Demons and Hunters and Pie, Oh My!
The loud thud of another huge volume slamming on the table caused the dust motes to restart their perfectly unchoreographed dance. I blinked against the blurry sleep forming in my eyes, trying to regain enough focus to read the printed words in front of me. Definitely not working. I rubbed my eyes and pushed away from the table, holding the book up to see if the words would become clearer from farther away. Nope, the words still appeared as spiders crawling across the page.
"You've been staring at that page for the past hour; it's really starting to freak me out." I looked up to see Dean unhappily hesitating over the new volume; the table was lined with books of all sorts, many just open for reference, others lost underneath the threatening tide of paragraphs and words. I felt like I was some geeky university student studying for an exam, or tying (and failing) to finish a major project last minute.
The pressure and weariness from the last few days was just beginning to catch up with me, from not sleeping in the last forty-eight hours to the pressure of trying to find out what the heck could kill this thing. If we could kill it. It really wasn't healthy, this life that we constantly lived. I shut the book quietly, which in itself must have been a warning to Dean seeing as he instantly shut up and sat down. Rolling my eyes, I couldn't even find it in me to snap back at him. "Yeah, well," I stated slowly, trying to clear the cotton wisps from my mind. "You're face is starting to freak me out."
Dean shook his head incredulously; I stuck my tongue out at him. Giving me the oddest expression—a cross between a teasing smirk and a look of absolute bewilderment—Dean patted my head and said, "Very mature. Don't worry; you'll learn to grow up at some point."
"Oh, don't you dare . . ." I growled, my face flooding with heat.
"Courtney . . ." Sam stated warningly, not bothering to look up from his research. "And Dean, grow up."
"But Sammy," Dean whined pathetically—and he called me immature? How old was he? Thirty?—I smirked as evilly as I could. "I'm your brother!"
"Yeah, and I'm his girlfriend," I reasoned, shrugging my shoulders. "I win." After being stared at by Dean for another minute or so, I grabbed the last book and got up, fully intent on putting it back and then leaving the library to go get food. Sam only looked up to tell me to 'be careful' to which I scoffed, but Dean's head shot up and his emerald eyes grew as big as apples. Yum . . . apples.
"Food?" I swear, Dean has a one track mind. I just nodded to his question and turned my back, walking to the back of the library where they seemed to keep all their ancient mythology texts. "Don't forget the pie!" Dean called to my retreating back.
"Mythology . . . mythology . . ." I muttered, walking up the aisle, searching for where I'd taken the book from. Stopping, I stared at the title and swore silently. Sure, I was almost six feet tall, but when the book shelves reach twelve feet up, it's kind of hard to reach the top. Letting my arm fall heavily, I paced to the end of the aisle and stared up at the top shelf with hateful, burning green eyes. "I hate you, shelf," I mumbled inaudibly, looking around for the step ladder I'd used earlier. One was placed conveniently beside me, but it was noticeably shorter. Great. Groaning, I grabbed it and proceeded to attempt to place the heavy text back. Three minutes later, I still hadn't managed it and my arm was shaking from the effort of keeping it up. My frustrated grunt was accompanied by a flurry of movement and the resounding thunder of heavy pages. Resigning myself to reality—I just wasn't tall enough—I sat down on the stool and rested my chin in my hands, staring down at the terrible scene of torn pages and ripped bindings. I closed my eyes and fantasized Dean's death. It always makes me feel better, even if I did have a grudging fondness for the fact that he was Sam's brother.
Sighing, I opened my eyes and began to pick up the dusty ages. My hand hovered over a small leather-bound blue volume, the word 'Everto' printed in peeling black letters. One thing I knew from being a Hunter was basic Latin—for exorcisms and things like that—and it definitely caught my eye.
Everto. Latin for demons.
Careful to put the other books aside, I grabbed the little book and flipped through it, the ink filled pages creating macabre images in my mind. Black ink sketches of demonic possessions, handwritten captions in Latin . . . Thank God we have Sam.
Completely forgetting the remaining books, I jumped up and raced as slowly—oxymoron, much—as I could back to the table. I slammed the book down over Sam's notes as Dean looked up to reverently whisper "Pie?" and I directed a slight smile to Sam. "Translate, please?"
Sam stared hard at the book, then picked it up and leafed through it, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair occasionally. He did it a lot when he was stressed. "Where'd you get this?" Sam asked after a moment, staring at a particularly graphic image of a demon cutting a person open. Right then, I was so glad I hadn't eaten any breakfast that morning.
"I went to Hell and asked Lucifer if I could borrow it," I stated sarcastically, ruffling Sam's hair playfully. Dean snickered at the expression on Sam's face.
