Nevermore (14 page)

the laundry room, which Manfred had given them free use of, was located in a nook off the kitchen.

They checked it after they were done with the kitchen, but still nothing. The washer and dryer were rattling as if they were on, but both machines’

dials were in the off position.

They went back through the hallway into the living room, where more items had crashed to the floor. Dean winced as he stepped on the broken glass from the frame of the Isle of Wight poster.

Still no phyiscal manifestation of the spirit, just the house shaking and—

“
Ah
- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha-ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha- ha-ha- ha- ha!”

136 SUPERNATURAL

No matter how many times Sam encountered sudden noises in his life—and he figured he encountered more in the average month than most people did in their entire lives—his heart still skipped a beat when it happened.

Only one beat, though. As soon as he heard the cackle, he got down on one knee, shotgun raised.

But there was
still
no physical manifestation.

The cackling faded and the same voice started chanting the words “Love me!” over and over again.

Sam looked at Dean. Without any sign or facial indication, Sam knew that his brother agreed they should check upstairs next.

Dean went up first, Sam standing at the base of the stairs, shotgun raised. Once he made it up, Sam followed. Taking advantage of his long legs, he took two steps at a time.

The house was still shaking, and the cackling was now intermixed with the exhortations to be loved. Manfred had hung pictures of people Sam assumed to be family on the walls, and some of them had fallen down to the fl oor. Others rattled on the nails that held them to the wallpaper-covered wall.

“Love me!”

Sam whirled around and saw the face of a woman with bottle blond hair that was fl ying out in all directions—and couldn’t help but think it Nevermore

137

was a little ridiculous that the woman’s
spirit
had a dye job—as well as a body, but no discernible arms and legs. Her shoulders and hips kind of just faded off. She floated down the hallway toward him and Dean, her mouth wide with her cackling, her eyes looking somewhat demented. Her entire form was also transparent—which wasn’t true of all spirits, but this one barely had any substance.

Plenty of spirits—especially angry ones—could manifest physically, but this woman seemed to focus most of her ectoplasmic energy on laughing and wanting to be loved.

Just before he fired his shotgun, Sam noticed that her T-shirt had some kind of funky design on it.

The rock-salt rounds did their job. As soon as the salt hit her form, it started to dissipate, features dispersing across the hallway until there was nothing left.

Though the echoes of her last cry of “Love me!” sounded throughout the old house, the interior had stopped shaking, and once the echoes faded, there was silence.

Dean looked at Sam. “What the hell’s a spirit doing wearing a ’rÿche shirt?”

Sam frowned. “What’s a rike shirt?” He immediately regretted asking, as Dean gave him his most disgusted look, which meant that he had made the mistake of professing ignorance about music Dean worshipped.

138 SUPERNATURAL

“Dude! Queensrÿche. They did
Operation: Mind-crime,
which is only the best concept album ever created.”

Unable to help himself, Sam said, “They’re the ones with the umlaut on the
y,
right? How do you pronounce that, exactly?”

“Bite me, Sam.”

“And I didn’t realize that there were any
good
concept albums.”

“Excuse me?” Dean cocked his head, his mouth hanging slightly open. “
Tommy, Thick as a Brick,
hell,
Dark Side of the Moon
, for Christ’s sake, they’re—”

Realizing he’d teased his brother enough, Sam said, “Shouldn’t we tell Manfred it’s safe to come into his own house?”

Dean blinked. “Right.” Without another word, he moved back to the stairs.

Sam followed after pausing to chuckle at how easy taunting Dean could be sometimes, so Dean was already out the door by the time he got to the bottom.

Manfred and Dean came in together a few seconds later. “You
sure
it’s safe?” Manfred asked, not sounding the least bit convinced.

Dean looked around the house. “You hear any cackling? Anybody asking you to love her?” After looking all around, and actually putting a hand to his ear, Manfred finally said, “No.” Nevermore

139

“She’ll probably be back tomorrow night, but for tonight, it’s safe.”

