Final Hope
<Katia’s POV>
Everything was black.
One minute Dean, Sam, the demon-angel hybrid and I had been stood in the living room of Gideon Walker’s house; the next my vision had completely vanished and it felt like I was being sucked into some sort of vacuum with no escape route.
Luckily, my vision returned after a short time; instantly I realised that we were no longer in the room we had been in prior to me losing my vision. Instead we were in the open outdoors, I was being crushed by two fully grown men; Dean’s foot was practically grinding my face into the gravelled floor, causing me a lot of discomfort.
The demon-angel hybrid hadn’t vanished; she stood just before out human-pile whilst staring down on us, a smirk so obviously playing on her face. ‘Sorry about that,’ she muttered, her voice didn’t even show the slightest sign of her being sincere.
‘What the hell was that?’ Dean hissed as he pushed himself up from the floor; once Sam had stood up from where he’d been lying at the top of the pile. As Dean struggled up from the floor, his booted foot managed to push more violently against my face causing me a little more pain- and I didn’t even think that was possible.
I let out a much needed yelp before shoving Dean’s foot off of my face. ‘Do you mind?’ I questioned harshly whilst using my free hand, which wasn’t still trapped beneath my body, to gently rub the injured area of my face.
With a little more of a struggle, Dean and I managed to untangle our limbs so both of us could stand up freely once again. Both Sam and the demon-angel hybrid wore identical smirks on the face as they watched out struggle; Sam had obviously not had it as bad, after all he had me and Dean to pad his landing.
‘Katia, do you have shoe prints on your face?’ Sam questioned as he examined the skin that I had previously been rubbing.
‘No thanks to Dean,’ I hissed; absently I ran my hand over my face once more whilst feeling slightly self-conscious due to the three pairs of eyes that were currently only me. Dean didn’t even try to hide the loud, bark of a laugh which left his mouth as he looked at the mark he’d made on my face. ‘Screw you.’
Dean continued to laugh before he got a glance of the area that we were stood in, that seemed to shut him up. It also made me shut up, I couldn’t even think of a witty comment as I looked around the alleyway that we had landed in. This definitely wasn’t even close to where we had been previously.
‘Where are we?’ Sam asked what Dean and I were both thinking.
‘New York City, New York in the year nineteen-twenty-one,’ the demon spoke casually; as if on cue, a couple- a man and woman- strolled past the alley.
‘Why the heck are we in this year? You said you were going to take us back to the man with cure, if I remember correctly you said that he lived hundreds of years ago,’ Dean announced; his sudden outburst caught the demon off guard but she was quick to regain herself.
‘My angel grace is fading, if you three want to get back to present day in one piece then this is as far as I could take you; either way, the final family member with the cure lives around here, but it’s up to you to find her,’ the demon spoke. ‘You have twenty-four hours to find the woman- Alexia Russo- and meet me back here; if you’re even a second late, you’re going to have to find someone else to return you back to present day,’ she continued.
‘Why don’t you stay, can’t you get help as well?’ I questioned; this demon was doing all of this for us, yet she wasn’t even trying to help herself.
The demon shook her head. ‘My souls already been replaced; the only chance I have is to complete this deal, you still have time to get out of it,’ she answered. ‘Just, hurry up okay.’
With that, the demon zapped out of New York City, 1921.
-
Dean, Sam and I gained the attention of many New Yorker’s getting on with their daily life; it was probably something about the fact that Dean and Sam were dressed in denim jeans and workmen boots, whilst I wore skinny jeans and a leather jacket. We weren’t exactly dressed appropriately for our current era.
‘Is it really that unusual to see people dressed this way?’ I questioned as I stared at the floor, trying not to make eye contact with the many men and women who decided that they had to stare.
Dean just shrugged; he and Sam kept their heads up- unharmed by the shocked looks- whilst walking to whatever destination they had in mind. According to them, if we walk through the main city for long enough we’ll eventually stumble across someone, or something, that could possibly help us with our current task.
‘Are you two even going to speak to me, where are we going?’ I continued to fire questions at my older brother’s. The pair of them was walking quickly through the crowds of people; I had to run slightly to keep up with them both.
Sam turned to look back at me; he looked down at me like I was some sort of annoying child. ‘We need to hurry up Katia, we only have a day,’ Sam stated.
‘We’re in a different state, we’re in a different year for God’s sake; don’t you two want to stop for just a minute? We should check this place out, how often do people get to visit the past? For all we know, this woman could be hidden away or something, we might never even find her and we would’ve spent this entire day looking for no one when we could’ve been checking out old-school Times Square,’ I huffed whilst continuing to run after the men.
This time it was Dean who turned back to look at me. ‘If we find this woman, and a way to end your deal, I’ll find an angel who can take us back to the past; we can visit this place all over again if you just stick to the damned plan,’ Dean snarled, he then turned left down another busy street.