"Well," Sam intoned happily, completely ignoring my previous comment, he gave me a genuine smile. "I think I found it."
Dean nearly flew into me as he raced around the table, to which I accidentally may have elbowed him in the gut.
" 'Eius.' It's a demon of thievery. It's also called Azishik. It's based on both Greek and Pagan myths from thousands of years ago."
"Well that's nice, but I don't see how that connects to the case." Dean uttered forlornly, causing another elbow to fly into his ribs. "Ow! Sam, your girlfriend's abusing me!"
"Would you just shut up and let Sam speak?" I replied, slapping Dean on the back of the head and turning my attention back to Sam. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the older Hunters' death glare fixed at me.
"Anyway . . ." Sam started again, sending a worried glance my way. "As the myth goes, these demons could take human form and live in villages for months, sometimes years before they were suspected."
Dean's tilted head told me that he didn't get it. "Wouldn't the town realize that all these people were going crazy and this thing wasn't affected?"
"Dean," Sam said slowly as if talking to a child. "This thing doesn't make people go crazy. It feeds on their positive emotions. Like . . . like Shtrigas, who feed on your life force. Except Eius, or Azishik take your optimistic emotions instead of life force." Sam's eyes flared brightly and he shoved the book in Dean's hands, reaching over the table for a different book, this one thankfully in English. He flipped to the apparently proper page and gave it to me. "This is the same legend, or myth or whatever, just in something you can actually read. I didn't connect the legend before; it's not specific enough that I could draw a profile from it."
I held the book and scanned over the words, emitting a short "Huh . . ." after I was done. "The myth goes as if to explain why children lost their innocence. Hold on."
"There was once a point in time where the supernatural were a part of everyday life. Citizens prayed to the Gods and Goddesses for good harvests, healthy family and the wellbeing of the village as a whole. Basically, it says that when a child was old enough to begin to be considered as an adult, the town would gather and perform ceremonies to welcome the child to adulthood. The child was then made to sleep in a cabin on the outskirts of the town, where these dark creatures were thought to lurk. It was then that the town's people thought the child lost their innocence, or childhood, as they believed that this demon would visit the child while they slept and the demon would steal it away. The demon was described as being unnaturally tall, which thin skeletal hands and pure black eyes that could burn your soul in you looked into them."
"Sounds like what that little girl described, doesn't it?" Sam muttered, his eyes glazed over pensively.
Dean was staring at the ink picture; I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind . . . if there were any. "As nice as that is, it doesn't say how to kill it. And I'm sure as hell not going to let this thing get to anyone else."
"No one is, Dean. We're all helping to try and find this thing." Sam stated softly, giving his best puppy dog eyed expression. My resolve always crumbled under those eyes.
Shaking my head from the obvious bromance going on, I scanned the rest of the story and, muttering random words, I searched for those words. Those few little words that I treasured as my salvation. If we could find out what it was, we could kill it. And if we could kill it . . . we could save a whole lot of lives. Save children from growing up for a little while longer. Save some people from knowing just what exactly is lurking in the shadows.
Finally, those few little words made their way into my line of vision, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Stake of pure rosewood to the heart." Tilting my head, I mumbled, "I can't believe that it has a heart . . ."
Dean slammed the book down on the library table and replied with, "Let's go save some peoples sanity."
A half hour later found us finally leaving the sheltered, silent library and entering the pitch black darkness of night. Almost as if at random, Dean held up the little blue book that he'd 'forgotten' to give back. "I don't know . . . why would you choose to believe in the kind of stuff we hunt? I still can't believe that people used to actually believe in this stuff." He in contemplation, staring at it in bafflement.
"It's not that ridiculous, Dean. I mean, kids still believe in Santa, and the Easter bunny." I responded reasonably, pulling open the creaking door of Dean's beloved Impala.
"That's different." Dean retorted, starting up the Impala with a soft, rolling growl. "Those kids aren't convinced that there's a demon coming to steal their souls."
Sam and I exchanged a glance and hid our silent bouts of laughter. "True."
Giving an open chuckle I put on my seat belt and removed the gun from my waist. Cocking it once, I let the sound resonate in the close confinement of the car. Dean gave a visible shudder (he's always afraid of me when I have a gun). "Let's go Hunting."
A/N: This story was actually for my English Mythology project—we had to come up our own myth explaining why something was created or what resulted from it—and so immediately I was like, OMG! Supernatural fan fiction! And my English teacher is awesome and she let me do a fan fiction even though I don't think she even knows what Supernatural is... If the random OC character makes no sense to you, READ GONE!!! It should explain everything... Hope you enjoyed it!!! ^-^
*~*Courtney*~*