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

could find out for sure.
    Sam’s contact was waiting for him in the Society’s front lobby. He was a well-built man stuffed into a suit that was too small for him. His thin necktie accentuated the unflattering fit. His arm was in a canvas sling, leading Sam to wonder what sort of trouble the man had gotten himself into.
    “Mr. Sawyer?” Sam asked.
    The man nodded and gestured toward a set of chairs.
    “Please, call me Walter. Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”
    Before Sam could respond, Walter dropped ice cubes into two tumblers and poured amber liquid into each one.
    “I regret I couldn’t be more helpful on the telephone,” Walter said as he handed Sam his drink. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re looking for.”
    “I’m not sure either, not yet. I’m in the process of buying a religious relic, something of family interest—”
    “You’re Jewish?” Walter interrupted with a slight squint.
    “No, it’s not... not that, exactly.”
    Walter knocked back his drink absently, his attention fully on Sam.
    “But you mentioned something about Hebrew relics, Old Testament manuscripts.” He paused for a moment, his eyes asking the obvious question. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the ‘family interest’?”
    “In-laws,” Sam said with a shrug.
    The scholar seemed to accept that, for the moment.
    “And once you have acquired the documents, you’ll need them interpreted.”
    “Translated,” Sam corrected. “I think biblical interpretation is best left to the individual.”
    Walter pulled a crooked half-grin. “Fair enough.” He brushed a lock of his unkempt brown hair from his forehead. “Does this have something to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls?”
    Sam was careful to keep his face neutral. “What do you know about the scrolls?” he asked.
    “They’re the most important historical discovery of the century,” Walter said with precise, almost rehearsed diction, as if he had said it many times, to many people. “Any century, really. Though whether people accept that is a different matter entirely.”
    “It’s not the first apocryphal Old Testament text,” Sam replied, studying Walter’s reaction.
    “Apocryphal. What makes it any less relevant than Genesis or Revelations? Or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, for that matter?” Walter spat with thinly veiled distaste.
    “Have you read them? The scrolls?”
    Walter didn’t respond immediately, instead he looked into Sam’s eyes as if he was passing judgment, determining whether he was worthy of sharing what he knew of the scrolls.
    “No.”
    Sam forced a smile and took a sip from his very strong drink. Straight whiskey , he realized. At least it was afternoon. As he set the glass on the nearby end table, he noticed a red blot seeping across Walter’s canvas sling.
    “Your arm alright?” he asked, indicating the bloody stain.
    Walter glanced at it carelessly. “Ah. I should really be more careful on the subway,” he said, and stood up. “Let’s go to my office and talk about the scrolls.”
    The sub-basement of the Waldorf Astoria was spinning around Dean Winchester. His head was rested against the cushion of a tall-back chair, his feet propped up on the security desk outside the hotel’s vault. His sobriety was long since gone.
    “You think you’ve had a crap week, let me tell you something, James,” Dean said, gesturing wildly with an almost-empty bottle of vodka, the only liquor he had managed to swipe from the bar upstairs. “I come from... the future.”
    For his part, James wasn’t listening to a word of Dean’s rant. He was far more than three sheets to the wind, his pudgy cheeks and eyes were both red, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
    “The friggin’ future, man.”
    James studied his hands intently, as if they were part of somebody else’s body.
    “We have this thing, the internet, it’s like porno city. Anything you want. What are you into, man? Asians? They’ve got Asians,” Dean said with