The Stanford Adventure Club 2/3
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Chapter 2
We’re Gonna Form a Group!
June 15, 1998
Palo Alto, California
While Zoing noodled around in the surf, burbling happily and piling up small rocks and bits of shell he wanted for redecorating his thoroughly-scrubbed tank, Gil finished refilling the tank with fresh seawater and sat back on the sand, drinking in the sea breeze and the pre-dawn twilight. As hard as it had been to say goodbye to Agatha two days before, he had spent the drive from Beetleburg regretting his decision to begin his studies during the summer quarter to start catching up on the year that he’d missed. But now, sitting on the beach like this... something deep down in him felt rooted and refreshed and at peace. Maybe he had made the right choice after all.
After a while, on a whim, he reached forward and, as he often did at the seaside without fully knowing why, stuck his right hand in the water again. Mom, he thought oceanward, wherever you are... I’m okay.
Unlike past occasions, however, he felt something drain out of him as the water pulled away. Well, maybe his thoughts would actually reach his mother this time.
His pager went off while he was drying his hand, and when he checked, the number displayed was 439-487-3326—Hey, it’s Dean.
Gil smiled. 987-873-2759, he sent back: You’re up early. It might not be quite as early in whatever time zone Dean was paging from, but Gil knew Dean didn’t like to get up before noon in the summer if he could help it.
283-687-5337, Dean replied: Couldn’t sleep. A few moments later, the pager buzzed again with 866-836-2329, which took Gil a second to decipher into You move in today?
1-974-897-4373—Yes, wish you were here. When Dean didn’t respond right away, Gil added 693-767-6298 ext. 2597, which was trickier, but he couldn’t get My door is open to you always into any fewer digits than that.
*89, Dean finally answered, their code for Thank you. A few minutes passed before he paged again: 424-733-8587—Gotta go, see you later.
655-2837, Gil returned: Okay, later. Then he sighed and returned his pager to his waistband and his new cell phone to his pocket. This system wasn’t perfect, and their code wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than nothing. And since Dean didn’t have his own computer yet and John was adamant that the boys’ shared cell phone was for emergencies only, pager tag was all Dean and Gil had.
Zoing scuttled out of the water and up Gil’s leg to look at him from the top of his knee. Izatimetugo? Zoing asked, waving his antennae curiously.
Just then a sandpiper scurried over. Hey, you! it chirruped. This my spot! Go away!
Gil chuckled. “All right, all right, we’re going. Just a sec.” He put Zoing in his tank, bagged up Zoing’s treasures to give him once they were settled, put the bag in the bucket he’d used to fill the tank, and picked up both bucket and tank to carry back to the car while the sandpiper fussed to itself about humans and started its morning hunt. Once Zoing was firmly settled in the trunk, Gil drove off, scouting stores, restaurants, and apartment complexes on his way toward campus, killing time until the administration offices opened. He was required to live on campus, of course, like all freshmen, but he wasn’t sure he’d want to stay there after the first year; off-campus housing might turn out to be more amenable if he could find decent roommates.
It never occurred to him to brush himself off. Sand never stuck to him anyway.
Precisely at 8, Gil went into the administration building, got his schedule and dorm info, and drove to his new dorm’s main office to receive his keys. Then he pulled the car around to the nearest side entrance of his dorm building, ran upstairs to make sure the room was empty, and dashed down and back up with the tank before anyone could spot him. Once there, he set a salt line at the window and chalked a devil’s trap over the door, then quickly moved one bed in front of an outlet and raised the frame to the top rung on the posts, slid the tank under the bed and plugged in the power cord, and positioned one short dresser and bookcase so the tank couldn’t be seen from the door.
“Okay,” he said when he’d finished. “I’ve gotta go get the rest of my stuff, but I’ll be back in a few minutes. You all right?”
Zk! Zoing replied merrily. IzaCAVE!
Gil laughed. “So it is. Okay, be right back.”
He ran down and brought up the bag of rocks and shells and the box of linens first. Aunt Judy had made him an extra-long bed skirt out of blackout fabric, so Gil placed that before anything else, then stepped back to satisfy himself that it hid the light from the tank. Then he ducked under the bed, dumped the rocks and shells into the tank, and crawled back out to start arranging his half of the room while Zoing worked on arranging his.
Gil had never had one space to settle into for an entire year before. As much work as it was to arrange things, he discovered it was fun. His clothes filled only one drawer, and he didn’t have many books to put on the shelves yet, but that probably wouldn’t last long.
He had just finished hanging the pegboard shelves Uncle Adam had sent and was trying to figure out the best place for the dishes from Ellen when the door opened to reveal a boy with straight black hair and grey eyes, wearing a sweater vest and button-down shirt over knee-length twill shorts and carrying a box of books under one arm and a suitcase in the other hand. “Oh, hullo!” the newcomer said with a crisp English accent. “I say, would you be Gilgamesh?”
“Just call me Gil,” Gil replied and offered his hand.
The newcomer set down his box of books and shook hands. “Ardsley Wooster. I haven’t a nickname, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all right, Ardsley. Nice to meet you.”
Niztu meechooo! Zoing echoed, even though technically he hadn’t met their new roommate yet.
“Delighted!” Ardsley replied with a relieved smile. “Sorry, I suppose I was expecting some toffy-nosed German, with a name like that.”
“Well, my dad’s German,” Gil laughed. “German-American, anyway, Pennsylvania Dutch. He’s never told me anything about my mom. And you’re from... where in England? Manchester?”
“Oh, how clever of you to know!”
“Monkees reruns on Nick at Nite.”
Ardsley laughed.
