Bone Key (22 page)

Slicing open Bobby’s box, he saw your basic hunter’s toolkit, including a mess of holy water, a few charms, and some weaponry, of both the firearm and bladed variety.

“If this spell works the way I think it does,”

Bobby said, “the demon’ll possess someone and cast the spell on you.”

“Why not just channel it through the person she’s possessing?”

“If she said it wouldn’t be powerful enough if she had to fight the will of the vessel, then she probably would have the same problem if she tried to channel it through her own vessel.”

Dean sighed. “Good thing we got those charms to keep us from getting possessed.” Bobby had given Dean and Sam the charms after Meg took over Sammy, and since then, both brothers had gotten the charm tattooed on their chests, with the charms themselves stored in the Impala in reserve.

“Yeah.” Bobby scratched his beard. “Let’s hope it works.”

That brought Dean up short. “You don’t know if the charms will work?”

“Nothing’s sure in this world, Dean. You of all people should know that by now. And this de-224 SUPERNATURAL

mon’s proven to be pretty tricky. I’m not assumin’

anything.”

“Can’t say as I blame you.”

“Good. Now here’s what I think we should do . . .”

Bobby Singer had led a quiet, normal life for a long time. Married, owned his own business, had some money in the bank, was well respected in the community. He was happy as could be, living the American Dream.

Then something happened to his wife. At the time, he didn’t know what it was, but in the end, he was forced to kill her before she killed anyone else. He stabbed her repeatedly—once didn’t do it—and eventually she died, weird black smoke flowing from her mouth.

From that moment forward, Bobby was consumed with anguish, not as much by the fact that he killed his wife, but because
he didn’t know
what happened to her.
He’d never been particularly book-smart. Sure, he knew his way around a motor vehicle, and he did okay in school, neither a poor student nor one who excelled.

But after he was forced to kill his own wife to stop whatever it was that had taken her over, Bobby swore he would never live in such ignorance again. He set out to learn everything he could. The once-pristine house attached to the salvage yard in Bone

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which he had lived in wedded bliss quickly became covered in shelves full of books, scrolls, maps, and more. Never again would someone die because Bobby Singer didn’t know what was happening. The guilt intensified when Bobby realized that he could have saved her with a simple Latin incantation—an exorcism, like they did in the movie. That knowledge nearly destroyed him, but he soldiered on, devouring every text he could get his hands on so he would know everything about the shadowy world of magic and deviltry. Before long, he gained a reputation in the community of hunters, those people who lived under the radar and tracked down the things that went bump in the night. He was the go-to guy if you needed lore or information. (Also if you needed your car fixed. He still had a business to run, after all . . .) Among hunters it was often said that if Bobby didn’t know it, it wasn’t worth knowing. That just made the guilt even worse. Of all the friends he’d made over the years, though, no one frustrated him quite as much as John Winchester. Moody and ornery, unwilling to share information, yet irritable when you didn’t give him exactly what
he
wanted, John had come to Bobby a lot in the early days when he was just starting out.

The last time Bobby saw John alive, he came within a hairsbreadth of unloading his shotgun 226 SUPERNATURAL

into John’s gut. Truth of the matter was, that day only took so long to come because of Sam and Dean. Bobby loved those boys like they were his own, and it was always a source of pride to him that they called him “Uncle Bobby” when they were younger.

Everything Bobby had learned over the years had told him that demons were not to be messed with. You exorcised them and moved on. You didn’t talk to them, you didn’t do deals with them, you didn’t give them a single chance, because the microsecond you let your guard down, they’d nail you. That was why he’d been so livid when Dean informed him of the deal he’d made with the crossroads demon to save Sam’s life.
So what the hell am I doing helping Dean work
with
another
demon? What was I doing asking
Ruby’s help to rebuild the Colt?

Things were changing, that was for damn sure. The demons were all over the place since the Devil’s Gate opened, and as far as he could see, a lot of them were gearing up for a war. As the only survivor of Azazel’s chosen ones, there was a betterthan-even chance that Sam was a part of it. For better or worse, that meant Dean and Bobby were part of it, too. They just had to hope they’d be on the winning side.

He and Dean had driven in the Impala to the construction site—or as close as they could get. Bone

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The wards were, of course, still there. A massive cordon had been set up beyond them, including local cops, county cops, state cops, and the U.S. Navy.

After going on a quick reconnaissance, Dean came back to the car. “Saw our guy Montrose. He says they’ve been tryin’ to get through all day, but no luck.”

“Not surprising. Doubt there’s any force on Earth—or elsewhere—that could get through.”

Dean climbed back behind the steering wheel.

“Montrose said he could see inside. Sammy, the cops, and the lab techs’re all standing in a circle around the bones. They ain’t moved since last night.”

“Didja try the dust?”

Nodding, Dean said, “Yeah. It stuck to the wards like you said it would, so we’ll be able to see ’em.”

Bobby looked at his watch. “Almost five. Time to meet our demon.”

“Yeah.” Dean slammed the steering wheel as hard as he could and screamed incoherently, then let loose with an impressive display of profanity, pounding the steering wheel the whole time. A few seconds after he started, Dean stopped, turned the key, and calmly turned the car around. Bobby wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that Dean felt comfortable enough with Bobby to 228 SUPERNATURAL

let out his frustration like that. He knew for damn sure that Dean would
never
in a million years lose his cool like that in front of Sam.

The Southernmost Point was a black, red, and yellow piece of concrete shaped to look like a boat’s buoy. It sat in the corner of a plaza at the intersections of Whitehead and South Streets, which was the farthest south Key West got—and was only two blocks from the construction site. At five in the afternoon, Bobby expected to see more tourists taking pictures of themselves with the buoy. But the only person present was an attractive young brunette. She was short, curvy, and wearing only a light green bathing-suit top, denim cutoffs, and light green mesh sandals.

