Never Let It Rest (fifth book to Never Be Over You)

Chapter 12: Time After Time After Time

Time After Time After Time

We're sitting in the parked car on a street, watching a man in a fedora walk along the sidewalk and then turn down an alley.
"Alright, let's do this. Move fast." Dean says as he cocks his gun.
"Wait, wait, wait. What's the plan exactly?" Alex asks.
"Don't die." I say. We hurry out of the car and follow the man.
"He's heading downtown. Alright, you two take the street. Alex and I will take the alley. I'll meet you in the middle. I follow Sam around a building to catch this guy from the other side. When we get to the other side, we see Dean tackles the man in the fedora, Alex running behind him trying to catch up, but Dean and the man disappear in an explosion of red and white light.
"Dean?" I say. I hold my arms out in front of my face so I'm not blinded by the light. Once the light's gone, Dean, Alex and the man are gone too.
"Dean?!" Sam yells.

2 DAYS EARLIER
Dean is sitting at a table with a bottle of whiskey and a laptop. Alex is on the couch reading a newspaper, Sam is in another room sleeping, and I'm trying to do my own research on Leviathans while also trying to ignore Lucifer.  A cell phone starts ringing.  Sam sits up and groans.
"Don't give us that dirty diaper look. We ain't calling you." Dean says. Sam gets up and answers the phone.
"Hello?...The sheriff? Uh..." Sam turns on a lamp, "Yeah. Uh, I mean, uh... Okay, um, so, uh, what's up with the body?... Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, um... that's our kind of number. Hey, question, how does a sheriff in Sioux Falls get wind of a case in Ohio?... Well, we'll look into it. Thanks, Sheriff... Yeah." Sam hangs up.  "That was Sheriff Mills. She caught us one."
"Oh, I feel bad. We didn't get her anything." I say.
"I can't believe I'm about to say this but I hope you're watching cartoon smut, because reading Dick Roman crap over and over and again is just self-punishment."  Sam says.
"It's called anime, and it's an art form." Dean says then closes the laptop. We get to Ohio and immediately look around for a house to crash in. We pull up to one that has signs saying 'No Trespassing' and 'For Auction'.

"Well, this looks nice. Check around back?" I ask. Dean drives the car to the back of the house. Nobody's here, perfect.
We get inside and check it out.
"Well, there's a...semi-functioning bathroom and one un-rancid bedroom."
"Define semi-functioning, and do not use the words 'hole in the floor'." Sam holds out his a fist on his palm to Dean, who takes the same position. They do Rock, Paper, Scissors. Dean wins, surprisingly.
After getting the police file from online we head to a witness' house.
"Kids playing hide and seek found the body." I say as I look at the police file.
"Wow. Very King Tut." Dean says.
"Yeah. So, uh, this is where the eyewitness to the assault lives, but the cops are calling him an reliable witness." Alex says.
"Because?" Sam asks.
"Let's find out." I say. We walk up to a house and knock on the door. A man opens the door, we show him our ID.
"Special Agent Smith. This is, uh Special Agent Smith, No relation. And Special Agents Dawson and Gomez." Dean introduces us.
"Whoa. Do you mind if we, uh... My mom's sleeping in there." The man steps outside and closes the door. "So, how can I...?"
"Oh, we up, we had a few questions about the incident you witnessed in the alley." Sam says.
"You just gonna laugh at my story like the rest of the suits?"
"We're not gonna laugh at you." I say.
"Alright, well, I'm on the steps...medicating...when I hear fighting. So I look. There's my neighbor Durbin, and some dude dressed like my grandpa's got him by the neck, right?"
"What do you mean dressed like your grandpa?" Alex asks.
"Uh...snappy shoes, suit, one of those, um, Timberlake hats."
"You mean a fedora?" I ask.
"Aha!"
"Did you see anything else?" Sam asks.
"This red, like, energy passed through Durbin to hat guy. Even my watch stopped. Durbs... he aged before my eyes. He looked like a raisin."
"Well, we believe you." Dean says. The man nods appreciatively. "Thanks for your help."
We walk away.
"Wow." Alex says, we head back to the abandoned house and to the books we go.