Manfred looked at Dean. “So you dislocated her?”

“Dissipated, yeah.”

Shaking his head, Manfred said, “Man, I need a toke.” He went into the living room, walking over to the sideboard. While dusty bottles of booze were piled haphazardly on top of it, the side had two doors with keyholes, a skeleton key sticking out of one of them. Manfred turned the key, opened the door, and reached into it, pulling out a Ziploc bag full of green leaves and a yellow box.

The brothers exchanged a glance, shrugged, and set their shotguns carefully against the hallway wall before joining Manfred in the living room.

Manfred was sitting on the easy chair, leaning forward while he put some of the stuff on the coffee table onto the floor, next to the stuff that the spirit had already knocked off, thus clearing space for him to construct his joint.

Sam and Dean both sat on the couch perpendicular to him. In a gentle voice, Sam said, “I’m sorry, Manfred, but we need to ask you a few questions.”

“What, now?” Manfred didn’t look up.

“We actually saw it,” Sam said.

At that, Manfred looked up. “Really? Whoa.”

“It was a girl,” Dean said, “blond hair—”

“Dyed,” Sam added.

140 SUPERNATURAL

“Right, dyed, kind of a hook nose, and wearing a Queensrÿche shirt. Ring any bells?” Manfred shrugged. “You know how many women in ’rÿche shirts I see all’a time?” He gingerly finished rolling his joint.

Dean asked, “You ever take any of ’em home?”

“Maybe.” Manfred shrugged again, then dug into the pocket of his leather jacket, which he had yet to take off after coming in from outside, and pulled out a lighter. “Honestly, I took lotsa women home, from the Park in Rear, from other places—

Christ, I can’t even remember last week, y’expect me t’remember that?” And then, to accentuate the point, he took a drag on his joint.

Dean looked at Sam.

Sam just shrugged back.

“You guys want a drag?” Manfred said in a much more mellow voice, smoke blowing out his mouth.

“No thanks.” Sam got to his feet. “We actually have some stuff we gotta take care of tonight.” Manfred grinned. “Thought you was just sayin’

that to blow off Janine.”

Dean actually looked embarrassed. “Yeah, about that—”

Holding up a hand, Manfred said, “Don’t sweat it, Dean. She flirts with anything that moves. You show up tomorrow night, she’ll hit on y’all over again. You don’t show up, she’ll forget all ’bout you.”

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141

Sam looked down at Dean, who was still seated on the couch. “Gee, we don’t know anybody like
that,
do we, Dean?”

Looking up, Dean glared, then also rose from the couch. “Yeah, we really do have something we gotta take care of.”

“You takin’ the car?” Manfred asked after taking another toke.

“Uh, yeah.”

“Groovy, man. Jus’ park it b’hinda truck when y’get back.”

Dean smiled. “Thanks.” He tapped Sam on the chest with the back of his hand. “Let’s motor, Sammy.”

They went out to the Impala and retrieved their coats from the backseat. Sam still had the keys, and Dean had shown no interest in doing any more driving in this city—nor did Sam have any interest in listening to Dean while he did—so Sam folded himself into the driver’s side.

Driving to Webb and 195th took almost no time at all this late hour. There were other cars on the road, especially once they got out of Riverdale and drove on Broadway to West 225th Street, which turned into Kingsbridge Road once they went over I-87.

Unfortunately, Sam’s belief that parking would be easier at night proved a foolish one. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered.

142 SUPERNATURAL

“Look around, Sammy,” Dean said. “Most of these are apartment buildings, and I ain’t seen too many parking lots. This time’a night, everyone’s at home asleep, which means their cars are parked.

Screw it, just double park.”

Sam frowned. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“So’s breaking and entering, and that’s kinda what we’re here for.”