She was also holding a thin digital camera, and as Dean and Bobby approached, she practically bounced. “Ooh! Excuse me, can one of you take a picture of me next to the buoy? I totally need it for my Facebook page.”

Dean put on one of his more blinding smiles. “Be happy to, but after that, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to head off. We’ve got a meeting here, and we really don’t want any tourists around.”

“Really? You guys are, like, drug dealers or something? Got any good stuff?”

Bobby had had more than enough of this. The only way one of the major tourist attractions on the island would be this empty at this time of day Bone

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in good weather was if the one person present had used her demonic abilities to send away everyone else. “Cut the crap, lady. You
are
our meeting, so let’s get on with it.”

“Nice touch,” Dean added. “What, you thought it’d be easier to talk me into it if you took over a hot chick?”

The young woman’s eyes went black. “Yes, actually.”

Snorting, Bobby said, “That’s pretty transparent, even by demon standards.”

“Transparent ploy for a transparent hunter,”

the woman said. “Dean’s pretty easy to read. The hard part was narrowing it down to one particular busty bikini-clad babe. Besides, I figured Dean was less likely to use his little toy gun on me if it meant killing poor, innocent little Kat. Nice girl, goes to Augustana College—that’s near your little car graveyard in South Dakota, isn’t it, Singer? She hasn’t decided on a major yet, and she’s spending a couple weeks in the Keys before the semester starts.”

“There’s other ways to get rid of you,” Dean said tightly.

“You never really struck me as the Latin-chanting type, Dean.”

“Dean ain’t the only one here,” Bobby said.

“Now we’ll work with you on this, ’cause believe it or not, you’re the lesser of two evils right now. 230 SUPERNATURAL

But I will be carrying the Colt, and I know every exorcism ritual you can think of. Trust me when I say that if I see a single thing goin’ hinky, I will end you—even if it means ending Kat, too. We understand each other?”

The demon smiled with the pouty lips of the girl she’d possessed. “Clear as mud, boys. Let’s get to work, shall we? Time’s a-wastin’, and we’ve got work to do.”

Bobby had a sinking feeling in his gut that before this night was over, Kat was going to wind up dead, too.

SEVENTEEN

Sam had fought many battles over the years, earned many victories. He had defeated gods and demons, devils and spirits, imps and impossible things. But just at the moment, managing to wiggle his left thumb was the sweetest victory he could imagine. Probably because he’d been trying for the better part of a day.

The sun shining through the tarp that covered the site was the only way for Sam and his fellow prisoners to judge the passage of time—which meant it had been a particularly long and frustrating night, as subjective time tended to draw out when you didn’t have access to a timepiece. Everyone was relieved when the sky started to brighten with the sunrise.

Sam had suggested that everyone try to get some sleep in the night so they’d be rested when the Last Calusa came back, but that only met with mild 232 SUPERNATURAL

success. Sam had slept in far more bizarre places and positions than standing upright and immobile in a construction site—plus, being forced into such a position wasn’t exactly a novel experience. His companions could not say the same on either front. They were sufficiently freaked and frustrated that sleep was hard to come by.

By sunrise, they had devolved into banter and gossip. Soon, Sam knew far more than he ever needed to know about the internal politics of the KWPD.

Unable to contribute, Sam continued to turn his mind inward. It was just a question of overcoming the paralysis. It was imposed by the will of the Last Calusa. True, that spirit had the collective power of thousands, maybe millions of once-living souls, along with those, both human and demon, that the Last Calusa had killed since being activated. But it also had to hold all the people in the site immobile, plus do whatever it needed to do to prepare for the sacrifice ceremony at sunset.

And Sam Winchester could be a damn stubborn ass when he put his mind to it.
Just ask my Dad
when I insisted I go to Stanford. Or my brother
when I refused to accept that he’s gonna die.
So he focused. And concentrated. And pushed. And grimaced. And agonized. And pushed some more. And after many many hours of that, he finally was able to wiggle his right thumb. Bone

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One down, the rest of the body to go.
Sam opened his eyes. He was grateful that he even could. Because the Last Calusa needed them alive, he allowed them to continue to breathe. Sam supposed that he allowed them to blink so their vision would be clear at the appointed time, and they could see the end of the world as they knew it. As for being able to speak . . . In Sam’s experience, if somebody with malicious intent kept your mouth free, nine times out of ten it was because they wanted to hear you scream.

The cops and lab techs were apparently discussing a case. Sam figured that was a good way to avoid thinking about the insane situation they were in: Focus on the quotidian.

“The problem was,” one was saying, “they were stupid. They shouldn’t let stupid people dive.”

“If we stopped people bein’ stupid,” another cop said, “we’d never get any
real
work done.”

“Amen.”

“Besides,” said one of the lab techs, “weren’t those guys from New Jersey? What the hell do they know about scuba diving in
New Jersey
? They didn’t even have a dive reel, for Christ’s sake.”

“Actually, the Jersey divers I’ve met have been totally hard-core. Best divers I’ve ever seen. Till these jokers, anyhow.”

“You ask me, that’s natural selection at work.”

While they babbled on, Sam continued to wiggle 234 SUPERNATURAL

his thumb, hoping for a cascade effect on the rest of his hand. Once, Sam had had mental powers that enabled him to see future events. On one particular occasion, he’d even managed a brief burst of telekinesis. It was, he later learned, the first step toward the full psychic powers that would enable him to lead Azazel’s demon army.