Nevermore (27 page)

Taking out the phone, the display indicated that it was Detective McBain. Stepping out into the hallway, he answered. “Detective, this is a coincidence.”

“Why’s that?”

“We were just about to call you. Riverdale’s part of the, uh, the Five-oh, right?” McBain snorted. “Oh, you’re usin’ the lingo now? Real cute. Yeah, the Five-oh covers Riverdale, why?”

“You may want to call your friends there,

’cause we think that missing person, Roxy Carmichael, is buried in the backyard of the house we’re staying in.”

There was a pause. “Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah. That isn’t why you called, obviously.

What’s up?”

“I’ll call the Five-oh when I’m done with you, but then you two need to get your white asses outta there.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, of course.” They were still 282 SUPERNATURAL

fugitives, and the police were likely to be there for a while, what with digging up Roxy’s body and taking statements from all of Scottso.

“Luckily, I got just the thing to keep you busy.

That’s why I was callin’. Our buddy Arthur Gordon Pym’s gone missing.”

EIGHTEEN

Church of St. Nicholas of Tolentine
The Bronx, New York

Thursday 23 November 2006

Dean had to admit that he had no idea how Sam managed to find his way out of Riverdale. And this was a hard admission, as he had always prided himself on having an excellent sense of direction.

Once they got down the big hill of Riverdale Avenue, one of the neighborhood’s major thoroughfares, Dean had no trouble following where they were going. There was an entrance to the Major Deegan Expressway at West 230th Street, and the bottom of that hill put them at the corner of 231st, so Dean knew there were about six ways to get to the expressway from there. And they were going back to the corner of Fordham and MLK, 284 SUPERNATURAL

where they’d last parted ways with McBain on Monday night, which was right off the expressway’s Fordham Road exit. He could have easily taken over driving from there.

But he had no faith in his ability to drive around Riverdale. And that really pissed him off.

Still, it needed to be done. Frankly, the fact that Mackey was missing just confirmed his suspicion that he was in on it with the sick bastard who was trying to resurrect Poe. But Sam said that McBain thought there was more to it than that. Either way, though, they had to get out of Manfred’s house before the cops turned up. Eddie was going to again confess to killing Roxy and burying her in the yard, and Manfred and Aldo both made it crystal clear they would not give Eddie the chance to renege on that statement. Furthermore, they all promised to leave Roxy’s spirit out of it—which wasn’t a difficult promise to obtain. Tommy’s exact words were, “No way I’m tellin’ no city cop about no ghost, I’m tellin’ you
that
right now.” With luck, this would put Roxy’s spirit to rest.

Sam took the Impala up the exit ramp for Fordham Road, made the left turn onto Fordham, then went up the hill to MLK, the entire way spending way too much time at traffic lights. Sam turned right, found McBain’s Saturn parked in front of a fire hydrant, and double-parked the Impala in front of it.

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“Thanks for comin’, guys,” McBain said. She was again wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, though this time the jeans were black and the sweatshirt had several Warner Bros. cartoon characters on it, a fashion choice that raised her in Dean’s estima-tion a notch.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“I was out workin’ a case last night. Had my cell off, on account of a sudden ring would’ve compromised the police work a lot. Unfortunately, my provider sucks ass, so I didn’t get my voice mail until this afternoon. There

were the usual four

hundred phone calls from Aunt Vernetha that I get when I don’t call her every hour on the hour, and a message from Arthur.”

Sam frowned. “What’d he say?”

“Not a lot.” She reached into her coat pocket and took out her cell phone, flipped it open, held down the number one button, then put it on speaker.

A prerecorded voice said:
“You have one saved
message.”

Then a familiar whine. Mackey sounded breath-less as he said,
“Detective, it’s Arthur Gordon Pym.

I’ve made a startling discovery, and you should get
do
—owlf
!”

Dean then heard some thumping noises, then a few clattering noises, and then:
“Wednesday,
11:39 P.M.”

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McBain closed the phone. “That ain’t the fun part. I tried calling him back about twelve times and got nothin’, not even voice mail, so I traced his cell’s transponder.” She pointed at the sidewalk where it met the base of an apartment building. “It was lying there.” Then she reached back into her coat pocket and took out two broken halves of a single cell phone. “And this is what it looked like.”

“That’s not good,” Sam said.

“Look, I feel sorry for the guy,” Dean lied, “but what’re we supposed to do?”

McBain stared at him. “
Find
him, brushy-top.

He said he made a ‘startling discovery,’ and that can only mean one thing.”

Smirking, Dean said, “He didn’t listen to you when you told him to leave this alone?” To Dean’s surprise, McBain actually smirked back. “Okay, two things. The other is that he found our guy, and our guy took him and his phone out with extreme prejudice.”

Sam rubbed his pointy little chin. “You think our bad guy kidnapped him and plans to make him victim number fi ve?”

Dean said, “Yeah, but the big day isn’t until Tuesday, so—” Then he cut himself off. “The others he planned ahead, though. He had to kidnap the monkey, and he had to have set things up in the Nevermore

287

empty

house and the empty apartment before-hand.”

“He killed the Lowrance woman days before the ritual,” Sam added.

“Welcome to the conversation,” McBain said dryly. “Now I already checked, and there ain’t no empty places anywhere in this intersection. The park’s too out in the open.”

“So were the two kids,” Dean pointed out.

“Yeah,” McBain said, “but then he had a sedated orangutan. Now he’s got an unwilling hos-tage, and one he wasn’t plannin’ on. Wherever he’s doin’ this, it’s gotta be outta sight.” Sam was staring down the street toward Fordham Road, his brow furrowed. Dean, knowing that look, said, “What’re you thinkin’, Sammy?”

“That church at the corner.”