“Plus, we spent a couple months in Manchester when I was really little. I don’t remember much, but I do remember the accent.”
Ardsley blinked. “I say, your father’s not Klaus Wulfenbach, is he?”
Gil’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes! You know him?”
“Not personally, no, but I think my father’s worked with him a few times. I expect it’s been... oh, ten, fifteen years ago, now.”
Then it was probably something related to whatever Dad had been doing before he met the Winchesters, and Gil knew better than to press for answers about that stuff. “Huh. Wow. Small world.”
“Yes, so ’tis.”
“Well, I’m just about done with my stuff. Need my help bringing your things in?”
“This is it,” Ardsley confessed, setting down his suitcase. “I haven’t much, I’m afraid. There were only so many things I could afford to bring or ship over. And I’m not much of a Beatles fan, which seems to be all the British merchandise the shops about campus stock.”
Gil chuckled. “I hear you. Okay, well—”
Ardsley suddenly looked past Gil and frowned. “What have you got under your bed, old man?”
Gil closed the door, went back to the bed, and raised the skirt at the foot. “Ardsley,” he said, beckoning Ardsley over, “meet Zoing.”
Bink! Zoing chirped and waved his claws.
Ardsley stared. “Is that....”
Gil grinned. “Yup.”
“A live one?”
“Yup.”
“Well, what on earth is he doing under there?”
“The rules say we can have fish.” Gil dropped the bed skirt. “They don’t say anything about crustaceans.”
ARFROPODZ ROOL! Zoing cheered and went back to playing with shells.
Ardsley tried several times to come up with a response. “But... but....”
Gil leaned against the end of the bed. “Look, I rescued him about nine years ago. I’m not getting rid of him. If you know what my dad does, you know why I can’t leave Zoing with him. Most of my other friends aren’t settled enough to take him, either. And my girlfriend lives in Nebraska, which makes it pretty tough for her to get the right kind of saltwater to keep in his tank. So... her mom made me this.” He gestured to the bed skirt.
Ardsley nodded slowly, then took a deep breath. “Well. I shall look forward to learning all about the care and feeding of lobsters.”
Liku! Zoing announced, and as Gil grinned, he felt the same. Housing assignments might be a lottery, but he’d hit the jackpot with Ardsley.
There wasn’t any sort of new student orientation for the summer term, so Gil and Ardsley didn’t have much to do besides getting to know each other and the campus. Ardsley, it turned out, was planning to enter the coterminal Communications program on the Media Studies track and had gotten permission to start in the Stanford program in Oxford because it was closer to home, so even though he was three quarters ahead of Gil, this was his first quarter in the States. And he didn’t have a car, so Gil offered to drive him around town when he needed to run off-campus errands, and in return, Ardsley volunteered to teach Gil how to cook more than what Gil and Dean had learned how to scrounge out of canned goods and boxed meals. They managed to make it to Thursday without running into any of their dorm mates, including the guys in the adjoining room that shared a bathroom with theirs. Gil sensed some sort of discomfort from the neighbors, but neither he nor Ardsley ever heard anything, so they both agreed not to pry.
Thursday afternoon, however, they came home from a grocery run, and Gil started into the bathroom to put away his fresh tube of toothpaste. He’d just opened the door when a pale hand shot out, pulled him inside, and slammed the door behind him.
“What the devil are you doing here?!” whispered a voice Gil hadn’t heard in over six years.
Gil stared wide-eyed at his assailant, whose hair was a distinctive and unusual shade of auburn. “Tar—”
“SHHHH!” Tarvek Sturmvoraus hissed urgently. “Out here, it’s Travis Murphy, and I’ll thank you to remember that.”
Gil frowned. “That’s not exactly a Witness Protection alias.”
“Yes, well, I’m not exactly in Witness Protection.”
“Why not?”
Tarvek huffed. “For one thing, Papa Jim managed to convince the FBI to leave my name out of all records of my testimony. Officially, it was Anevka who blew the whistle.”
“And she was already dead, so that’s convenient.”
“Right. For another, Dyedushka disowned Violetta and me both when he found out we’d turned Protestant.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, well, that was good enough while I was in high school and actually living in the parsonage, on sacred ground. But out here, I can’t be sure one of Dyedushka’s men won’t find me and try to recruit me again.”
“Dude, what are the odds of that? You’ve still got the hex bag, haven’t you?”
“A hex bag’s no good against human eyes and ears! ‘Loose lips sink ships,’ you ever heard of that?”
“Tarvek....”
“Lover’s spat, cheri?” a female voice interrupted from the doorway into Tarvek’s room. Gil turned to see that it belonged to a lovely black girl with long, wavy hair, who was lounging against the doorframe.
Gil turned back to Tarvek. “Is this your roommate?”
“No,” Tarvek replied flatly as the girl laughed. “My roommate hasn’t showed yet. Colette lives upstairs.”
“Permettez-moi,” the girl said. “Colette Voltaire, Computer Science.”
“Enchante,” Gil replied and shook her hand. “Gil Wulfenbach, Aero/Astro.”
She smiled. “Enchante.”
“My girlfriend,” Tarvek added pointedly.
Gil blinked at him. “Dude, chill. I’ve got my own girlfriend. And it’s someone you know.”
“Oh, really? You’re not... wait, Agatha?!”
Gil blushed, and Colette laughed again.
Just then Ardsley forced the other door open and surveyed the scene in surprise. “Good heavens!” he said. “You two know each other?”
“Oh, yes,” Gil replied before Tarvek could. “My dad’s one of the reasons his last name is Murphy.”
“Which dad?” Tarvek snarked.
