For anyone who hasn't read the previous 'sisters' stories: Dean is Tara, and Sam is Alex. Jessica is now Dylan, although most of the other characters remain the same.
However, some of this won't make sense unless you've read the sisters version of "What Is And What Should Never Be" first.
(The bullet point version: Tara wakes up in an alternative life engaged to Dylan, pregnant with his baby, which she later miscarries – the djinn, knowing she was a Hunter, deliberately manipulated Tara's dream. This naturally that leaves its mark heavily on Tara.)
Fire and Water
Part One: Fire
Alex was working at her laptop when Tara finally came in.
Wrapped up in her black leather jacket and shades, clearly hung-over, she stumbled in seemingly without seeing Alex was there, heading for the bathroom.
Alex forced herself to continue with her research, keeping her mouth shut until her sister had finished throwing up, but when Tara finally emerged, she couldn't keep quiet.
"Good night, was it?"
There was more than a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
"Great, thanks," was Tara's somewhat hoarse reply. She grabbed a bottle of water from the sideboard and drained it in quick gulps.
"You could've called," Alex pointed out, knowing she was nagging, sounding more like a housewife than a concerned sister, but she hadn't sat up half the night wondering if Tara was okay, who she was with, what she was doing, for nothing.
"Sorry, Lexie."
Tara refilled the water bottle and chugged it again, not sounding sorry in the slightest.
"I was kinda busy."
She sat on her unused bed and pulled off the shades, rubbing the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger, but she was grinning despite the headache.
"Just… you could've let me know where you were. You just upped and left, wouldn't answer your cell; I was worried."
"You're always worried."
Tara got back up, shedding her jacket as she headed back towards the bathroom, but this time Alex got to her feet too, intercepting.
"With good reason. This is the third time you stayed out all night in a week - "
"What the hell, Lex? I thought you were my sister, not my mom!"
"I'm serious, T. What's going on with you?"
Alex folded her arms, fixing Tara with her glare, but Tara just looked pissed.
"Nothing's "going on with me." I'm just having a good time. Lighten up, will you?"
"This isn't just having a good time, though, is it? You've changed."
"Alex, great though this girly chit-chat is, I really need to take a shower, okay?"
She tried to get past again, but Alex grabbed her arm.
"You can't bullshit me, T, remember? You've changed, and I know when it started."
Tara tried to stare her little sister down.
"Oh yeah? And when was that?"
"After the djinn."
To anyone else, maybe, Tara's reaction would have just been irritation, impatience, but Alex knew her far too well, and she saw the fleeting glimpse of intense pain in her sister's green eyes.
"You ever gonna tell me?"
Tara's expression closed up again, as if it had never been.
"There's nothing to tell. It was a dream, that's all. It kind of rattled me at the time, but I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
Alex was firm, but Tara was no less insistent.
"Yes. I am. Now, can I get in the shower, or not?"
"I heard you, you know."
There was the briefest of pauses.
"Heard me what?"
"When you killed the djinn."
Alex had been holding this back for a while now, not really knowing how to bring this up, hoping it'd work itself out but she couldn't anymore.
"I was stunned; you thought I was out, but I heard you. I heard what you said."
"Yeah?"
Tara sounded tired, as if she didn't have the energy to keep up with the conversation.
"And what was that?"
"About the baby."
For a moment, Tara didn't reply. Then she swept her long black hair back from her face, as if wiping away any expression of her true feelings.
"Like I said, Lexie. It was just a dream. It didn't mean anything."
"I heard you, Tara. You told the djinn you cared about that baby and then it got taken away. And you said to me, later, that it felt real. Just because it didn't really happen doesn't mean you don't feel like it did."
Anger flared up in the older Winchester sister.
"Don't psycho-analyse me! I said I'm fine and I am."
"And that's why you've been drinking yourself stupid and throwing yourself at anything with a pulse these last few weeks?" Alex threw back at her.
"Because you're fine?"
"Oh, screw you, Alex!"
Tara shoved her sister aside and slammed her way into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Alex felt like punching the wall, but resisted.
"You don't wanna talk about it? Fine!" she bellowed through the closed door, over the sound of running water as Tara switched on the shower.
"But you can't keep pretending nothing's wrong forever!"
Tara was in the bathroom for such a long time, Alex had to assume she was sulking. But she had reason to, and Alex knew she was going to have to find another approach, seeing as how badly the direct one had gone.
So when Tara finally emerged, combing out her wet hair, Alex had resumed her work.
"So," she began and Tara immediately turned to face her, expression pissed and apparently ready for another round.
"If we're not gonna talk about it, how about we follow up on this?"
She spun the laptop around, not looking at Tara.
"What is it?"
"A job."
There was another pause, then Tara sat down and began to read. Alex risked looking over at her sister, and saw the expression on her face change from irritated to interested.
"There've been three?" Tara asked, as she finished the article.
"So far."