“St. Nicholas of Tolentine,” McBain said. “What about it?”

“Does it have a bell tower?”

McBain nodded. “Yeah, they ring it out every Saturday night and Sunday when there’s mass.”

“One of Poe’s most famous poems is ‘The Bells.’

In fact, it was inspired by church bells.” Dean frowned. “Anybody die in that one?” Sam shook his head. “But that may not stop our guy.”

“Especially if he found a short annoying guy in 288 SUPERNATURAL

a polyester suit getting in his business,” Dean muttered. “That may also mess up the timetable.”

“He’s been following the ritual pretty closely,” Sam said, “and the phases of the moon are the critical part. However he’s re-creating ‘The Bells,’

he . . .”

After he trailed off, Dean prompted him.

“Sam?”

Turning to stare intently at his brother, Sam said, “I just remembered a couple lines of the poem: ‘In a’ —something something— ‘to the mercy of the fire, / In a mad expostulation with the’ —something— ‘frantic fire, / Leaping higher, higher, higher.’ ”

Unbidden, images from Dean’s nightmare came back to him. The demon who’d killed Mom and Sam’s girlfriend Jessica did so by pinning them to the ceiling and consuming them with fi re. In his nightmare, Dean saw that happen to several of the women in his and Sam’s life that they’d cared about. He would likely never consider Mackey someone he cared about, but he still wouldn’t wish immolation on anyone, nor did he have any desire to see it happen again.

McBain started walking toward the corner.

“Let’s go.”

“Oh, this is fine,” Dean grumbled to himself.

They were the ones who came up with the course of action, and
she
was taking the lead?

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He reminded himself that they wouldn’t even have been there if not for McBain, and they did need something to do while the cops crawled all over their crash space.

Ultimately, it came down to the fact that he didn’t like cops. Never had, mainly because he saw them as ignorant. Of course, so was most of the world, but the law’s obliviousness was particularly coun-terproductive to his and Sam’s work. He had long since lost track of the number of times the police had done little but get in their way—since Baltimore, more than ever. True, there were occasional exceptions—there was Ballard, and that deputy in Hibbing. Of course, Hibbing wasn’t actually a proper case, as there wasn’t anything demonic about the family, so the deputy in question, Kathleen, was still just as ignorant.

McBain, though, appeared to be one of the good guys. And, whether or not he was willing to admit it, she
had
helped out.

But he still didn’t like it. He held to his belief that he and Sam worked best alone.

As they walked, McBain said, “Hey, remind me when this is all over—I got somethin’ that may interest the two of you.”

Dean frowned. “Okay.”

That seemed to be all she wanted to say on the subject. When they got to the corner, McBain walked up to the front door—well, one of them.

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The church actually had three front doors, and any number of side doors. Wisely, she chose the one in the middle of the front, which was diago-nally on the corner of Fordham and MLK, facing the middle of the intersection.

The detective pounded on the ornate wooden door, which was about ten feet high.

“So,” Dean said, “the direct approach?”

“I ain’t sneakin’ into no church, brushy-top. I sinned enough for one life, thanks. Now botha you keep your yaps shut and let me handle this.” Dean looked over at Sam. Sam just shrugged with a “what do you want from me?” look. It wasn’t like they hadn’t snuck into churches before . . .

After several agonizing seconds, which to Dean felt like several days, the door slid open slowly with a creek. A bleary-eyed man stood on the other side. “Yes?”

McBain held up her badge. “NYPD, Father.”

“I’m a deacon, actually,” he muttered. “The priests are on retreat for the week.”
Lucky bastard,
Dean thought.
Gets the place to
himself.
He wondered what kind of trouble a deacon could get into while the priests were all away.

Probably not much,
he thought, disappointed.

“I’m sorry, but we have reason to believe that your bell tower has been compromised. May we come in?”

“Compromised?”

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“Yes, sir. We need to investigate it.” The deacon seemed to be working the conversation through his brain very slowly. “I don’t understand.”

Fed up, Dean stepped forward. “Look, Deacon, we think somebody’s up there. We need to check it out. Will you let us in?”

“Well . . .” He shook his head. “I suppose. I mean, as long as you’re police.” He gave a ragged smile.

“Besides, all are welcome in the Lord’s house.” Dean smiled. “Amen.”

As they entered, McBain whispered, “What’d I tell you about lettin’ me handle this, brushy-top?”

“I got us in, didn’t I?”

McBain just glared at him as they came into the church.

Pointing to a spiral staircase to the left, the deacon said, “The bell towers are that way.” Nodding, McBain said, “Stay down here, please, sir, while we look into it.”

“Er, okay.” The deacon didn’t sound happy, but he didn’t argue, either, for which Dean was grateful.

Dean looked around and was surprised to see very little. He could only make out vague shapes inside.

He never thought of a church as closing down, but this late at night, with no light coming through the stained glass, and both the electric lights and the candles out, there was nothing to see.

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Sam and McBain had already started up the staircase, and Dean followed quickly.

The trio moved up the spiral, McBain in the lead and Sam and Dean close behind. Dean wasn’t com-fortable with that, but if nothing else, it probably put the deacon at ease, since she was the only one who’d shown a badge.

After climbing up the narrow, winding stairs for about ten days, they finally got past the main part of the church’s high ceiling. Dean was never particularly agoraphobic, but being this high up in the open space of the church with only a twisting metal banister between him and plunging to the fl oor didn’t exactly thrill him. He was grateful when the staircase came to an end at a landing. There was a hallway that led down the length of the church, and another staircase that continued upward.

Indicating the staircase with her head, McBain continued up. Dean reached behind his back and took out his pistol, and McBain and Sammy both did likewise at the same time. Again, they didn’t want to alarm the deacon, but now that they were out of sight . . .