Gil had forgotten that little mistaken assumption on Tarvek’s part, and everything that had been simmering since Colorado Springs finally boiled over. “John Winchester is no father of mine, and you know it!” he snarled, barely managing not to slug Tarvek.
The smirk fell off Tarvek’s face. “Gil, what’s happened?”
“He won’t let Dean leave.”
“To come here?”
“No, to... to go anywhere, really, but... I mean, there’ve been a few jobs he’s let Dean handle on his own or with Sam, nothing major. No, Dean got into Georgia Tech, and John freaked out. Wouldn’t even let him finish senior year with me in Beetleburg. I haven’t seen him since. Dad passed me his pager number, but they didn’t even come to graduation.”
Tarvek hissed. “Papa Jim said John was getting worse.”
“Yeah, well.” Gil paused. “Hey, how come you call him Papa Jim?”
“Well, ‘Father’ was out because... well, you know.”
“Right.”
“And ‘Dad’ just felt wrong. ‘Brother’ was too Southern, and ‘Pastor’ didn’t feel right, either. One day Violetta was stuck between ‘Pastor’ and ‘Dad,’ and it came out ‘Papa,’ and... that stuck.”
Gil chuckled, but Ardsley frowned. “What....”
Tarvek sighed. “My adoptive father is a Lutheran minister.”
“Ado—” Ardsley broke off suddenly, looked at Tarvek’s hair, came all the way into the bathroom, and closed the door behind him. “I say! Your birth name’s not Sturmvoraus, is it?!”
Tarvek looked at Gil in exasperation and gestured to Ardsley as if to say, What did I tell you?
“Ardsley’s cool,” Gil insisted.
“Then how did he know my name?” Tarvek objected.
“Dude, his dad knows my dad. He’s probably got... connections.”
“Not least with my father,” Colette chimed in. “Allo, Ardsley.”
“Colette,” Ardsley acknowledged.
Gil frowned. “So what does your dad do, Colette? Or is that a secret, too?”
Colette shrugged. “Not particularly. He is director general of the Renseignements Généraux in Paris.”
Gil blinked several times. “Then... your dad must be in....”
“MI6,” Ardsley confirmed quietly.
Tarvek and Gil looked at each other; Tarvek sighed, and Gil blew the air out of his cheeks.
Ardsley frowned a little. “You didn’t know?”
“Not that part,” Gil admitted. “But you might as well know the rest. My dad, Tarvek’s dad, and John... they’re hunters.”
Ardsley and Colette exchanged a look.
“That explains the salt line,” Ardsley said.
“Oui,” Colette agreed. “And the other wards.”
Gil looked at Tarvek. “Other?”
Tarvek shrugged a little. “Just a devil’s trap.”
Gil looked around at the other three students. “You know something?” he said, crossing his arms. “I think our two rooms might be the safest place on campus.”
At Tarvek’s insistence, Gil called Bobby Singer for the name of a shop in the Bay Area that sold real hoodoo, and he and Tarvek spent Saturday morning making hex bags—one to leave in each room, one for each of the four friends to carry on a daily basis. At Gil’s insistence, Colette helped Tarvek dye his hair a shade of red just unnatural enough to be obviously fake and thus disguise his Sturmvoraus heritage. Sunday, Gil and Tarvek went church-shopping together. And when classes started Monday, life quickly fell into an easy routine. Tarvek’s roommate never showed up, so Tarvek wound up spending as much time in Gil and Ardsley’s room as they did in his, and Colette hated her roommate and wound up spending as much time with the boys as she could within the bounds of propriety. All four of them had quite a few core classes together, too, since Gil was only three quarters behind the other three. Gil called Dad once a week, IMed with Agatha every night, and played pager tag with Dean when he could, and at the end of every unit he made copies of his notes to give to Dean, but mostly he kept too busy all summer to be lonely.
But the summer quarter ended in mid-August, and fall quarter didn’t start until late September. All three boys opted to pay the fee to stay in their rooms over the break; Colette, who was better off than all three of them combined, rented a condo on the beach. Ardsley wasn’t keen on beaches, though, and Gil wasn’t one to enjoy just lying around in the sun, so the four of them started taking day trips around the area every few days to explore and get out of the dorm for a few hours.
After about two weeks, Gil started getting bored.
That didn’t last long, however. The four friends were sitting around in Gil and Ardsley’s room on August 31 when Gil’s pager went off with 439-487-3326. Before Gil could get to his phone, the pager went off again, displaying 369-678-2477. Frowning, Gil picked up his phone and traced the number on the keypad twice before the message became clear: Downstairs. He ran to the window and looked down to see the Impala parked behind the building and Dean standing uncomfortably outside the back entrance.
“Gil?” Tarvek asked. “What is it?”
“Dean’s here!” Gil replied and dashed down to let him in.
“Dude,” Dean said as Gil opened the door for him. “What is this place, Fort Knox?”
“Haven’t you learned how to beat card readers yet?” Gil teased.
“No, never, uh, never really tried.” Dean came in and looked around, his stance still screaming discomfort.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t try to come in through the window. Would have broken the salt line.”
Dean huffed, smiled and ducked his head. “Yeah.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Gil gave Dean the biggest hug he’d ever given anyone who wasn’t Dad or Agatha. Dean startled, but then relaxed into the hug and hugged Gil back.
Dean had gained weight, most of it muscle. That was the only good change Gil sensed. Dean’s soul radiated the same degree of pain it had in Colorado Springs, and Gil caught traces of scents other than leather, gunpowder, and machine oil on him—alcohol, women, disinfectant, other smells Gil didn’t want to think about. And his heart ached.
