep throughout. Bobby added, in a serious tone, “Y’know, I think I know the spell for that.”

Dean finally broke into a laugh.

“Well, it’s about time,” Sam said. “We’re supposed to be celebrating, and you’ve been a Gloomy Gus.”

“ ‘Gloomy Gus’?” Dean shook his head. “Well, thanks for that, Gomer Pyle, but—well, I guess I’ve just been thinking.”

“That’s
always dangerous,” Sam said dryly.

“Bite me.”

Bobby, now truly serious, asked, “What about, Dean?”

“About 2008, mostly.”

Beyond that, Dean didn’t elaborate. Sam knew he wouldn’t.

This would be Dean’s last year on Earth. Unless, of course, Sam could stop it.

Dean had made a deal with a crossroads demon to give up his own life and go to hell after one year, in exchange for said demon bringing Sam back to life. Sam himself had been fatally stabbed by Jake, one of the other kids that the YellowEyed Demon—whose real name was apparently Azazel—had given psychic powers to. All the kids had been gathered into a death-cage match to see who would be worthy of the honor of leading the Bone

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hordes of hell as they descended upon Earth. Jake and Sam had been the last two.

Thanks to Dean’s deal, Sam was able to kill Jake and take the Colt—a pistol that could permanently kill a demon—from him. Dean then used the Colt on Azazel. The price was that Dean only had a year to live.

Sam was bound and determined to find a way to get Dean out of it. He’d shot the crossroads demon with the Colt after she’d told him that she answered to a higher (lower?) demon. He’d even cooperated with Ruby, a demon who seemed to be on the side of good—or, at least, was willing to kill her fellow demons and save Sam’s and Dean’s asses on several occasions.

But both brothers knew the odds were against Sam’s being successful in his quest, and that in all likelihood, come summer, Dean would be sunbathing in hell. And Dean was still treating this as if it were the last year of his life. Sometimes that resulted in behavior that was reckless even by Dean’s high standards—Sam tried very hard not to think about some of the things he’d accidentally walked in on Dean doing over the past few months. Sometimes it resulted in melancholy, like what he was displaying now in Bobby’s living room.

Turning to Bobby, Sam said, “Thanks for having us, Bobby.”

24 SUPERNATURAL

Bobby snorted. “Please. You two are always welcome, you know that.”

“It’s been quiet for the last week,” Sam said.

“Ever since we killed those two gods.”

“Say that again,” Dean said.

Sam frowned. “Say what again?”

“‘Ever since we killed those two gods.’” Dean shrugged. “Just gives me a happy, is all. I mean, how often do you get to kill a god, much less two?”

“Two very old, very weak gods,” Bobby said.

“Only reason the stake worked was ’cause nobody’d worshipped those two for centuries. Gods’re only powerful when people believe in ’em. You meet Zeus in a dark alley, he probably couldn’t muster up a lightning bolt, but a couple thousand years ago? He’d fry you soon as look atcha.”

“Dude,” Dean said, “you’re harshing my mellow, here.”

Sam chuckled. “Wouldn’t want that.”

“You’re right, though, Sammy,” Dean said,

“good to have a quiet week. Surprised, really—I mean, you’d think there’d be
something
attached to the new year that would get the spirits’ panties in a bunch.”

“Calendar’s arbitrary,” Sam said. “It’s a human construct. Spirits tend toward more natural things—phases of the moon, solstice, equinox, alignment of the stars, that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dean shrugged. “Well, I’ll cer-Bone Key

25

tainly take the time off to drink champagne out of a whiskey glass and watch Ryan Seacrest be boring.”

“Hear hear,” Sam said, raising his glass. All three of them downed the last of their champagne. Dean set the glass down, let out an “Ahh” of satisfaction, then looked at Bobby. “Time to move on to the hard stuff, wouldn’t you say?”

Bobby grinned and got to his feet. “Got a bottle of Johnny Walker Black that Ellen got me a good deal on.”

Before Bobby could approach the sideboard where he kept the good stuff, the chirp of a cell phone echoed throughout the house.

Immediately, both brothers checked their pockets, but neither Sam’s Treo nor Dean’s flip-top was the one ringing.

“Hell,” Bobby said, “that’s your dad’s phone.”

After John Winchester’s death in 2006, Dean had held on to their father’s cell phone and kept it charged in case anybody tried to call Dad. Over the months, they’d gotten a case or two that way, but as time went on, the calls tapered off, as word of their father’s demise worked its way through the grapevine. After a while (and when the account was about to expire), they left the phone in Bobby’s care. He’d renewed the account and passed on what messages there were.

26 SUPERNATURAL

Bobby went into the back room where he kept the phone and picked it up. A moment later, he came back into the living room, holding the phone open. “It’s for you,” Bobby said, handing the phone to Dean.

Frowning, Dean took it. “Hello?” His hazel eyes widened, and a grin broke out on his face.

“Yaphet! How’s it hangin’, bro?”

Sam stared at Bobby? “Yaphet?”

“A nut job,” Bobby said dismissively.

“Really?” Dean was saying. “Okay. Yeah, sure, we’ll check it out. It’ll be me and my brother this time.
Yeah,
I got a brother. Sam. You’ll love Sammy, trust me. Cool. Seeya.” Dean closed the phone, still grinning and shaking his head. “Man—that was a blast from the past.”

Bobby was staring incredulously at Dean. Sam had to admit that he got that look on his face a lot lately. “You’re not actually takin’ that hippie burnout seriously, are you?”

Dean shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Which part of ‘hippie burnout’ wasn’t I clear about?”

“Cah-
mon,
Bobby, I admit, he’s a little freakydeaky, but the guy knows his stuff.”

“ ‘The guy’ can’t even
remember
his stuff.”

Having grown tired of needing subtitles for the conversation, Sam raised a hand. “Uh, hello? Can anyone join this discussion?”

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Dean turned to look at Sam. “Yaphet the Poet is someone Dad and I met down in Key West while you were at Stanford.”

Sam nodded. He knew that Dean and their father had visited Key West at least once before. Sam had gone with Dean to Key West once also, but that was an in-and-out job that hadn’t left any time for seeing the island or talking to its denizens. Dean had, Sam recalled, expressed great regret at that, and might have even mentioned this Yaphet guy as part of that.

Dean went on: “He sets up somewhere on Duval Street selling his poetry, and he keeps an eye on the weird stuff.” Cutting Bobby off before he could interrupt, Dean said, “And
yes,
he lived through the sixties so good he never left, and he’s not always big with the specifics, but if there’s something wacky going on in the Keys, he usually knows about it.”

“The only wacky thing going on with him,”

Bobby said, “is his tabacky.”

Sam stared blankly at Bobby, as did Dean. Waving his hand, Bobby said, “You’re both too young. Look, I ain’t gonna stop you from following up on this, but you might want to wait until a
real
case comes along.”

“This might be real, Bobby. Yaphet says that spooks have been on overdrive for the last six months or so.”