4. Bread Crumbs

The one thing (I believe) that Henry failed to realize on the four hour drive to the location he gave us is that time changes everything.

"What's going on here?" he murmurs as we stand before our destination. We passed a few businesses (an antiques store and a shop called "Nu" which offered salads and pita bread) before landing where we are now. I tilt my head. What Henry sees now, what we're all seeing right now, is a comic book store, Astro Comics. A symbol is still visible on the door, but it looks like time has eaten a bit of it away.

I look around as Henry drinks in the change. I almost feel like I'm back home, only I'm with people that are stranger that those I've met in the past. My nails gently rake my arm. I tuck them under my armpits once I realize what I'm doing. I scratch when I'm nervous, no matter the intensity of my anxiety.

"No," I hear Henry whisper. I have to feel a little bad for the old-timer. He's so out of place in a time that's very unfamiliar to him.

"All right," Dean interrupts, "well, this is enlightening." He claps his hands loudly. "Let's hit the road, huh?"

"Give him a minute, Dean," Sam says defensively.

"We just spent four hours driving, okay? All he did was stare out the window and request Pat Boone on the radio. He had his time."

"It's just a façade," says Henry, "a way to rook our enemies into believing we're housed elsewhere."

"Okay, enough with the decoder talk. How about you tell us what this whole 'Men of Letters' business is, or you're on your own."

"It's none of your concern."

"Why, because we're hunters?" Dean snaps. The twitch to start scratching again runs in my fingers. "What do you have against us?"

"Aside from the unthinking, unwashed, shoot-first-and-don't-bother-to-ask-questions-later part, not much, really."

"You know what?" Sam joins in. "Wait a second. We're also John's children."

"You're more than that, actually," Henry says thoughtfully. "My father and his father before him were both Men of Letters, as John and you two should have been. We're preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that which man does not understand. We share our findings with a few trusted hunters-the very elite. They do the rest."

"So you're like Yodas to our Jedis," Dean sums. Huh, never pegged him for a moviegoer. Henry looks very confused by Dean's reference. "Never mind. You'll get there."

"Okay," Sam says, "but if you guys were such a big deal, then why haven't we-or anyone we know-ever heard of you?"

Henry sums it all in one word, a name: "Abaddon." He opens the door to the comic book store, and Sam and Dean follow. Somehow, I find myself going in after them. Maybe it's because I don't want this demon Abaddon finding me all by myself. She'll use me to her advantage in a heartbeat if she gets a hold of me. Safety in numbers. Not my usual motto, but mottos can change.

"Since nobody's gonna ask the question, I might as well," I pipe. "Why'd she do it, Henry, whatever she did?"

Dean looks over his shoulder at me. "I thought you ran off. You have your chance."

"Yeah, well, that was before I got roped into whatever the hell this is." I hug myself. "The streets aren't exactly a haven right now."

"And being around us is?"

"Sadly, yes." I frown.

"To answer your question, Natasha," Henry cuts in, "I think for this." I crane my neck to see a small wooden box in his name. A symbol is carved into it.

"Okay, what's that?" Sam asks.

"I wish I knew." Henry tucks away the box. "Abaddon attacked us the night of my final initiation. All secrets were to be revealed then."

"Let me get this straight," Dean says. "You traveled through time to protect something that does you-don't-know-what from a demon that you know nothing about?" Henry stares a Dean for a long second before going further down the hallway. Dean spread his hands. "Good."

I shove lightly into Dean and follow Henry as he enters another room. I look around and take in all the merchandise. I'm taken a back a little by the woman at the counter. She's decked in all black, donning a studded leather collar.

"Hand me your...walkie-talkie," Henry mutters.

"You mean my phone?" Sam clarifies.

"Even better." I watch Henry curiously as he puts Sam's phone near his mouth. "Operator, I need Delta four-five-seven."

"Who are you not calling?" Dean deadpans. I rub behind one of my ears, biting down a laugh. Oh yeah, Henry is way out of his era.

"Our emergency number."

"Yeah. Not anymore." Dean takes the phone back and gives it back to Sam.

"They can't all be gone," Henry murmurs. "There must be another elder out there who can help us figure out how to stop Abaddon and what to do with the box."

Dean approaches the woman at the counter. "Hey, uh, hi. Can we hijack your computer for a hot second?"

Henry laughs. "Like you could fit a computer in this room."

An awkward silence falls, and I on top of the woman looks at Henry strangely. "Sure," she agrees.

"Thanks." Dean spins the computer around on the counter. "Sam."

I stand on my tiptoes as Sam hunches over the computer. "Yep. All right," he says, "um...give me a name-anybody who, uh, might have been there that night-one of those elders."

"Um..." It takes Henry a second. "Ackers, David. Larry Ganem." Sam types into the search engine. "Um, Ted-"

"Okay, here it is. Um, August twelfth, nineteen fifty-eight. A tragic fire at a gentleman's club. Uh, two forty-two Gaines Street."

"This is two forty-two Gaines Street," Henry tells us. "But that was no fire."

"Larry Ganem, David Ackers, Ted Bown, and Albert Magnus-all deceased."

"Albert Magnus." The name seems to ring a bell to Henry.

"He a friend of yours?" Dean asks. I see him trying to check out the woman. I roll my eyes quietly.

"Even better."

* * *

"You guys are insane," I squawk as the guys are filing out of the car. They all have flashlights and are about to walk through a cemetery.

"Hey, you could have run off when we were at the comic store," Dean tells me sharply. "You're still hanging around. We're giving you plenty of chances to leave."

"Seriously, though?" I find myself climbing out of the car.

"If you're so freaked, just stay in the car and don't take off with it. Though, judging by how slow you were earlier today, I'm not too worried." Dean smirks wryly.