I just groaned, and rolled my eyes, before continuing to jog after the two men.
-
For some reason, Sam had decided that a shop selling herbal remedies, and medicine, would be the correct place to look for this “Alexia Russo” chick. The second he’d pushed the door open an old man, dressed in some patched up clothing and a leather apron, was immediately exiting the back room.
‘How can I help ya?’ he was quick to ask; his voice was grainy and sounded a little underused- if that was even possible?
Sam and Dean continued to walk towards the desk; I stood in the centre of them both as they stared at the old man intensely. The shop owner was too busy staring at my leather jacket to even realise that both Dean and Sam were staring at him in such a way.
‘Alexia Russo, you heard of her?’ Dean questioned; well with the tone he used it was more like a demand.
The old man turned away from me, and moved to meet Dean’s eyes. ‘Alexia Russo, ain’t she some sorta star nowadays?’ the man questioned, his voice still quiet and raspy.
‘I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you,’ Dean was quick to reply.
‘Yeah, she made it big on Broadway a couple years ago,’ the elder answered as he wiped his hands on a ragged cloth. ‘You ask anyone, they’ll tell you who she is.’
‘Where can we find her?’ Sam asked this time; he obviously wasn’t interested in the life story of this Alexia chick, to be honest, neither was I.
‘Do I look like a man who’d keep tabs on ‘em famous ones?’
‘Sir, we aren’t from around here, as a matter of fact I don’t even know who Alexia Russo is; all we need is a location, and we’ll be right out of your hair,’ I put in, gaining the old man’s attention once more.
‘Look for anywhere with a crowd, poor girl can’t get away from ‘em press,’ the man finished; he then stood up from the stool he’d been sat on.
‘Okay, thank you,’ I smiled finally before turning around the exit the store. It was quite clear that the poor man didn’t have any expertise knowledge on Alexia Russo; for all we know, she might not even be the correct Alexia Russo that we are looking for.
‘That was useless,’ Dean confessed as soon as we’d exited the store. ‘How hard can it be to track a celebrity in the year nineteen-twenty-one?’
‘To be honest, it’s probably harder than it is nowadays; I mean social media is where a you find a celebrity, if you stalk them for long enough I’m sure you’ll get their entire routine nailed,’ I responded simply as I closed the store door behind me.
Once again, we were back in the eye of these New Yorker’s with their prying eyes. I was grateful due to the fact that I had actually decided to wear jeans today rather than shorts; if I was rocking shorts in New York City, 1921 I would probably make the cover of some newspaper.
‘This is New York though, you can’t spot a crowd in this amount of people,’ Sam announced.
Currently I was scanning the area which we stood in, it wasn’t hard for me to spot the large amount of people gathered in the doorway of some sort of club. As I focused on the group for longer I noticed a small amount of the people stood there wore cameras- those completely old-fashioned ones, with a large light bulb fitted into the interior.
‘Is it just me, or does that look like a crowd to you?’ I pointed out whilst nodding in the direction of the crowd.
Dean and Sam both turned to look in the same direction; a small smirk appeared on Dean’s face, and Sam’s eyebrow seemed to rise when he realised how easy this task actually was. Maybe the demon-angel hybrid’s plan was simply to put us in the correct place, at the correct time.
‘Not bad, Katy,’ Dean muttered as he smacked me lightly in the back of the head. He then instantly began to cross the basically empty road, which was only being used for people walking; Sam and I took a few seconds to process what he actually was doing before following after him.
-
It had been a hell of a hard job to shove through the members of the paparazzi and into the club. Sam stood to the side of the entrance whilst regaining his breath; after all he had been at the front of the line, shoving the main people out of the way, as Dean and I followed behind him- the perks of being the tallest sibling.
Now the three of us stood by the entrance of the club.
Since we had arrived in the club I had been glancing around for any sign of a celebrity; Alexia Russo to be more specific. Apparently Dean, Sam and I had wrongly assumed that this group of paparazzi would lead us directly into the presence of the celebrity we needed.
In this joint, the only sign of a celebrity was a man; not the person we were looking for.
The man was sat on a barstool, a flock of women stood around him whilst smoking on cigarettes or sipping glasses of whatever drink they fancied. The celebrity clearly loved the attention that these women were offering him; he didn’t even attempt to dismiss the females, or act the slightest bit casual about the entire situation.
‘Check this place out,’ Dean mumbled in my ear as he continued to look around the club.
It was nothing like the clubs which exist now, these ones actually contained a bit of class and the people in them were all dressed relatively formally. Maybe that’s just because this is quite a formal club, if you didn’t wear a suit or dress- like Dean, Sam and I- you ended up standing out like sore thumb.
‘I know,’ I responded, still in awe as I looked around the room. ‘But Alexia isn’t here,’ I pointed out.