"Yep, nothing that turns a dude into a Cryptkeeper. You?" Dean asks.
"Uh, well, greater Canton turns out kind of a hot spot for weird dead bodies." Sam says, he's on his laptop.
"Hmm. You don't say."
"Yeah. News archives. They're not exactly reporting, uh, mummifies. But still, uh, 1928 three deaths cited as spontaneous combustion. Bodies, quote, 'shriveled despite no signs of fire'."
"Little stretch, but okay." I say.
"'74, three bodies found with a leathery decay. Uh, '57, three more. Severe dehydration. This time one made the front page. Girl names Terry Cervantes found a corpse near her church."
"Any pattern here other than the location?" Alex asks.
"Random vics, random years. But they seem to drop in threes."
"That's two down, one to go. Alright let me drive for a sec." Dean says as he grabs Sam's laptop.
"What, are you gonna look up more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?" Sam asks. I get up from where I'm sitting and go look at what Dean's searching. He types in 'Canton web cams' into the search and the first search result is 'Securi-Net Webcams' with 10 images.
"Are these local feeds?" I ask. Now Alex joins us.
"Yeah."
"How did you do that so fast?" Sam asks.
"A little tutorial from Frank. Don't worry. We'll pretend this never happened. Now, mummy number dos was, uh, found at the Gas n' sip near Main Street, correct?" Dean asks.
"Yeah." Alex says.
"Alright, well, here's all the cameras around the store." Dean says after having typed something else.
"You need to teach me that trick." Sam says.
A man wearing a fedora and a long coat appears on the screen.
"Hey, check it out. Timberlake." I say.
"Wait a sec." Sam says as he takes the laptop back.
"You can't let me bask in the glory for one second, can you?" Dean asks.
"Shut up. Look." The screen now shows a close-up of the man that was attacked and the fedora guy.
"He hasn't aged a day, has he? Alright, well, if he's popping up for decades now, then somebody's bound to know who he is, right? Is there any chance that, uh, Terry's still local?"
We find out where this Terry is and there. In a hospital.

"You know it's so pretty in the spring. Everything's blooming. That's why I walked home that way, to see the flowers. Instead, I found that body. I still have no idea what could have done that to a person." Terry says.
"Do you recognize that man?" Dean asks, showing her a picture of the fedora man.
"Yeah. I mean, he lived on my parents' street. Mr. Snider."
"Where'd you say your parents live?" I ask.

We head to the address and park the car in front of the house.
"So, what exactly is this thing? Some sort of vampire who got too sucky?" I ask.
"Nope. Coroner's reports said there was blood in both bodies. 300-year-old blood, but blood." Alex says.  The fedora man comes out of a house.
"Dude, dude. Uh, fedora dude." We watch as he walks along the sidewalk and turns down the alley. "Alright, let's do this. Move fast." Dean says as he cocks his gun.
"Wait, wait, wait. What's the plan exactly?" Alex asks.
"Don't die." I say. We hurry out of the car and follow the man.
"He's heading downtown. Alright, you two take the street. Alex and I will take the alley. I'll meet you in the middle. I follow Sam around a building to catch this guy from the other side. When we get to the other side, we see Dean tackles the man in the fedora, Alex running behind him trying to catch up, but Dean and the man disappear in an explosion of red and white light.
"Dean?" I say. I hold my arms out in front of my face so I'm not blinded by the light. Once the light's gone, Dean, Alex and the man are gone too.
"Alex?!" Sam yells.  Sam and I share a look. This is so not good.
We head back to the house and research like crazy. Sam is pinning something on the wall when his phone rings. He puts it on speaker.
"Dean?" I ask.
"No. Why? Where's Dean?" Sheriff Mills asks.
"The thing that's been mummifying people took him in a frigging ball of light and disappeared, him and our newest hunting friend.
"You guys get that a lot?" Jody asks.
"Yeah, more than most people." Sam says.
"Well, I got you into this, so-"
"No, no, no, you didn't. All you did was just-"
"Shut up Ash. How can I help?"
"Well, um... How do you feel about driving and lifting boxes?" Sam asks.

Jody gets here the next with a bunch of boxes.
"Hey, let me, uh, let me help you with those." Sam offers.
"No, I got these. You go get the other 20 in my truck." Jody says.
"Seriously?" I ask.
"Yeah. I think Bobby may have had a slight hoarding issue. I could barely get the door open on that storage locker. And, um, I'm pretty sure something's alive in at least 3 of these boxes." Sam and I head outside and start bringing in boxes.

After all the boxes are unload, we dig into the research. Jody is on the laptop, Sam and I are pinning stuff to the wall and reading the books.
"Got it." Jody says after a while. She finds a picture of the fedora man and shows us.
"Is that a ring on his finger?" I ask.
"Um..." Jody zooms in on the picture, "Yeah." Sam goes to grab a binder and brings it back to the table.
"I know that symbol." Sam says. "That's the mark of Chronos, the God of time."
"That's crazy." Jody says.
"The thing is, with the Old Gods, once upon a time they were...just short of invincible. But they got a lot of mojo from worshippers, from people feeding them." I say.
"Okay. So, why's this God killing people?" Jody asks.
"Well, could be killing people for his time juice." Sam says.
"So, how do we get Dean back? How do we even find this Chronos?"
"Best stab? We find a way to summon a God." I say. We start going through as many books as we can trying to find a spell.