Alex reached across the table and took back the computer, bringing up the other articles she'd been reading, the files she'd been creating herself.
"All girls under twelve. First they get sick. Then they go missing, and no trace of them has been found at all."
"All in the same hospital?"
Tara was skimming through Alex's work, seeming more and more like her old self as she read.
"Yep. Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, Minnesota. All with the same mystery symptoms, some kind of a fever, then that night, they vanish. Police have no idea but they're working the serial killer/kidnapper angle."
"What makes you so sure that ain't what's happening?"
"Because," Alex continued, tapping one of the reports. "Nothing out of the ordinary showed up on the security feeds any of the nights the girls vanished."
"I guess," Tara replied, still reading. "If it was just a regular human crime, then someone would've seen them walk into a hospital and carry out an unconscious kid."
"And then there's this mystery sickness they all got. Why would a kidnapper target girls that were sick in the first place?"
Tara pondered this.
"This sound familiar to you?"
"You mean the shtriga in Wisconsin?"
"Yeah. Hope it's not another one of those."
"Eh," Alex shrugged. "We know how to kill it, if it is."
"Yeah. I guess."
She got up, starting to throw her stuff into her bag. Alex hesitated, wanting to finish their earlier conversation – well, fight – but, against her better judgement, decided to let it drop, for now at least. There was always later.
It was early the next morning when the sisters reached Stillwater, dressed up to the nines in their suits. As always, Tara was fidgeting in her tailored jacket and blouse, sensible shoes and trousers that she always complained didn't show off her ass in as good a way as her jeans did. Alex was a little more comfortable in her suit, except for the shoes. Being the shorter sister, she took every opportunity to wear heels that put her on a level with Tara, but they weren't the best for running or fighting. How Agent Scully had done it for ten seasons, Alex couldn't figure.
"I still think we should go for FBI," Tara was arguing.
"CDC makes more sense," Alex pointed out, rummaging through the glovebox for the relevant fake ID.
"FBI wouldn't be asking about what sickness the girls had unless it looked like the kidnapper was also making them sick in the first place."
"Which may well be true. But why would the CDC be investigating missing girls?"
"Why don't you let me handle this bit?" Alex shot back, exasperated. "You can always go look stuff up in the records office, if you'd prefer?"
"Uh, no thanks. That's your job, research girl. I trust you."
"Yeah," Alex snorted. "Trust me to do all the work while you go out hustling pool."
"You saying that ain't work?" Tara responded, mock-offended. "Pays more than the day job."
Alex chose to ignore this.
"You check in with Bobby?" Tara continued.
"Yeah, I gave him a call. He's looking into it, said he's on hand if we need him. And I quote "Stillwater ain't nothing more than the end of the street, compared to some of the places I schlepped to for you girls." I said we'd call again if we needed anything more."
"Schlepped? Bobby said that?"
Tara sounded highly amused.
"There's the hospital," Alex pointed out, as the building came into view.
The sisters slipped all too easily into their fake roles as they parked up, and lied their way past security – of which there was more than usual for a hospital, presumably in response to the three disappearances - and the rather fierce nurse seated at the nurses' station. She'd taken the most convincing, scrutinising their IDs, which were, thankfully, more accurate fakes than some they'd employed in the past. Alex still winced at the memory of someone reading the card she'd given them and remarking sarcastically they hadn't known FBI stood for 'Fit Body Investigators."
Nurse Seabrook looked over the two young women stood before her, claiming to be doctors, with a good deal of scepticism. One was tall and dark haired, strikingly attractive with bright green eyes and a rather more irreverent attitude than she expected from a doctor. The other was shorter, curvier, more conventionally pretty, with shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes, looking far too young to be a doctor. But that was something Nurse Seabrook had found herself thinking far too often recently, and she was tired, and they said they were there to help the little girls with the mystery illness, so she let them pass.
With no bodies to check out, the Winchesters had to satisfy themselves with written reports and interviewing the doctors who'd treated the girls.
"So you've never seen anything like this before?" Alex asked Doctor Weir, forcing herself to ignore the way Tara was staring at the tall, dark and handsome diagnostician, who wasn't much older than Tara herself. Every time he looked away from her, Alex shot Tara a look, trying to remind her she was supposed to be a professional.
"Not here," he replied. "Closest I ever saw to symptoms like those girls had was back in my old hospital, about five years ago. We had an outbreak of arsenic poisoning, something to do with the wood treatment plant nearby… but the bloodwork for our girls showed nothing like that."
"Poison?" Alex pounced on his words
"Yeah. But like I said, we ran all kinds of tox screens and there was nothing."
"Nothing detectable," Tara interjected, finally tearing her eyes away from Dr. Weir particularly fine ass.
He shrugged, accepting her scepticism.
"Symptoms don't match anything known either, and they didn't respond to medication; just got worse and worse, fast."
"And then they vanished?" Alex asked.
"…yeah."
Dr. Weir sounded uncomfortable.
