TWENTY-SIX

Sam and Dean were about to enter Professor Wallace’s room when several people in scrubs ran in ahead of them, all shouting at each other.

“Helluva time to wind up in an ER episode,” Dean muttered.

Sam had called Dean following his phone call with the professor and after he had finished burying the gangster’s body near the Richmond Inner Harbor.

Rather than deal with going all the way back into San Francisco, then doubling back to Berkeley, Dean had taken the bus from the medical examiner’s office to the Civic Center BART station, then the red line to Berkeley. Sam had met him at the station, and they had gone straight to the Asian Studies office to fetch Wallace’s laptop and then on to the hospital.

A short Asian woman backed out of the hospital room, guided by a nurse. She was crying.

“Professor Wallace! Professor Wallace!” she wailed.

“Please, ma’am, you need to stay back,” the nurse said in a vaguely reassuring tone. “We’ll try to save him.”

Dean walked up to the woman.

“Excuse me—what happened to Professor Wallace?”

She looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. He thought she had a nice Lucy Liu vibe going.

“I don’t know! We were just talking, and he started acting all weird, and the monitors beeped and it was awful!”

Looking up, he saw that Sam was peering into the room.

“They’re working on him,” he reported, turning around as he spoke.

“Crap,” Dean huffed through his teeth. Even if the docs pulled Wallace’s ass out of the fire again, it’d be hours before he’d be conscious, much less able to have visitors.

Turning back to the young woman, he tried to figure out a way to gracefully excuse himself from her presence. If she knew Wallace, she probably wouldn’t be all that thrilled with them having his personal laptop.

But before he could say anything, she lurched against him, gripping his bicep with one hand. She wasn’t heavy, but he didn’t dare move for fear of letting her drop to the floor.

“Uh....” He looked helplessly at his brother.

Sam shrugged.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said breathlessly. “Need air.”

“Let’s, uh—let’s get you outside, okay? We can check back on the professor in a little while?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

Sam stared at Dean, who just glared back.

What else am I supposed to do?

Once they got out into the parking lot, the woman steadied herself and spoke with a stronger voice.

“Thanks very much, Dean.”

“Sure, no—”

Then he backed away quickly, his hand moving to the inner pocket of his suit jacket. His fingers closed around the deer-antler handle of Ruby’s demon-killing knife.

“Drop the act, sister.”

The woman took on a nasty grin, and the black eyes of a demon.

“Ah, well, it was worth a shot. Guy like you, figured you’d want to rescue the hot Asian chick. Got that whole Lucy Liu thing going, right?”

Ahhh, crap. But Dean didn’t take the bait.

“You have three seconds to vamoose, chuckles.”

“Not that easy, boys,” she said, looking at Sam who had followed them outside. “See, you two are even more valuable than that hook sword. Maybe even more valuable than the spirit of Nakadai.”

Years of playing poker kept Dean’s expression neutral.

The demon continued to address his younger brother.

“You look awful, Sam. Really, you should take better care of yourself,” the creature chided. “After all, you are Lucifer’s vessel. It doesn’t do for you to be all bruised up.” She shook her head. “Damn me. The Michael sword and Lucifer’s vessel. I’ve really hit the jackpot.”

Dean removed the knife from his jacket.

“So’ve we.”

Her face fell.

“Awww, screw it!”

The woman’s head tipped back and smoke poured out of her mouth, cascading upward into the sky.

She collapsed to the ground.

“C’mon,” Dean said, making a beeline for the Impala. “This is bigger than we thought. We’ve gotta make tracks.”

“Dean—” Sam started, but Dean cut him off.

“We’re in a hospital parking lot,” he said while fishing the keys from his pants pocket. “Someone’ll help her, and we need to get out of here before he tells his demon buddies where we are. We may be hidden from them thanks to Castiel, but Sam, we’ve been made.”

“Yeah,” Sam muttered as he ran to catch up his brother. “You’re right.”

Minutes later the Impala was heading toward I-80 and the Bay Bridge.

“Well, that sucked,” Dean said.

“At least we’ve got the laptop,” Sam said. “When we get back to the hotel, I’ll see if I can find anything.”

“If there’s anything there to find.” Dean pounded the steering wheel with one hand. “He wasn’t even sure. And I’m willing to bet Wallace’s heart attack had some encouragement from Smokey the Hot Asian Chick.”

“Probably so, yeah.”

“You got an hour,” Dean said.

“Excuse me?” Sam replied.

“We get back, I change into real clothes, and you take an hour to try to find something. Then we go to Shin’s Delight, no matter what you find. That’s Chao’s HQ, so that’s where the dead samurai must be. If there’s a demon jonesing for this spirit, too....”

Sam nodded.

