TWENTY-TWO

“You said this Emperor Norton dude was crazy, right?”

Sam nodded as he stared at the room they’d been given at the hotel. It was actually better than a lot of the dumps they typically stayed in, but that wasn’t saying a great deal. The wallpaper didn’t look as if it’d been changed since their father stayed there. The phone was still a rotary. And when he sat on the bed closest to the door, Sam could feel the springs jabbing his butt.

“Yeah,” Sam said in answer to Dean’s query, “crazy as a loon.”

“Well, he had a lousy interior decorator, too,” Dean said as he dumped his duffel bag at the foot of the other bed, then lay down on it. “I’m guessin’ our Chinese restaurant doesn’t open till lunch—that right?” he said to the ceiling.

“I’ll find out.”

Sam pulled his laptop out of the bag and went to sit at the tiny desk. He flipped it open and dug around underneath to find an outlet. There were only two, and between the lamp and the television, both were occupied. So he unplugged the lamp.

He knew better than to mess with the television.

Sure enough, Dean grabbed the remote off the nightstand, and clicked impatiently through the hotel’s offerings.

It took more than a minute for Sam’s laptop to boot up. He sighed, knowing it was only a matter of time before they would need a new one—this one was a few years old and had so much stuff loaded onto it that it was a miracle it still worked at all.

Unfortunately, their only sources of income were poker winnings, pool hustling, and charity from Bobby. But Bobby wasn’t being charitable since he’d been crippled. Besides, it was one thing to gas up the Impala or keep them fed. He wasn’t likely to pony up a thousand bucks—or more—for a decent laptop.

Once the computer finally finished booting, the wireless card found an unsecure network belonging to the hotel. One advantage to staying in cheap motels was that most of them had their own free wireless networks these days. The fancy hotels charged obscene rates for online access.

First thing, Sam checked the restaurant’s hours, and confirmed that it opened at noon. Then he downloaded his email, and also did a web search prompted by something he’d read in his father’s journal.

Bingo.

“Hey, Dean,” he said, “I’ve got something that might be useful. Remember Dad mentioning that professor up at Berkeley?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Dean replied. “Why?”

“Well, he’s still there. He’s the Assistant Chair of the Asian Studies Department now. Might be a good idea to go talk with him.”

Clambering off his bed, Dean shrugged.

“Might help,” he said. “Then again, if we’re lucky, we’ll just show up at the restaurant, cast the right spell, grab some chicken chow fun, and leave.”

Sam just stared at him.

“Dude—have we ever been that lucky?”

Dean reached into his duffel and pulled out the hook sword.

“Guess not.” He set the sword aside and settled back onto the bed. “Guess you better call the dude.”

So while Dean immersed himself in the previous week’s episode of Dr. Sexy M.D., Sam called U.C. Berkeley, navigated through an irritating stream of automated messages—made even more so by the rotary phone—and finally got Marcus Wallace’s voicemail.

“Hi Professor, this is Sam Winchester—I’m calling on behalf of myself and my brother Dean. Twenty years ago you met our father, John Winchester, and I think you know Bobby Singer, too.

“We’re in San Francisco because the Heart of the Dragon’s back, and we need your help. If you could call me back, please, that would be great.”

Sam provided his cell phone number, then ended the call.

After that, he called Bobby to check in.

“The angel stopped by, and said he’d be comin’ at some point,” Bobby said, bitterness in his voice. Given his condition, he seriously resented the fact that Castiel no longer had the ability to heal. For his part, Cass didn’t seem to care all that much—which pissed off Bobby even more. “I’ll let the bastard know you got there, and where y’are, in case you need some heavenly hosting.”

“Okay, Bobby, thanks.” He wasn’t sure Castiel needed to be told, but saying so would just be like rubbing salt into the crippled man’s wounds. So he just hung up.

Then he did some more web digging, trying to see if there had been anything reported in the past couple of days. Sure enough, that morning’s San Francisco Chronicle had a story about two as-yet-unidentified bodies—a man and a woman—found near Lloyd Lake in Golden Gate Park. The woman had been burned to a crisp, with lengthy cuts over a large portion of her body. Strangely, the man was found with no obvious trauma.

