Supernatural: War of the Sons by Rebecca Dessertine, David Reed Page A

Sam continued. “Right before I realized the knife was gone.” He walked to the Murphy bed, pulled it down, and extracted the gun-filled duffel from the bed’s cavity. “As for these, they’re safe and sound.”
    Dean watched Sam wistfully. The kid really has become a good hunter, despite everything , he thought. He grabbed the weapon-laden bag and opened it.
    “Fifties women, dude,” he said as he appraised the contents. “It’s like a big riddle, and Betty Draper is the... thing you get for solving a riddle.”
    “Wait, are you still into the girl who you know is on to you? We got robbed already, Dean. We don’t have time for you to get played.”
    “Don’t start. I know. I’m not hitting on anything that was born before the microwave.” Dean hefted one of the shotguns, and expertly tilted the weight of it back and forth to feel its balance.
    “I was thinking...” Sam began, then trailed off.
    “Spit it out, big guy,” Dean said. “Thinking about taking a crap? Thinking of getting us some toothpaste? ’Cause your breath is ripe .”
    “If this wasn’t 1954, we’d be loading these with salt, right?” Sam asked, grabbing a few of the shotgun shells. “But here, we’re not. Because we’re not just fighting demons and ghosts and things that go bump; we’re robbing humans. Humans who didn’t do anything to us, or to anyone, didn’t do anything wrong, and we’re going to hold guns to their heads? Doesn’t it faze you even a little to be the bad guys?”
    “We ice Lucifer, nobody’s crying over a little bit of armed larceny,” Dean retorted.
    “So the end justifies the means?” Sam paused. “’Cause it sure didn’t when it meant me juicing up on demon blood.”
    Sam’s words drilled into Dean.
    “That was different,” he growled.
    Sam shook his head and started to pace the room, the creaky floorboards giving slightly under his weight.
    Dean looked at his brother impatiently. Why does he always have to make things so complicated?
    “It was different,” Dean persisted. “Look, I’m willing to go pretty damned far to get this stupid scroll. Whether that includes killing or maiming some poor bastard who gets in our way, I’m not sure yet. Won’t know that till my finger’s on the trigger. But Sammy, I sure as hell am not willing to lose my little brother.” Dean let out a sigh. “Saving you is the reason we’re here.”
    But Sam’s face was resolved.
    “Nobody else gets hurt,” he said. It wasn’t a statement, it was a command. “I have enough blood on me already.”
    Dean reached into his pocket, felt the wad of bills, and started toward the door.
    “Where are you going?” his brother demanded.
    “To buy salt,” Dean responded, and the door shut on him.
    James McMannon stood on the threshold of his sister’s brownstone house, bathed in the flashing red and blue of a police cruiser’s revolving lights. Peering through the open curtains, he saw his sister. Maria’s face was blotted with tears, her left cheek pressed into the thick of an older man’s shoulder. Maybe a neighbor , James thought, not recognizing the man. At least she has someone . If he went inside, they’d ask him to explain something that couldn’t be rationally explained, to tell a story that no sane person would believe.
    Two uniformed officers were visible as well, both of them wearing the forlorn grimace of men sharing bad tidings. Your son is dead , they’re saying. We found his body . James didn’t need to read their lips, all he had to see was his sister’s anguished face.
    The sight drove James off the stoop and back onto the narrow sidewalk. He began to shamble slowly northward.
    Over the course of the evening, he had managed to piece together his shattered memories of what had happened to Barney—what he had done to Barney. He had never felt particularly in control of the direction his life was taking, but this was something different entirely. For a good chunk of the past few days, James