“It’s been too long, my brother,” Gil whispered and healed what wounds he could.
“Too damn long,” Dean agreed.
After another long moment, Gil patted Dean’s back and let go. “C’mon up, meet everyone.”
Dean looked uncomfortable again. “Kinda need to talk to you.”
“We can talk in my room. Tarvek’s here.”
Dean blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. And Ardsley and Colette are cool. C’mon.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Dean followed Gil onto the elevator and into Gil and Ardsley’s room. By the time they walked in, Dean had his game face on, and after making introductions, Gil let Dean make small talk with Ardsley, trade good-natured barbs with Tarvek, peek under the bed to wave at Zoing, and flirt outrageously with Colette, who gave as good as she got. Gil knew it was all an act, of course, but at least Dean was up to putting it on.
“Seriously, though,” Dean said after a few minutes. “I need to talk over some family business with Gil.”
Ardsley, Tarvek, and Colette glanced at each other, then looked at Gil, who nodded.
“All right,” said Tarvek. “Let’s....” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the bathroom door.
Ardsley and Colette agreed, and all three of them went into the bathroom.
At Dean’s confused frown, Gil explained, “Our room and Tarvek’s share a bathroom. They can go through to his room from there.”
“Oh. Right.” Dean sighed and sat down in the chair Ardsley had just vacated.
Gil sat down in his own desk chair. “What’s going on? Why are you here alone?”
Dean sighed again, more heavily. “Sammy’s got the measles.”
Gil’s eyes widened. “What?!”
“I’m not contagious,” Dean disclaimed quickly. “I already passed quarantine. Took him to Sun’s, and Sun’s granddaughters scrubbed out the car for me. I’m clean.”
“That’s not what I—measles?!”
“I know. I thought we both got all our shots, but maybe we missed one; maybe it didn’t work; maybe it’s some weird mutant strain that could bypass the antibodies. Hell if I know. Sun didn’t.”
“But... okay, Sammy is in Sun’s hospital in Grand Rapids, and you’re here.”
“Sammy’s in Isolation. Sun won’t let me in to see ’im, even with a hazmat suit on. I can call once a day and talk to ’im on speakerphone, but that’s it.”
Gil frowned. “He thinks this is like that mono we had, doesn’t he?”
Dean nodded and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together anxiously. “Said there was no point in my hangin’ around the hospital after I cleared quarantine ’cause there’s nothin’ I can do for ’im right now.”
“Doesn’t mean you had to leave town.”
Dean sighed again. “I know. I know. But there’s nothin’ to do in Grand Rapids I hadn’t already done. Plus, after the mono thing, I... well, I had this idea for a road trip, planned it all out while I was in quarantine. Ten states in ten days. Just get out, see some sights, come back and check on Sammy, maybe do it again ’til he’s better.”
“And John’s....”
“Off with your dad on a hunt. Think they’re up in Maine or something; I’m not sure.”
Gil huffed. “At least he’s sober. Probably. For now.”
Dean raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement and nodded. “Anyway, I was maybe two minutes down the road when Dad paged me coordinates for a hunt. Said it was a werewolf, and with the full moon coming up this weekend, I had to leave right away. It’s between here and Fresno, so I was... I was on my way here anyway, figured I’d at least stop by, say hello. Maybe use the library computers for research.”
“But?”
“Rufus called me yesterday.”
“Rufus Turner?”
Dean nodded. “He’s the one who gave the initial info to Dad, wasn’t real pleased Dad had shoved it off on me. And now I know why.” He ran his hand over his mouth. “It’s not a were. It’s skinwalkers—at least five, maybe ten. They’re a pack. Male and his harem.”
“Don’t tell me. They escaped from von Blitzengaard’s.”
Dean nodded and ran both hands over his face. No one had been prepared for the scale of the breeding operation Tarvek’s cousin Martellus von Blitzengaard had been running on his ranch in western Nevada, supposedly for his exotic pet boutique in Las Vegas. Tarvek himself had known only that Martellus had been breeding werewolves, but Rufus had found thousands each of dozens of monster types, most of which required human flesh to survive. Von Blitzengaard had left the Sturmvoraus family’s criminal empire, but instead of going straight, he’d been conducting experiments on monster biology at the behest of Lucrezia’s father, Lucifer Mongfish—and breeding an army at the same time. Rufus had contacted the FBI to deal with von Blitzengaard himself, who was now in federal prison for life. But Rufus hadn’t been able to get adequate backup quickly enough, and some of the human-form monsters that were smart enough to wheedle their way past the FBI had disappeared before Rufus and his friends could put them down.
“I called Dad,” Dean continued hoarsely. “Tried to ask him for help. He wouldn’t even answer his phone.”
“Did you try Bobby?” Gil asked.
Dean nodded. “Yeah. He called around, but no one’s available from his network. Rufus didn’t know of anybody, either, or... at least, he never suggested anyone.” He looked away, unshed tears glittering in his eyes, and shook his head. “Gil, I don’t know what to do. Those skinwalkers have to be stopped, but this ain’t a one-man job. I can’t do it alone. But Dad... Dad doesn’t even care about Sammy, and Sammy’s his favorite.” He shook his head again. “I mean, I don’t think he wants me to die... I’m just not sure he’d know or care if I did.”
Gil sighed heavily.
“I mean, I’m... I’m not askin’ you to come with me. It’s my suicide mission, and... hell, you’re out. You deserve it. I just... don’t know what the right answer is.”
Before Gil could formulate a response that wasn’t cursing John Winchester’s name to kingdom come, he heard Ardsley’s voice in the bathroom say quietly, “Well, I’m not driving.”