“We’ve got another burned victim,” Sam said. “And the wounds are consistent with—”

Sam cut himself off when he heard a familiar snore. Turning around, he saw that Dean had dozed off. Looking over his shoulder at the screen, he saw Dr. Sexy was being slapped by one of the nurses, and winced in sympathy.

He walked over to the bed and gently pulled the remote out of Dean’s sleep-loosened grip, hitting the power button so he could use the computer in peace.

That caused Dean to jump.

“Hey, I was watchin’ that!” he bellowed.

“Sorry,” Sam said quietly, turning the set back on, then handing back the remote. Dean had to surf through to find the show again.

Before he could get there, however, someone kicked in the door.

“So then the one girl just grabs the other girl and starts yankin’ on her hair. Now my first thought is, ‘Hey, it’s a party,’ but of course I know they ain’t gonna keep it under control, so I figure I gotta intervene.”

James “Tiny” Deng grunted as he turned one of Albert Chao’s SUVs onto Ellis Street and looked for a place to park. He really hated being paired up with Jake Leung, because Jake just never shut up.

“So I go to try to pull ‘em apart, and one of them—the one with the long hair—she goes and claws at my arm! Look at what she did to me!” Jake held up an arm to show the scratches, but Tiny didn’t really pay any attention.

There was no parking to be found on Ellis, but Tiny finally found a spot in front of a hydrant, shrugged, and parked there. He pulled a piece of paper out of the glove compartment and put it on the dashboard. It said SFPD – OFFICIAL in big block letters. Tiny had no idea where the boss got them, but they proved handy when you couldn’t find parking.

Only once in Tiny’s recollection did someone get towed, and the boss got the car back without paying a single penny. Now that was how to run a business.

“Anyhow, I had to teach the bitch a lesson, so’s I—”

By this time, Tiny had already liberated his six-foot-eight-inch frame from the SUV, and was just staring at his partner, still belted into the passenger seat.

“Uh, Jake? We’re here.”

“Huh?” Jake looked around, suddenly aware of the fact that the car had stopped. “Right.” He opened the door and jumped out onto the sidewalk, just missing the hydrant. “So what’re we looking for again?”

Again, Tiny grunted. He had already gone over it, but Jake was so fond of the sound of his own voice that he hadn’t paid any attention.

“We need to find a couple’a guys in a hotel,” he said. “They’ve got a sword of some kind, and we’re s’posed to get it for the boss. He said to kill anyone who gets in the way.”

“Okay. Let’s do it. Hope they don’t got no bitches with ‘em, though. I don’t want anymore scratches.” He glanced ruefully at his arm, which as far as Tiny could see didn’t have a mark on it.

Tiny looked around. He spotted a three-story façade with a framing shop on the ground floor, and a sign next to the door that led upstairs.

“That looks like the place—let’s check it out.”

Tiny headed for the door, Jake following. Climbing the narrow stairs, they wound up in a lobby with cracked-leather sofas and peeling wallpaper. Beyond were two hallways with frayed carpeting. Sitting behind the battered old wooden desk was an acne-covered young man reading a copy of Entertainment Weekly. The nametag on his chest read ELMER.

Without even looking up from the magazine, Elmer spoke in a bored voice.

“Can I help you?”

Exchanging a quick glance with Jake, Tiny pulled out his .45. Jake did likewise. Tiny had a Kimber Ultra Refined Carry Pistol II, while Jake had, as usual, overdone it with a Para-Ordnance Nite-Tac ACP. Most of the time, the guns were just for show, anyhow. When staring down the barrel of a hand-cannon like these, people generally did exactly what they were told.

When he didn’t get an answer, Elmer dropped his magazine and jumped out of his seat, knocking it over backward.

“Oh God, don’t kill me please don’t—”

“Shut up!” Jake yelled. “You sound like a bitch. I hate bitches.”

“Just one question,” Tiny said, ignoring his partner. “Did anyone check in this morning? Maybe a couple’a guys, mid-twenties?”

Elmer was unable to take his eyes off the barrel of Tiny’s Kimber.

“There was—was—was—these, uh, these two guys. In, uh, in Room 102.”

“Thanks,” Tiny said. He nodded toward the stairs. “Now get out of here and don’t come back for an hour. If you say a word to anyone, we’ll find you, and shoot you in the face.”