After about an hour...
"Damn it!" Sam says.
"That's it!" Jody says at the same time.
"Okay, yours sounds better. You first." I say to Jody.
"It says here that people could summon Chronos 'to compel him to tell them their futures'."
"And I've got the spell to do it right here." Sam says.
"So why the 'damn it'?" I ask.
"Because calling Chronos isn't the problem. It's making sure we summon him when Dean and Alex are right there. Literally with their hands on the guy, so they can surf him back."
"That's not automatic?" Jody asks.
"No, it'll be more like we need to get the time right on their end to the exact second." I say.
"Or we get an angry God but no big brother or friend?"
"And they're trapped there forever." Sam says. Jody picks up a bottle of something from one of the boxes.
"'Fine, you ass. You win for once. Enjoy. R' Who's R?" Jody asks, reading a note that was on the bottle.
"Rufus, a family friend." I say.
"Ah, right."
"Wonder what they were betting over?" Sam says.
"Well, whatever it was, Rufus was a sore loser."
"Yeah." I say.
"It's weird huh? It's like their life's a big puzzle. You just keep finding pieces of it scattered all over the place. We should drink this. He'd wants us to. Am I wrong?"
"It'd be rude not to." Sam says.
Jody heads out for some food and coffee. I'm practically passed out when she gets back.
"You are toast." She says to me. I raise my head from the table startled when she gets back. "Sam and I will keep pushing. You go get some shuteye. I'm sure you and Dean will want some sort of special reunion when he gets back."
"Uh, that's okay. I can, uh..." I grab a coffee and she immediately takes it back from me.
"Do I have to use my mom voice?" I head upstairs to the makeshift bed that I made earlier. Dean won the Rock, Paper, Scissors and gave me the spot. I lay down on the bedroll. I turn my head a couple times to get comfortable and then notice something scratched into the base of the door frame. I hurry over there. 'ASH' is scratched into it. I turn on a lamp that we brought in here, use my knife to crack open the base. There's a piece of paper in the wall. I grab it and run downstairs. Jody gets up from the table.
"Alright. You asked for it. Young lady-" I just hold out the piece of paper. Sam takes it and reads it aloud.
"'Ashlee, turns out Snider is Chronos'." Sam reads.
Wait this is from Dean? How-" Jody asks.
"Just read!" I say excitedly.
"'I rode him to 1944. Am working with Eliot Ness, yes that one. Tracked down Chronos. He's banging some chick names Lila Taylor, and we got a weapon. We're going after him. Take care of yourselves'."
"Look at the top." I say. Jody leans over and checks it in Sam's hand.
"November 5th, '44."
"So, now we know the exact date Dean had hands on Chronos. All we need is the exact time." I say.
"Which we get how?"
"Hoping we ask someone who was there." Sam says.
We search up Lila Taylor and head to the retirement home. We get one of the staff to show us who she is and walk up to her.
"Miss Lila Taylor?" Jody asks.
"Oh, you can get 'The Sullivan Show'? I want to watch the Frankie Valli." She says.
"Um, actually," She holds up her police badge, "We're with the police."
"Oh. Is Michael in trouble again?" She turns around completely to face us and sits on the couch. We sit on some footrests across from here. "I told him not to read those comic books."
"Um, no, no, no, no. He's uh, he's fine. We'd wanted to ask you some questions about this man." Jody gives her a picture of Chronos.
"Ethan. That's Ethan."
"Do you remember the last time you saw Ethan?"
"Of course. November 1944, the night the clocks stopped."
"The clocks stopped?" Sam asks.
"11:34. Every clock in the house."
"Ma'am, can you tell us anything else you remember?" I ask.
"Ethan...said some awful things. And then... and then the strangled that poor man." Lila says.
"What poor man?"
"Three policemen, one woman, came to arrest Ethan." Sam holds up an ID cards, one that has a picture of Dean, the other of Alex.
"Ma'am was this them? Sam asks.
"Ethan choked the life out of that man." We hurry back to the house and get all the ingredients together.
"Here, break this." Sam says as he hands an hourglass to Jody. I grab a piece of paper, unfold it and set it on the table. Jody empties ingredients from plastic bags into the bowl we got. Sam slices his palm and writes 11:34 with his blood on a paper which he puts into the bowl.
"O krone parakaloumen se thespizein hemin khronon ton mellonta." Sam recites. I light a match and light the paper with the 11:34 on it.
The room lights up with red light. There's a crashing sound. Chronos and Dean appear and fall to the floor. A wooden stake slides across the floor.
"Dean!" Jody yells. Jody runs to help Dean as Chronos stands up.
"Hey!" Sam yells. Chronos turns to face Sam, who tries to punch him but ends up sending Sam sprawling. I grab the stake.
"No! You! Destroyed everything!" Chronos yells to Dean.
"Hey, Chronos!" I yell. He faces me and I stab him with the stake. "Was that the best you got?" A white light pulses in Chronos' chest. He drops to his knees and looks up at me.
"You want to know your future? I know your future."
"It's covered in thick black ooze. It's everywhere." Chronos laughs. "Enjoy oblivion." And then he's dead.
"Where's Alex?" I ask.
"Wanted to stay behind to find Cas and be with him in that time."