Next
We’re Gonna Form a Group!
June 15, 1998
Palo Alto, California
While Zoing noodled around in the surf, burbling happily and piling up small rocks and bits of shell he wanted for redecorating his thoroughly-scrubbed tank, Gil finished refilling the tank with fresh seawater and sat back on the sand, drinking in the sea breeze and the pre-dawn twilight. As hard as it had been to say goodbye to Agatha two days before, he had spent the drive from Beetleburg regretting his decision to begin his studies during the summer quarter to start catching up on the year that he’d missed. But now, sitting on the beach like this... something deep down in him felt rooted and refreshed and at peace. Maybe he had made the right choice after all.
After a while, on a whim, he reached forward and, as he often did at the seaside without fully knowing why, stuck his right hand in the water again. Mom, he thought oceanward, wherever you are... I’m okay.
Unlike past occasions, however, he felt something drain out of him as the water pulled away. Well, maybe his thoughts would actually reach his mother this time.
His pager went off while he was drying his hand, and when he checked, the number displayed was 439-487-3326—Hey, it’s Dean.
Gil smiled. 987-873-2759, he sent back: You’re up early. It might not be quite as early in whatever time zone Dean was paging from, but Gil knew Dean didn’t like to get up before noon in the summer if he could help it.
283-687-5337, Dean replied: Couldn’t sleep. A few moments later, the pager buzzed again with 866-836-2329, which took Gil a second to decipher into You move in today?
1-974-897-4373—Yes, wish you were here. When Dean didn’t respond right away, Gil added 693-767-6298 ext. 2597, which was trickier, but he couldn’t get My door is open to you always into any fewer digits than that.
*89, Dean finally answered, their code for Thank you. A few minutes passed before he paged again: 424-733-8587—Gotta go, see you later.
655-2837, Gil returned: Okay, later. Then he sighed and returned his pager to his waistband and his new cell phone to his pocket. This system wasn’t perfect, and their code wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than nothing. And since Dean didn’t have his own computer yet and John was adamant that the boys’ shared cell phone was for emergencies only, pager tag was all Dean and Gil had.
Zoing scuttled out of the water and up Gil’s leg to look at him from the top of his knee. Izatimetugo? Zoing asked, waving his antennae curiously.
Just then a sandpiper scurried over. Hey, you! it chirruped. This my spot! Go away!
Gil chuckled. “All right, all right, we’re going. Just a sec.” He put Zoing in his tank, bagged up Zoing’s treasures to give him once they were settled, put the bag in the bucket he’d used to fill the tank, and picked up both bucket and tank to carry back to the car while the sandpiper fussed to itself about humans and started its morning hunt. Once Zoing was firmly settled in the trunk, Gil drove off, scouting stores, restaurants, and apartment complexes on his way toward campus, killing time until the administration offices opened. He was required to live on campus, of course, like all freshmen, but he wasn’t sure he’d want to stay there after the first year; off-campus housing might turn out to be more amenable if he could find decent roommates.
It never occurred to him to brush himself off. Sand never stuck to him anyway.
Precisely at 8, Gil went into the administration building, got his schedule and dorm info, and drove to his new dorm’s main office to receive his keys. Then he pulled the car around to the nearest side entrance of his dorm building, ran upstairs to make sure the room was empty, and dashed down and back up with the tank before anyone could spot him. Once there, he set a salt line at the window and chalked a devil’s trap over the door, then quickly moved one bed in front of an outlet and raised the frame to the top rung on the posts, slid the tank under the bed and plugged in the power cord, and positioned one short dresser and bookcase so the tank couldn’t be seen from the door.
“Okay,” he said when he’d finished. “I’ve gotta go get the rest of my stuff, but I’ll be back in a few minutes. You all right?”
Zk! Zoing replied merrily. IzaCAVE!
Gil laughed. “So it is. Okay, be right back.”
He ran down and brought up the bag of rocks and shells and the box of linens first. Aunt Judy had made him an extra-long bed skirt out of blackout fabric, so Gil placed that before anything else, then stepped back to satisfy himself that it hid the light from the tank. Then he ducked under the bed, dumped the rocks and shells into the tank, and crawled back out to start arranging his half of the room while Zoing worked on arranging his.
Gil had never had one space to settle into for an entire year before. As much work as it was to arrange things, he discovered it was fun. His clothes filled only one drawer, and he didn’t have many books to put on the shelves yet, but that probably wouldn’t last long.
He had just finished hanging the pegboard shelves Uncle Adam had sent and was trying to figure out the best place for the dishes from Ellen when the door opened to reveal a boy with straight black hair and grey eyes, wearing a sweater vest and button-down shirt over knee-length twill shorts and carrying a box of books under one arm and a suitcase in the other hand. “Oh, hullo!” the newcomer said with a crisp English accent. “I say, would you be Gilgamesh?”
“Just call me Gil,” Gil replied and offered his hand.
The newcomer set down his box of books and shook hands. “Ardsley Wooster. I haven’t a nickname, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all right, Ardsley. Nice to meet you.”
Niztu meechooo! Zoing echoed, even though technically he hadn’t met their new roommate yet.
“Delighted!” Ardsley replied with a relieved smile. “Sorry, I suppose I was expecting some toffy-nosed German, with a name like that.”
“Well, my dad’s German,” Gil laughed. “German-American, anyway, Pennsylvania Dutch. He’s never told me anything about my mom. And you’re from... where in England? Manchester?”
“Oh, how clever of you to know!”
“Monkees reruns on Nick at Nite.”
Ardsley laughed.
“Plus, we spent a couple months in Manchester when I was really little. I don’t remember much, but I do remember the accent.”