Elmer took the stairs two at a time and burst out of the front door.

Tiny turned and led Jake down one of the hallways, following the sign that indicated rooms 100–150. With his height and broad shoulders, he filled the narrow passageway.

Once they were standing in front of Room 102, Tiny held up three large fingers.

Then two.

Then one.

And he kicked in the door.

Sure enough, there were two little white men in the room. Of course, from his perspective, everyone was little....

One had shaggy brown hair, and he sat at the desk. The other was perched on the edge of one of the beds, the one closer to the window. He was holding a sword—almost certainly the one the boss had sent them to fetch.

He held up his .45.

“Don’t move.”

“We’re not moving,” the one at the desk said quickly, standing and putting his hands up.

“Nobody’s gotta get hurt, all right?” Jake said. “We’re just here to take that little pig-sticker away from you. Might put an eye out, y’know?”

The guy sitting on the bed had short hair. He regarded Jake warily.

“You want this sword?”

“That’s right. So shut your ugly face and hand it over!”

Jake crossed the distance between them.

Tiny kept his own weapon aimed at the one who was standing.

Stepping up next to the guy with the sword, Jake pressed his .45 right against the side of his head, then held out his free hand.

“Give it here.” He tried to sound menacing. “Don’t try nothin’ stupid, or I’ll shoot you, swear to God.”

Tiny knew better, and wished his partner would just stop talking. At that range, if Jake actually fired the weapon the recoil would knock him to the floor, plus the shot would go wild. The only time Jake had ever fired his weapon was at a gun range in the Presidio, where the target was standing still.

Suddenly the guy smacked Jake’s hand aside, grabbing the barrel and clubbing Jake in the face with the hilt of the sword.

For a second, Tiny didn’t react. He’d been an enforcer for years now, and he’d never seen anyone do anything other than wet themselves at the sight of a .45.

He was pretty sure that if Jake had stopped talking for half a second, this would never have happened.

The one by the desk leapt at him, and Tiny tried to squeeze a shot off, but it fired harmlessly into the ceiling. Cheap plaster came raining down on them both as the guy tackled him.

Or, at least, tried to. Tiny weighed almost 300 pounds, and most of it was muscle.

The guy punched Tiny several times in the chest.

Tiny just smiled.

Then he punched the guy full-force in the face, sending him flying across the hotel room, where he collided with the desk chair and collapsed in a heap. He lay there, out cold.

Turning, Tiny saw that the other brother had gotten hold of the .45 and was now pointing it at Jake—though from a safe enough distance that Jake couldn’t do anything but sweat profusely. Jake sat down on the bed closest to the door.

Crap.

Short-hair set the sword on the bed and held the .45 with both hands.

Pointing his own .45 at the guy, Tiny adopted his most menacing voice.

“Drop it.”

“You first, Charlie Chan. Make one move, and I ventilate your boy here.”

Tiny shrugged.

“Go ahead. It’ll finally shut him up.”

“Hey!” Jake said. “What the hell, Tiny, why can’t you—?”

Aiming downward, Tiny shot Jake four times in the chest. It’d be easy to convince the boss that these guys had done it. What’s he gonna do? Check for ballistics?

But he heard five reports, and stumbled backward. A sharp pain lanced down through his arm, from his shoulder.

Even as Tiny killed Jake, the guy had shot him.

That really pissed Tiny off.

Getting his feet under him, he swung the Kimber upward. But before he could fire, something hit him in the head.

Putting a hand to his forehead, he felt blood trickling down into his eyes. His vision blurred, but he saw the longhaired brother scrambling to his feet. Tiny wasn’t sure what he’d thrown, but it hurt.

The guy crossed the room in a leap, grabbed Tiny’s arm, and chopped down hard. It didn’t hurt all that much, but Tiny reflexively dropped his .45.

Using his free arm, Tiny punched him in the face again. It was the arm that had taken the bullet, and it hurt like a bitch.

As the guy fell backward again, Tiny fell forward next to the bed closest to the door. Though he was still conscious, he didn’t move.

“Stand up and do not go for the gun,” said the one with Jake’s .45.

But Tiny wasn’t even sure where his gun had fallen to. In any case, he had a better idea.