Dean turned to look down at me, ‘I recall you telling Sammy and I that we deserved a break, how about half-an-hour in here? That can be our break.’ It was the look of hopefulness on Dean’s face that made me give in to his suggestion; he really looked like he wanted to test-out a club in the 1920’s.
‘I’ve always wanted to party like it was nineteen-twenty,’ I smirked.
My eldest brother grinned childishly; he eyes then caught the sight of the game of pool being played at the far side of the club. ‘Hell yeah,’ he smirked to himself as he left in that direction, leaving Sam and I alone by the front door of the club.
An entire hour had passed and Dean still hadn’t returned from the pool table; in fact he had only spoken to us twice when he came over to order drinks from the bar. The second time he had come over to us, it had been about thirty-five minutes ago and he still didn’t seem to realise the time.
‘Can Dean not tell the time or something?’ I asked Sam.
Sam and I had been abandoned at the bar. Some women had come over to try and have a conversation with Sam, he’d politely declined them stating that he was only here for “business reasons”. With that, the couple of them had fled to the pool table which was gathering quite a crowd.
Although the crowd of people watching Dean, and the other three men, play pool, Sam and I could still clearly see our older brother through the flocks of people. Dean wore a winning smile on his face, and every so often he’d flirt with one of the women stood at his side; it had been quite some time since I’d seen this side of him.
‘Should we go and fetch him?’ I asked Sam once again.
Sam drank the last drop of his orange juice; yes, Sam was actually drinking orange juice in a club. ‘We can go try,’ he decided as he placed his glass down on the bar counter. ‘I’m not sure about how much success we’ll have with him,’ he continued as he stood up from the barstool that he’d been sat on.
The two of us made our way across the club. As we passed the entrance, the door was forced open and a woman came stumbling in looking rather flustered. Sam quickly rushed to her aid, making sure that she didn’t fall directly on to her face.
‘Stupid paparazzi,’ she muttered under her breath as she caught onto Sam’s arms before looking up at him. ‘Thank you,’ she smiled; her New York accent was thick.
‘No problem,’ Sam replied, he smiled back at her kindly.
‘It’s them darn men, with their darn cameras; ain’t a girl ever allowed a little peace?’ she continued to gaze directly into Sam’s eyes and I felt like I was interrupting something. Sam just laughed awkwardly in response before the woman released his arm, still smiling at him. ‘You don’t know who I am, do ya?’
‘Not really, no,’ Sam replied awkward; I could have cringed at the awkwardness of this situation.
‘And I thought everyone ‘round here knew ‘bout me,’ she laughed, clearly flirting with Sam. ‘Alexia,’ she greeted before putting out her hand, as if waiting for Sam to grab it and kiss it.
‘Sam,’ Sam greeted; it took a couple of seconds for the name “Alexia” to click in both mine and Sam’s heads, when it actually did Sam seemed to look up in surprise. ‘You mean, Alexia Russo?’
‘So you have heard ‘bout me,’ she continued, her smile small and flirtatious.
‘I guess I have,’ he now smiled back. ‘You’re pretty famous around here aren’t you?’
‘Ain’t you from these areas?’ Alexia questioned, Sam simply shook his head. ‘How ‘bout you buy me a drink, you can then tell me jus’ where you from,’ it was more of a demand then a question.
‘Sure,’ Sam agreed. Alexia gave him another flirtatious smile before walking back towards the bar. When Alexia’s back was turned Sam turned quickly to me. ‘Tell Dean I found her, I’ll try and get some information from her or something,’ his spat rapidly before rushing after the actress in the red dress.
I rolled my eyes, mainly at the fact that I’d been abandoned by my final brother, before making my way over to Dean; through the ever growing crowd of people.
Dean practically ignored me up until the point of him beating his opponents at, what was probably his fourth game, of pool. He didn’t even look like he was going to stop playing then; I practically had to drag him away from the table to communicate with him.
‘I was playing a winning streak,’ he objected as he flailed his arms around.
‘You said you we were going to spend half an hour here,’ I pointed out casually as I walked in the direction of Sam, and Alexia. ‘It’s been an hour and fifteen minutes Dean.’
The amount of time that I said seemed to shock Dean; he turned to look at the clock on the back wall of the club. ‘Why didn’t you come and get me earlier?’ he questioned, his voice suddenly increasing with panic and annoyance. ‘We’re running behind, Katia.’
‘Actually, we’re not,’ I continued. Nudging my head in the direction of Sam and Alexia, Dean turned to follow the direction that I signalled for him to. Once he’d registered that it was Sam chatting to the dark haired woman, wearing a red dress and high heels, he turned to look at me in surprise.
‘You found her?’
‘I guess you could say that she found us, she fell straight into Sam’s arms in fact,’ I smirked at Dean.