Ardsley blinked. “I say, your father’s not Klaus Wulfenbach, is he?”
Gil’s eyebrows shot up. “Yes! You know him?”
“Not personally, no, but I think my father’s worked with him a few times. I expect it’s been... oh, ten, fifteen years ago, now.”
Then it was probably something related to whatever Dad had been doing before he met the Winchesters, and Gil knew better than to press for answers about that stuff. “Huh. Wow. Small world.”
“Yes, so ’tis.”
“Well, I’m just about done with my stuff. Need my help bringing your things in?”
“This is it,” Ardsley confessed, setting down his suitcase. “I haven’t much, I’m afraid. There were only so many things I could afford to bring or ship over. And I’m not much of a Beatles fan, which seems to be all the British merchandise the shops about campus stock.”
Gil chuckled. “I hear you. Okay, well—”
Ardsley suddenly looked past Gil and frowned. “What have you got under your bed, old man?”
Gil closed the door, went back to the bed, and raised the skirt at the foot. “Ardsley,” he said, beckoning Ardsley over, “meet Zoing.”
Bink! Zoing chirped and waved his claws.
Ardsley stared. “Is that....”
Gil grinned. “Yup.”
“A live one?”
“Yup.”
“Well, what on earth is he doing under there?”
“The rules say we can have fish.” Gil dropped the bed skirt. “They don’t say anything about crustaceans.”
ARFROPODZ ROOL! Zoing cheered and went back to playing with shells.
Ardsley tried several times to come up with a response. “But... but....”
Gil leaned against the end of the bed. “Look, I rescued him about nine years ago. I’m not getting rid of him. If you know what my dad does, you know why I can’t leave Zoing with him. Most of my other friends aren’t settled enough to take him, either. And my girlfriend lives in Nebraska, which makes it pretty tough for her to get the right kind of saltwater to keep in his tank. So... her mom made me this.” He gestured to the bed skirt.
Ardsley nodded slowly, then took a deep breath. “Well. I shall look forward to learning all about the care and feeding of lobsters.”
Liku! Zoing announced, and as Gil grinned, he felt the same. Housing assignments might be a lottery, but he’d hit the jackpot with Ardsley.
There wasn’t any sort of new student orientation for the summer term, so Gil and Ardsley didn’t have much to do besides getting to know each other and the campus. Ardsley, it turned out, was planning to enter the coterminal Communications program on the Media Studies track and had gotten permission to start in the Stanford program in Oxford because it was closer to home, so even though he was three quarters ahead of Gil, this was his first quarter in the States. And he didn’t have a car, so Gil offered to drive him around town when he needed to run off-campus errands, and in return, Ardsley volunteered to teach Gil how to cook more than what Gil and Dean had learned how to scrounge out of canned goods and boxed meals. They managed to make it to Thursday without running into any of their dorm mates, including the guys in the adjoining room that shared a bathroom with theirs. Gil sensed some sort of discomfort from the neighbors, but neither he nor Ardsley ever heard anything, so they both agreed not to pry.
Thursday afternoon, however, they came home from a grocery run, and Gil started into the bathroom to put away his fresh tube of toothpaste. He’d just opened the door when a pale hand shot out, pulled him inside, and slammed the door behind him.
“What the devil are you doing here?!” whispered a voice Gil hadn’t heard in over six years.
Gil stared wide-eyed at his assailant, whose hair was a distinctive and unusual shade of auburn. “Tar—”
“SHHHH!” Tarvek Sturmvoraus hissed urgently. “Out here, it’s Travis Murphy, and I’ll thank you to remember that.”
Gil frowned. “That’s not exactly a Witness Protection alias.”
“Yes, well, I’m not exactly in Witness Protection.”
“Why not?”
Tarvek huffed. “For one thing, Papa Jim managed to convince the FBI to leave my name out of all records of my testimony. Officially, it was Anevka who blew the whistle.”
“And she was already dead, so that’s convenient.”
“Right. For another, Dyedushka disowned Violetta and me both when he found out we’d turned Protestant.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, well, that was good enough while I was in high school and actually living in the parsonage, on sacred ground. But out here, I can’t be sure one of Dyedushka’s men won’t find me and try to recruit me again.”
“Dude, what are the odds of that? You’ve still got the hex bag, haven’t you?”
“A hex bag’s no good against human eyes and ears! ‘Loose lips sink ships,’ you ever heard of that?”
“Tarvek....”
“Lover’s spat, cheri?” a female voice interrupted from the doorway into Tarvek’s room. Gil turned to see that it belonged to a lovely black girl with long, wavy hair, who was lounging against the doorframe.
Gil turned back to Tarvek. “Is this your roommate?”
“No,” Tarvek replied flatly as the girl laughed. “My roommate hasn’t showed yet. Colette lives upstairs.”
“Permettez-moi,” the girl said. “Colette Voltaire, Computer Science.”
“Enchante,” Gil replied and shook her hand. “Gil Wulfenbach, Aero/Astro.”
She smiled. “Enchante.”
“My girlfriend,” Tarvek added pointedly.
Gil blinked at him. “Dude, chill. I’ve got my own girlfriend. And it’s someone you know.”
“Oh, really? You’re not... wait, Agatha?!”
Gil blushed, and Colette laughed again.
Just then Ardsley forced the other door open and surveyed the scene in surprise. “Good heavens!” he said. “You two know each other?”
“Oh, yes,” Gil replied before Tarvek could. “My dad’s one of the reasons his last name is Murphy.”
“Which dad?” Tarvek snarked.