Inserting his fingers into the gap between the mattress and the box spring, he hoisted the mattress up, tossing it right toward the guy with the gun. As he did so, he lumbered to his feet.

The report of Jake’s .45 echoed throughout the room, the bullet punching a hole in the mattress.

“Dean!” the other guy cried.

Tiny stepped over Jake’s corpse and grabbed the hook sword off the other bed. The taller one also lunged for it, but Tiny hit him with the hilt the same way Dean had hit Jake.

At first, Tiny was going to finish these two off—then he decided against it. There hadn’t been a direct order, just an instruction not to hesitate to kill if he had to. At this point, though, he had blood trickling into his eyes, he couldn’t really move his left arm—it hurt like a sonofabitch—and he had what he came for.

Best to cut his losses.

He didn’t feel great about leaving behind the .45s—it was standard operating procedure to get rid of any guns that had been used in a felony. Somehow, though, he didn’t think these two were likely to go to the cops.

So while they struggled with the mattress, he ducked out of the hotel room.

At first Dean had no idea who the two guys were who burst into the room, but once they demanded the hook sword, he figured they had to be working for Albert Chao. Especially the one without a neck who was roughly the size of Cleveland. He had “enforcer” written all over him.

How the hell did they know where we were?

For now, there was the simple matter of staying alive.

Luckily for him, the smaller guy was so busy talking he wasn’t bothering to watch what he was doing. One of the first things John had taught him and Sam—as soon as they were old enough—was how to defend themselves against someone with a gun.

“The best thing,” John had said, “is if they get real close. If they keep their distance, you’re in trouble, ‘cause there ain’t nothin’ you can do. But if they get close, the trick is to grab the barrel. Even if they get a shot off, your hand’ll block the slide. Now it’ll hurt like hell, but then he can’t shoot again.”

Both Dean and Sam had done that drill a thousand times, with and without their father, so when the little guy put the gun right in Dean’s face, he almost thanked him.

Three seconds later, he had the gun on the guy.

What Dean hadn’t expected was for the guy with the thyroid problem to shoot his buddy. While he did, though, Dean threw a shot into the bruiser.

But it barely slowed the big guy down, and before Dean knew it, he was eating mattress.

Then the bruiser was gone, taking the hook sword with him.

Sonofabitch.

Dean ran out after him, shoving the .45 into the waistband of his pants, covering it with his untucked flannel shirt. He wasn’t going to have much time if someone called the cops, and he had to get that sword back.

By the time he hit the street, the big guy was getting into a car that was parked in front of a fire hydrant. The Impala was a block away, and there was no way he’d catch up on foot.

No way was he going to fire a gun in the middle of Ellis Street, either.

When he walked back inside, Sam was in the hallway, but he wasn’t coming after Dean. Instead, he was walking back to the room from the other direction, carrying a bucket of ice.

Looking closely, Dean saw that Sam’s entire face was red.

“Damn—the Asian Hulk got you pretty good, huh?”

Sam nodded without speaking, entering the room and immediately wrapping ice cubes in one of the bathroom towels. Applying it gingerly to his face, he winced.

“Ow.”

“Dunno about you, but those guys screamed ‘mobster’ to me.”

Again, Sam nodded, and when he spoke there was pain in his voice.

“Yeah, it looks like Chao was ready for us—or, at least, ready for the sword. He may not be the pushover Dad thought he was.”

“Or maybe he got smart in twenty years. Either way, we gotta be more careful. And we’ve gotta try to get the sword back.”

“What do you think we should do next?”

“First we get rid of Jackie Chan here. Then I wanna take a look at that dead body from last night before we go to Shin’s Delight. Dad’s notes were good and all, but he didn’t actually see any of the bodies.”

“Think you better handle that one solo,” Sam said. “Federal agents don’t usually go into the field with their faces looking like hamburger.”

Dean grinned.

“Yeah. At least we got in some shots of our own.” Dean looked down at the dead body. “So while I’m gone, can you take care of this guy?”

Sam nodded, then winced.

“I’m on it. I’ll need you to help me get him into the car, though.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” Dean tossed the keys to Sam, who pocketed them, then put the ice-laden towel down so he could start wrapping the body up in the bedspread.

Dean, meanwhile, started to change into his suit.