Dean instantly began to walk towards the couple; I attempted to stop him but he was too persistent and I reacted a little too slowly. His sights were set, and he wasn’t going to stop until he’d seen what was going on between Sam and Alexia.
‘Sammy, why don’t you introduce us to your “lady friend”?’ Dean questioned rudely as he looped an arm over Sam’s shoulders before staring directly at Alexia. She seemed a little startled by Dean’s sudden appearance as her eyes flickered from Sam, to Dean, and then back to Sam.
Sam, who now looked kind of pissed, shoved Dean’s arm away from him. ‘Alexia, this is my brother Dean, and my sister Katia,’ the tallest Winchester introduced us both. I smiled politely, before giving Alexia a friendly wave; Dean kept his face straight as he blatantly checked out the female.
‘Nice t’ meet you both,’ Alexia responded, she then turned to look directly at me. ‘So you’re the one with the devils curse?’ she asked casually, as if this was something that came up in regular conversations.
I’d been gone for literally fifteen minutes and Sam had already told this stranger my life story?
‘Yep, that would be me,’ I mumbled awkwardly.
‘Well since ya brother’s such a charmer, I guess I can find a little time to help ya out,’ she continued before standing up. ‘We ain’t gonna find nothing out in here; my apartment ain’t too far from here, come on,’ Alexia instructed. She then grabbed her purse from the bar counter before strutting her way towards the doors of the club.
-
Alexia’s apartment was nice, it wasn’t exactly anything special, but it was nice.
The entire place was tied into one room, well except for the curtain which separated the bedroom from the open area, and the door which the bathroom was probably closed behind.
‘No gonna lie, I was kind of expecting more...glam,’ Dean announced, he flounced his hands around when he said the word “glam”. I was thinking the exact same thing; the only difference was that I decided to keep my thoughts to myself as it probably wasn’t the correct thing to say to a complete stranger.
Alexia turned back to Dean, she then placed her purse on the kitchen counter. ‘I ain’t got round to adding my touch jus’ yet, I only moved in jus’ last week,’ she responded before walking off into the room with the curtain door.
Seconds later she returned carrying a wooden, trinket box. As she got closer to Dean, Sam and I, I could make out the engravings of a couple of stars and a moon on the lid of the box; it was quite a beautiful box.
‘My daddy gave me this on my eighteenth birthday, said it would help me if I ever got into any trouble,’ she continued to speak as she opened the box. A split-second later she slammed to box closed once more before turning to face my brothers’ and I, ‘but I ain’t ever tell no one about this box, how’d you know about it?’
‘We were told about you, and then someone brought us here and gave us a name, your name,’ I informed Alexia.
‘Now what; am I jus’ meant t’ give you the instructions? It’s a lengthy process you know, gonna take you a while to complete,’ Alexia continued to talk.
‘Alexia, please,’ Sam spoke up, just his voice made Alexia’s face soften. ‘We don’t need anything else, just the instructions for this deal-breaker,’ he proceeded to speak.
Apparently Alexia has a soft spot for my brother, and this time it’s not Dean who she wants. Once again, she opened her little trinket box before pulling out a sheet of tattered paper. ‘Everythin’ you need is on here; all you gotta do is mix it all together, set the ingredients alight and breathe in the smoke.’
‘I don’t understand how that’s going to break a demon’s deal,’ Dean pointed out; I was sort of confused as well.
‘Somethin’ about cleansing the soul, my daddy used to tell me,’ Alexia smiled at the memories. ‘Removes all traces of a demon’s touch; anything that ain’t been made permanent can be removed.’
-
We still had hours until our time in the past was up; Dean and I were now pacing the streets of downtown New York, looking for a way to spend our time.
Sam on the other hand, he’d stayed at Alexia’s under her request. Before we left, Dean had given him strict instructions to meet us back at the alley we’d arrived in; secretly I think he was jealous due to the fact that this time Sam was the one attracting the female attention, not him.
The ingredients to this deal-breaker were saved on both Dean’s phone, and the back of Sam’s hand. Alexia had been put in a complete trance when Dean pulled his mobile phone from his pocket; he’d simply told her “that it’s something to look forward to in the future”.
‘How do you want to spend our last few hours in 1921?’ Dean asked me; he clearly had a thought of what he wanted to do already in mind.
‘Nowhere in particular, so we can do whatever you want,’ I responded, instantly his face lit up.
‘Well, I was kicking ass in pool,’ Dean spoke simply.
‘Let’s go back to that club then; I want to know what the roaring-twenties was all about,’ I announced with a huge, jaw-aching grin on my face.
---
I’m sorry (I’ve been apologising a lot recently).
I do not know how New Yorker’s speak now, never mind ninety years ago. I took the way that Alexia spoke from “Curley’s wife” in the film, “Of Mice and Men”.
So yeah, sorry if this is totally offensive to any American living in the 1920’s...
-T xox