“Yeah, but we’re
good
at B and E, and we probably won’t get caught. But the car’s just
out
there being illegally parked. I mean, I saw tons of double-parked cars during the day, when I was driving around, but I haven’t seen a single one since we left Manfred’s. We’ll stand out, is all I’m saying, and if some bored night-shift cop decides to—”

“You got a better idea, Sam?”

Sam steered the car down Webb back toward Kingsbridge. “Wasn’t there a parking lot on Kingsbridge?”

“Is that the big street we came up?” Dean asked.

Nodding, Sam said, “We’ll try there.” Making a right onto Kingsbridge, Sam saw the parking lot—then the rates they were charging, not to mention the sign that said, sorry, full.

His head in his hands, fingers rubbing his forehead, Dean said, “Sam, just double-park.” Letting out a long breath, Sam said, “Yeah, okay.” He drove down another block, turned right, made a broken U-turn using someone’s driveway, Nevermore

143

turned left back onto Kingsbridge, then did the one-way-street shuffle once again to get to the house where the first of their Poe-inspired murders took place.

“I got an idea,” Sam said. The house had a driveway next to it that was gated and locked. The driveway was
just
wide enough to accommodate the Impala. Sam pulled up as if to parallel park.

The first time, he aimed a bit off, and so had to start again. The second time, he came in at too wide an angle, so he had to start
again
. By the time he succeeded in parking the car more or less evenly, Dean looked like he was ready to chew off his own arm.

Glaring at Sam as he turned off the ignition, Dean reached over and yanked the keys out. “
I’m
driving back.”

Sam shook his head and chuckled—it wasn’t as if Dean was any
better
at parallel parking—and followed his brother to the wrought-iron gate that blocked the driveway they’d parked in front of.

Dean looked up at the house. “Nice place. Surprised they haven’t sold it.”

“Yeah, well, murder plays hell with real estate, y’know?”

Reaching into his coat pocket for his lock pick, Dean said, “Yeah.” He knelt down and started working on the gate’s padlock. After about thirty seconds’ work—which seemed like an eternity to 144 SUPERNATURAL

Sam, feeling very exposed on the city street, even this late at night with no sign of anyone—it clicked open. Sam looked around nervously, unable to help noticing that several people in the surrounding apartment buildings had their lights on.
Hope none
of them are looking down at the street outside their
windows.

Dean pushed the gate open quickly—something Dad had taught them, metal gates made
more
noise if you opened them slowly. Sam jumped forward and caught the gate before it collided against the house.

They both went into the driveway, Dean shut-ting the gate behind him so it would look normal.

However, he didn’t relock the padlock, as they might well need to make a hasty exit.

Dean knelt down next to the side door and started to work on picking that lock.

Several minutes passed, and Dean made no progress whatsoever.

Whispering urgently, Sam said, “Dude, will you hurry up?”

“It’s a tough lock, Sammy,” Dean whispered right back. “And it’s dark. ’Sides, artistry takes time.”

“So does incompetence. C’mon, Dean, I’ve seen you get through doors faster than this.”

“Those doors had freakin’
porch
lights, okay?

Just give me a sec, I think I—”

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145

Suddenly, a light shone right in Sam’s face. Looking down the driveway at the source, he saw a dark figure who appeared to be holding a gun in addition to a fl ashlight.

“Freeze, police!”

TEN

Fiftieth Precinct

The Bronx, New York

Saturday 18 November 2006

It had been several years since Detective Marina McBain had been up to the Five-oh in the Bronx.

Like most of the New York Police Department’s precinct houses, the Fiftieth Precinct in the Bronx was a boxy white edifice with few windows and an American fl ag atop it fl apping from a pole. McBain drove her Saturn—her own car rather than a departmental one, as technically she was off duty right now—up Broadway after getting off the Major Deegan at the West 230th Street exit. She turned left at West 236th, which had been renamed after Offi cer Vincent Guidice, a member who died in the line of duty a decade earlier. In fact, her last trip up Nevermore