Gil had forgotten that little mistaken assumption on Tarvek’s part, and everything that had been simmering since Colorado Springs finally boiled over. “John Winchester is no father of mine, and you know it!” he snarled, barely managing not to slug Tarvek.
The smirk fell off Tarvek’s face. “Gil, what’s happened?”
“He won’t let Dean leave.”
“To come here?”
“No, to... to go anywhere, really, but... I mean, there’ve been a few jobs he’s let Dean handle on his own or with Sam, nothing major. No, Dean got into Georgia Tech, and John freaked out. Wouldn’t even let him finish senior year with me in Beetleburg. I haven’t seen him since. Dad passed me his pager number, but they didn’t even come to graduation.”
Tarvek hissed. “Papa Jim said John was getting worse.”
“Yeah, well.” Gil paused. “Hey, how come you call him Papa Jim?”
“Well, ‘Father’ was out because... well, you know.”
“Right.”
“And ‘Dad’ just felt wrong. ‘Brother’ was too Southern, and ‘Pastor’ didn’t feel right, either. One day Violetta was stuck between ‘Pastor’ and ‘Dad,’ and it came out ‘Papa,’ and... that stuck.”
Gil chuckled, but Ardsley frowned. “What....”
Tarvek sighed. “My adoptive father is a Lutheran minister.”
“Ado—” Ardsley broke off suddenly, looked at Tarvek’s hair, came all the way into the bathroom, and closed the door behind him. “I say! Your birth name’s not Sturmvoraus, is it?!”
Tarvek looked at Gil in exasperation and gestured to Ardsley as if to say, What did I tell you?
“Ardsley’s cool,” Gil insisted.
“Then how did he know my name?” Tarvek objected.
“Dude, his dad knows my dad. He’s probably got... connections.”
“Not least with my father,” Colette chimed in. “Allo, Ardsley.”
“Colette,” Ardsley acknowledged.
Gil frowned. “So what does your dad do, Colette? Or is that a secret, too?”
Colette shrugged. “Not particularly. He is director general of the Renseignements Généraux in Paris.”
Gil blinked several times. “Then... your dad must be in....”
“MI6,” Ardsley confirmed quietly.
Tarvek and Gil looked at each other; Tarvek sighed, and Gil blew the air out of his cheeks.
Ardsley frowned a little. “You didn’t know?”
“Not that part,” Gil admitted. “But you might as well know the rest. My dad, Tarvek’s dad, and John... they’re hunters.”
Ardsley and Colette exchanged a look.
“That explains the salt line,” Ardsley said.
“Oui,” Colette agreed. “And the other wards.”
Gil looked at Tarvek. “Other?”
Tarvek shrugged a little. “Just a devil’s trap.”
Gil looked around at the other three students. “You know something?” he said, crossing his arms. “I think our two rooms might be the safest place on campus.”
At Tarvek’s insistence, Gil called Bobby Singer for the name of a shop in the Bay Area that sold real hoodoo, and he and Tarvek spent Saturday morning making hex bags—one to leave in each room, one for each of the four friends to carry on a daily basis. At Gil’s insistence, Colette helped Tarvek dye his hair a shade of red just unnatural enough to be obviously fake and thus disguise his Sturmvoraus heritage. Sunday, Gil and Tarvek went church-shopping together. And when classes started Monday, life quickly fell into an easy routine. Tarvek’s roommate never showed up, so Tarvek wound up spending as much time in Gil and Ardsley’s room as they did in his, and Colette hated her roommate and wound up spending as much time with the boys as she could within the bounds of propriety. All four of them had quite a few core classes together, too, since Gil was only three quarters behind the other three. Gil called Dad once a week, IMed with Agatha every night, and played pager tag with Dean when he could, and at the end of every unit he made copies of his notes to give to Dean, but mostly he kept too busy all summer to be lonely.
But the summer quarter ended in mid-August, and fall quarter didn’t start until late September. All three boys opted to pay the fee to stay in their rooms over the break; Colette, who was better off than all three of them combined, rented a condo on the beach. Ardsley wasn’t keen on beaches, though, and Gil wasn’t one to enjoy just lying around in the sun, so the four of them started taking day trips around the area every few days to explore and get out of the dorm for a few hours.
After about two weeks, Gil started getting bored.
That didn’t last long, however. The four friends were sitting around in Gil and Ardsley’s room on August 31 when Gil’s pager went off with 439-487-3326. Before Gil could get to his phone, the pager went off again, displaying 369-678-2477. Frowning, Gil picked up his phone and traced the number on the keypad twice before the message became clear: Downstairs. He ran to the window and looked down to see the Impala parked behind the building and Dean standing uncomfortably outside the back entrance.
“Gil?” Tarvek asked. “What is it?”
“Dean’s here!” Gil replied and dashed down to let him in.
“Dude,” Dean said as Gil opened the door for him. “What is this place, Fort Knox?”
“Haven’t you learned how to beat card readers yet?” Gil teased.
“No, never, uh, never really tried.” Dean came in and looked around, his stance still screaming discomfort.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t try to come in through the window. Would have broken the salt line.”
Dean huffed, smiled and ducked his head. “Yeah.”
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Gil gave Dean the biggest hug he’d ever given anyone who wasn’t Dad or Agatha. Dean startled, but then relaxed into the hug and hugged Gil back.
Dean had gained weight, most of it muscle. That was the only good change Gil sensed. Dean’s soul radiated the same degree of pain it had in Colorado Springs, and Gil caught traces of scents other than leather, gunpowder, and machine oil on him—alcohol, women, disinfectant, other smells Gil didn’t want to think about. And his heart ached.