“Yeah, the stakes are higher than we thought.”

“Certainly explains why Cass was the one who gave us the heads-up. Maybe the demons figure a guy like that’d come in handy in a fight.”

“Or the angels,” Sam suggested.

“Yeah, or the angels.” Dean figured most of angel-kind was no better than the demons they fought. In some ways they were worse—having been to Hell, Dean understood how damned souls got that way.

Angels had no excuse.

After crossing the bridge, Dean navigated the streets of San Francisco. The first time he’d driven here, it had set his teeth on edge. He spent most of his time on interstates, and even when they went through hilly or mountainous areas, they tended to be mostly flat. But where highways were built by demolishing bits of land to keep the road as flat as possible, the local streets in San Francisco were just draped over the hills.

On that first visit Dean was twenty and Sam was still in high school. John was asleep in the passenger seat, and Dean hadn’t wanted to wake him.

By the time they arrived at their destination in the Mission, he thought his knuckles were going to be permanently white. And he let his father drive out, once they took care of business.

But he’d adjusted over the years, to the point where it almost didn’t bother him when the Impala felt as if it was at a right angle to the ground.

They entered the lobby of their hotel to find Castiel sitting on one of the badly upholstered sofas, staring straight ahead into space.

“Cass?” Dean said.

Castiel rose from the sofa and stared right at him.

“We need to talk.”

“When don’t we?” Then Dean shook his head, and shrugged in the direction of the stairs. “C’mon.”

When they got back to the room, Sam took his position at the desk and opened Wallace’s laptop, while Dean sat on his bed. Castiel just stood in the middle of the floor.

“There was a battle at the convention center downtown,” Castiel said. “Ramiel was killed, as were half a dozen demons. The Heart of the Dragon isn’t in play yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed, “we got a taste of that.” He told Castiel about their encounter at the hospital. The angel just stared, his face impassive.

“The Heart of the Dragon must be stopped. His power has been gestating for more than a century. Under the influence of demons, he might very well tip the scales.”

“Well, I’m open to suggestions,” Dean said. “Without the sword—”

Suddenly, the room felt incredibly hot—particularly in the direction of the bathroom.

Whirling around and springing to his feet, Dean saw a man surrounded by fire.

He had to admit, it was an impressive sight. His experience with samurais had been limited to Toshiro Mifune movies and John Belushi skits, so to see one in real life was kind of cool.

The spirit didn’t move, nor did the flames spread. Nonetheless, Dean pulled out the demon-killing knife.

Castiel’s voice sounded tighter than usual.

“Won’t... work....”

Dean looked over to see that Castiel was concentrating furiously—it seemed he was keeping the Heart of the Dragon in check.

Then the spirit spoke.

“You do not have the sword?”

Dean was caught off guard—the figure was speaking Japanese, but somehow he actually understood the words, if not the meaning.

“Say what?” he responded.

“I am under instructions from my descendant to slay you both, but this creature is holding me at bay,” the spirit intoned in a deep, hollow voice. “This is good, for you may be able to free me, but only if you wield the sword.”

Getting up from his position at the desk, Sam addressed the figure.

“The sword was taken from us, we think by Albert Chao. We’re trying to locate it—”

“Ah, Albert Chao,” the figure said. “My descendant has planned more skillfully this time, it seems. However, he is not a trusting soul. If he ordered the sword taken from you, then he is keeping it close. You must find it—and when you do, you may finally free me.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam said, “how will it free you? Casting the spell on the sword will just banish you for another twenty years, won’t it?”

“You must cast the spell on me as you pierce my heart with the sword’s edge. Only then may I be free.”

Dean shook his head. Sometimes trial and error really sucked. If Dad had known this twenty years ago, a lot of people would still be alive.

Then the spirit raised his sword.

“Cass!” Dean cried.

Sweat was beading on Castiel’s forehead.

“I’m trying....”

“I am sorry,” the Heart of the Dragon said, even as he advanced on Dean.

A report roared in Dean’s ears, and the spirit disappeared in a flash of light, the flames constricting and collapsing into nothingness.

Glancing back he saw Sam holding a smoking shotgun, which was, as always, loaded with rock-salt rounds.

“Nice shot,” Dean said.

Sam smiled mirthlessly.

“Nice to know the classics still work.”

“Yeah, more people ought to keep those things handy— save a lotta grief,” Dean agreed. He started undoing his tie. “We need to get a move on. The rock salt’ll only keep Yojimbo there on ice for a little while, and Chao’s gonna be pretty pissed when he finds out his pet spirit screwed the pooch.” Pulling the tie from around his neck, he looked at Sam. “You got ten minutes to find something we can use. Then we motor to Chinatown.”

Sam nodded and sat down, hunching over the laptop.