Supernatural: One Year Gone by Rebecca Dessertine Page A

great hunter you are.”
    “Dean said that?” Sam asked, truly skeptical that his brother would have complimented him.
    “He said that you have a good head on your shoulders. You’re fast, but mostly people trust you. Kind face, I guess. You’re the brains, the yin to Dean’s yang.”
    That’s one way to put it, Sam thought. “Yeah, well, he never told me that.”
    “Where is he anyway?” Samuel asked. “I thought you guys were a team.”
    “Yeah, um, not anymore. Dean decided to pack it in and settle down with his girlfriend.”
    “Girlfriend? Really? Well, that’s wonderful. I would love to see him,” Samuel said. “But of course, things are a little different now. You know since... I’ve come back.”
    “Yeah, how did that happened?” Sam asked. He needed to know. Two people from the same family being resurrected, one from a cage in Hell—surely it couldn’t be a coincidence.
    “No idea. Woke up in a field somewhere. I called my niece—she was the only one I could think of that would be young enough to be alive—and she took me in. She was hunting. Met the group that she hunts with. Just sort of fell back into it.”
    Samuel pulled Sam in for a hug.
    “It’s great to meet you, son.”
    Sam pushed him away. Enough of this family reunion crap, it was time to get back to business.
    “So the kid is a god?” he asked.
    “Yeah. No need to kill the kid though, just chase the god out,” Samuel explained. “He’s the incarnation of Malsum. It’s an Algonquin Cain and Abel story. The incarnation of Malsum comes every generation, takes the form of a wolf and mostly mutilates cattle as a kind of trick.”
    “So you weren’t there to kill him?”
    “Not at all. It’s just killing cattle, not people. We have to chase the god out while it’s in the wolf form, not as a child.”
    “Then why were you sneaking into the house?”
    “I was going to hide under the bed until he changed, then use this on him.” Samuel held up an elaborate bone and herb garland. “Wrap it around his neck, say a prayer three times and it’s supposed to send Malsum back to the dark world.”
    “Let’s just wait in the car then. If he moves, we’ll get him,” Sam proposed.
    They sat in Sam’s car for another hour or two. Sam wasn’t in the mood for talking, but after thirty-odd years of being dead, it seemed his grandfather had plenty of questions. Sam responded as politely as he could, but he kept to himself the fact that he had been Lucifer’s chosen vessel and had taken Lucifer on and jumped into the pit.
    At around ten in the evening, the Sheriff’s little boy appeared on the front doorstep. Sam and Samuel hunkered down in their seats as the Sheriff and his wife carefully peered up and down the street. They then ceremonially kissed the child on each cheek and handed him what looked like a small snack. The child turned his back on his parents and in an instant turned into a silver wolf.
    “But the god is a bad god, right?” Sam whispered.
    “I guess so. He’s Cain,” his grandfather replied.
    “Good,” Sam said. He got out of the car with his shotgun drawn. The Sheriff looked up, saw Sam, and yelled at the wolf to run. The wolf glanced at Sam and took off across the street and over the prairie beyond.
    Sam was almost as quick. He ran swiftly after the creature, leaving his grandfather far behind.
    The wolf leapt over a twelve-foot-wide irrigation ditch and kept going. Sam jumped, but hit the ground a little short, sliding down the embankment. But moments later, he found his footing and raced up the hill back onto the prairie. The wolf was far ahead now, so Sam leveled his gun and shot. The silver wolf went down.
    Satisfied, Sam approached his victim. The creature was breathing heavily, blood draining from the back of its leg out onto the dry ground.
    “What did you do?” Samuel yelled breathlessly as he reached Sam’s side.
    “Give me the wreath, you say the prayer,” Sam directed.
    Samuel did as his