“It’s been too long, my brother,” Gil whispered and healed what wounds he could.
“Too damn long,” Dean agreed.
After another long moment, Gil patted Dean’s back and let go. “C’mon up, meet everyone.”
Dean looked uncomfortable again. “Kinda need to talk to you.”
“We can talk in my room. Tarvek’s here.”
Dean blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. And Ardsley and Colette are cool. C’mon.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Dean followed Gil onto the elevator and into Gil and Ardsley’s room. By the time they walked in, Dean had his game face on, and after making introductions, Gil let Dean make small talk with Ardsley, trade good-natured barbs with Tarvek, peek under the bed to wave at Zoing, and flirt outrageously with Colette, who gave as good as she got. Gil knew it was all an act, of course, but at least Dean was up to putting it on.
“Seriously, though,” Dean said after a few minutes. “I need to talk over some family business with Gil.”
Ardsley, Tarvek, and Colette glanced at each other, then looked at Gil, who nodded.
“All right,” said Tarvek. “Let’s....” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the bathroom door.
Ardsley and Colette agreed, and all three of them went into the bathroom.
At Dean’s confused frown, Gil explained, “Our room and Tarvek’s share a bathroom. They can go through to his room from there.”
“Oh. Right.” Dean sighed and sat down in the chair Ardsley had just vacated.
Gil sat down in his own desk chair. “What’s going on? Why are you here alone?”
Dean sighed again, more heavily. “Sammy’s got the measles.”
Gil’s eyes widened. “What?!”
“I’m not contagious,” Dean disclaimed quickly. “I already passed quarantine. Took him to Sun’s, and Sun’s granddaughters scrubbed out the car for me. I’m clean.”
“That’s not what I—measles?!”
“I know. I thought we both got all our shots, but maybe we missed one; maybe it didn’t work; maybe it’s some weird mutant strain that could bypass the antibodies. Hell if I know. Sun didn’t.”
“But... okay, Sammy is in Sun’s hospital in Grand Rapids, and you’re here.”
“Sammy’s in Isolation. Sun won’t let me in to see ’im, even with a hazmat suit on. I can call once a day and talk to ’im on speakerphone, but that’s it.”
Gil frowned. “He thinks this is like that mono we had, doesn’t he?”
Dean nodded and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together anxiously. “Said there was no point in my hangin’ around the hospital after I cleared quarantine ’cause there’s nothin’ I can do for ’im right now.”
“Doesn’t mean you had to leave town.”
Dean sighed again. “I know. I know. But there’s nothin’ to do in Grand Rapids I hadn’t already done. Plus, after the mono thing, I... well, I had this idea for a road trip, planned it all out while I was in quarantine. Ten states in ten days. Just get out, see some sights, come back and check on Sammy, maybe do it again ’til he’s better.”
“And John’s....”
“Off with your dad on a hunt. Think they’re up in Maine or something; I’m not sure.”
Gil huffed. “At least he’s sober. Probably. For now.”
Dean raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement and nodded. “Anyway, I was maybe two minutes down the road when Dad paged me coordinates for a hunt. Said it was a werewolf, and with the full moon coming up this weekend, I had to leave right away. It’s between here and Fresno, so I was... I was on my way here anyway, figured I’d at least stop by, say hello. Maybe use the library computers for research.”
“But?”
“Rufus called me yesterday.”
“Rufus Turner?”
Dean nodded. “He’s the one who gave the initial info to Dad, wasn’t real pleased Dad had shoved it off on me. And now I know why.” He ran his hand over his mouth. “It’s not a were. It’s skinwalkers—at least five, maybe ten. They’re a pack. Male and his harem.”
“Don’t tell me. They escaped from von Blitzengaard’s.”
Dean nodded and ran both hands over his face. No one had been prepared for the scale of the breeding operation Tarvek’s cousin Martellus von Blitzengaard had been running on his ranch in western Nevada, supposedly for his exotic pet boutique in Las Vegas. Tarvek himself had known only that Martellus had been breeding werewolves, but Rufus had found thousands each of dozens of monster types, most of which required human flesh to survive. Von Blitzengaard had left the Sturmvoraus family’s criminal empire, but instead of going straight, he’d been conducting experiments on monster biology at the behest of Lucrezia’s father, Lucifer Mongfish—and breeding an army at the same time. Rufus had contacted the FBI to deal with von Blitzengaard himself, who was now in federal prison for life. But Rufus hadn’t been able to get adequate backup quickly enough, and some of the human-form monsters that were smart enough to wheedle their way past the FBI had disappeared before Rufus and his friends could put them down.
“I called Dad,” Dean continued hoarsely. “Tried to ask him for help. He wouldn’t even answer his phone.”
“Did you try Bobby?” Gil asked.
Dean nodded. “Yeah. He called around, but no one’s available from his network. Rufus didn’t know of anybody, either, or... at least, he never suggested anyone.” He looked away, unshed tears glittering in his eyes, and shook his head. “Gil, I don’t know what to do. Those skinwalkers have to be stopped, but this ain’t a one-man job. I can’t do it alone. But Dad... Dad doesn’t even care about Sammy, and Sammy’s his favorite.” He shook his head again. “I mean, I don’t think he wants me to die... I’m just not sure he’d know or care if I did.”
Gil sighed heavily.
“I mean, I’m... I’m not askin’ you to come with me. It’s my suicide mission, and... hell, you’re out. You deserve it. I just... don’t know what the right answer is.”
Before Gil could formulate a response that wasn’t cursing John Winchester’s name to kingdom come, he heard Ardsley’s voice in the bathroom say quietly, “Well, I’m not driving.”