I narrow my blue eyes at him. "I'm still waiting to be killed and buried."

"And like Sam told you before, we're not gonna gank you." He shines the flashlight in my face. "You got two choices, Natasha: stay in the car, or come with us. Or you can find someone else to hitchhike with."

"That's three choices, dumbass," I snap. I huff. The logical thing to do is stay in the car. But safety in numbers, remember? You'd be safe with them. "You got an extra flashlight on you?"

Dean tosses me one over the car's top, and I nearly miss the catch. I slink in the back with Henry as Sam and Dean take lead through the cemetery. I swallow. This shouldn't freak me out, but it does. I don't put it past a cemetery to be as whacked-out as some of the shit I've seen today. Man, is it bad that I want to go back and forget this ever happened? Is it really bad that I prefer the life I'm living over Sam and Dean's, as bad as mine is? Realistically, these boys have it better than me. They've got money, each other, food, shelter-the basics in life. Me? I've got the clothes on my back, my shank (which Dean still hasn't given me back yet), and my survival instincts.

I try and respect the dead by not stepping on any burial places. It's hard to avoid them, though; there are just so many. I'm glad none of my family is buried here. They're all safe, sound, full, alive...

I swallow the bile in my throat. My family brings out bad reactions in me, no matter how severe or small.

"These were my friends," Henry says distantly, "my mentors, our last defense against the Abaddons of the world."

"Here's your buddy Albert Magnus," says Dean as he shines a light on a headstone.

"Albert Magnus. He was hardly a buddy. He was the greatest alchemist of the middle ages."

"Okay, so why is he buried here?" Sam asks.

"He's not. His was the alias we'd use when going incognito. I believe someone planted his name in that article...so that if a Man of Letters came looking for answers, he'd know something was amiss."

"So someone wanted you to come to this grave," I speak.

"The question is why."

"What is this?" Dean says, keeping the light on a rather intricate symbol on the headstone.

"Our crest. The Aquarian Star, representing great magic and power. They say it stood at the gates of Atlantis itself."

"Hmm," says Sam. "It's on all the tombstones except for this one-uh, Larry Ganem."

Henry crouches in front of the headstone that is lit up thanks to Sam's light. "The Haitian symbol for speaking to the dead." Of course it is, I think. "This is the message." He looks to Sam and Dean. "You boys ever exhume a body?"

"Sorry," I interject, "but you could be less of a dictionary?"

"He's asking us if we've dug up bodies," Sam tells me.

"O-oh." I swallow. "I guess that's a stupid question, because I'm going out on a limb and guessing that you two have. Dug them up, made them yourselves..." I shiver.

Sam and Dean take over the excavation while Henry and I watch. Somehow, I end up watching when I thought the sight of it would make me feel ill. Somehow, I'm slowly adjusting to all this fairly well. I keep my distance a little bit from the grave, though, as when Sam and Dean throw up dirt, Dean intentionally tries to throw some at me each time.

I don't sit on the ground, I feel like I'd be disrespecting the dead. With all that I've seen today, the last thing I want to see is a ghost, or a zombie. That's probably possible with Sam and Dean, and what they've seen. Hell, it's probably just another day as hunters with those encounters.

I eventually grow bored the longer the boys dig up the grave. I get so bored as to purposely clicking the flashlight on and off. Henry takes away my flashlight after it gets on his nerves.

"Watching gets old after a while," I say with a shrug. "Can you blame me?"

"Here's an idea," comes Dean's voice from the hole, "why don't you help?"

"No thanks." I hold my head up. "I'm a lot of things, but not a grave digger."

"Oh, you're a lot of things all right..."

"What do you plan to do after this, Natasha?" Henry focuses my attention on him.

"Hmm?" I look at him wearily. "I have no idea."

"I'll tell you exactly what she's gonna be doing next," Dean calls from the hole.

"He's not asking you!" I look at Henry apologetically. "If you didn't pick up on it already, I'm not a hunter like them."

"You tried to steal the car?"

I nod. "Thought I could get away with it." I sink to my knees as Henry crouches beside the grave.

"So you've turned to a life of crime?"

"No." I say this immediately and very sharply.

"I didn't mean to offend you," he says gently. "I was only guessing."

"Well, you guessed wrong. You don't know a thing about me."

"Natasha, I never said that I did. Having a temper doesn't help anyone. Calm down, please."

I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling a bit awful for snapping at Henry. He's right, he only guessed. He isn't making an assumption. Why is it that I'm associated with crime?

Well, I did attempt to steal Dean's car earlier today.

I feel my guilt disappear once Sam and Dean heave the coffin out from the ground. I put my hand to my nose as the coffin is open to reveal a skeleton in a suit. I keep the furthest distance from it.

"Hey, was, uh, Larry a World War One vet?" Dean asks Henry.

"No."

"Well, then, who's the stiff?"

"No idea."

"Captain Thomas J. Carey the Third," Sam reads on the metal tag on the skeleton's clothes. "That mean anything to you?"

Henry just shakes his head.

"Well, somebody wanted you to see this," Dean concludes, "so maybe that somebody is Larry."

"So, what, maybe he, uh, survives the attack and hides out with this guy's identity?"

"Okay. What are we waiting for then?" Henry starts off for the car. "Cover this up. Let's be on our way."

"Sorry, boys, cover-ups aren't my thing either!" I say as I quickly follow beside Henry so as to not get roped into anymore cemetery action.

**Who's getting attached already to Natasha? She kinda reminds you of a certain someone who has a similar story to her. (Reference my works to figure out the reference)

But I can assure you, readers, Natasha's story is different. Much, much different. You'll see.**