"That's kind of security's problem. I just tried to make the kids better."
"Is there any chance the girls wandered away by themselves?" Alex pressed.
"If they were sick… maybe they were hallucinating or something?"
Dr Weir gave her a hard stare.
"These kids were in the last stages of organ failure and respiratory collapse," was his reply.
"They were non-responsive and probably hours from death; they couldn't have gotten out of their beds if you put 10,000 volts through them."
"Thanks for that image," Tara muttered.
"So whatever this is," Alex cut in, trying to ignore her sister and focus on the case in hand.
"It's fatal."
"Unless you lot at the CDC can come up with something, then yes," Doctor Weir replied. He looked exhausted, dark circles under both his eyes; the weight of his diagnosis was clearly pressing heavily on him.
"I'm just praying we don't have a genuine outbreak on our hands."
"Well, like you said, that's why we're here."
Unfortunately for Dr Weir, prayer did not seem to be working. Just as the words left his mouth, a young resident in scrubs came rushing up.
"Doctor Weir! We've got another one!"
The doctor turned completely grey and let loose a series of impressive curse words.
"Excuse me, Dr Wretzky, Dr Auf der Maur. Perhaps you should come along?"
A couple of hours later, the sisters left the hospital, with some relief. They decided to walk around the adjacent Washington Square Park while they brainstormed, sipping coffee in takeout cups to keep out the chill of the autumn breeze.
"What kind of name for a shop in a hospital is "Fractured Frog"?"
Tara sounded disgruntled. Alex laughed.
"I think it's cute."
"You would."
Alex stopped suddenly, frowning as the wind brought an unexpected sound to her ears.
"Do you hear singing?"
Her sister did the same, autumn leaves scrunching beneath their shoes.
"Yeah, There a church near here, or something?"
Alex consulted the map she was carrying within her folder, tucking the newspapers she'd bought under her arm.
"No, not really. Hospital chapel's closest. But there's a bandstand or something in the park, apparently."
"Well, hey. After everything we've seen today," Tara replied. "This kind of weird I can handle."
But as they turned the corner to set eyes on their destination, things got a whole lot weirder.
Around the pavilion, a small crowd had gathered. Arms linked, singing in unison, they were an oddly-dressed group, ignoring the strange looks they were getting from the other occupants of the park. Most wore loose, brightly coloured clothing, robes almost, and flowers adorned their hair. Even from the back of the crowd, the Winchesters could smell potent incense burning, and one woman appeared to be building some kind of altar on the sidewalk, stacking flowers and plaited grasses dangerously close to the flickering open flames of the many candles strewn across the scene.
The sisters stopped, open-mouthed.
"Goddamn witches!" hissed an elderly man standing across the path from the pagan gathering.
"T'aint Christian, all that chanting and burning stuff."
"Uh, that's exactly what happens in Catholic churches," Alex pointed out.
The man glared at her.
"And you'd know, girl? You with that heathen symbol round your neck?"
He pointed at Tara's amulet before shuffling away, triumphant.
The girls exchanged a glance.
"Witches, huh?" Tara said. "How about that?"
Alex turned back to the crowd, still raising their voices to the wind. There were police officers watching the scene unfold, but none had yet made any move to interfere. Many seemed actively amused by it all.
The Winchesters went closer, trying to pick out words from the chanting, which appeared to be in English at least.
"I don't recognise it," Alex admitted.
"That's cos it sounds like a bunch of hippy crap," Tara snarked, losing interest.
"We should check it out, though," Alex insisted. "Can't be a co-incidence, can it?"
Alex approached one of the bystanders, one wearing normal clothing, her face devoid of any painted flowers.
"What's going on?" she asked, trying to sound casual.
"It's a purification ritual," was the woman's rather startling response.
"After the little girls started getting sick… people want to do anything they can."
"Purification ritual?"
The incredulity stood out in Tara's voice.
"What's that supposed to do?"
The woman shrugged.
"Like I say, people'll try anything when their kids are dying and no-one knows why. No different from praying, is it?"
Alex looked at her more closely. She was young, maybe twenty-five, wearing jeans and a short army green jacket, her dyed-red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a silver stud in her nose, several studs in each ear and numerous symbols jangled around her neck above a Breeders T-shirt.
"What brings you here?"
"My friend's kid has it. She's in the hospital right now. It's kind of hard to have hope when the doctor's don't."
Alex found she didn't know what to say.
"And the flower children? You with them?"
This was Tara, holding back her cynicism as much as she could.
"Hell, no! Some white chick you're not related to starts calling you Sister, it's time to start running."
Tara grinned despite herself.
"I hear you."
"But having said that… they are here as part of the community. And I do know most of them."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I work in this bookstore downtown. Aradia, on Myrtle Street? Don't know if you've ever been by… we specialise in pagan and Wicca stuff."
"Uh, we just got into town today."
This time, it was their subject's turn to look them over, taking in their suits with faint suspicion.
"You reporters?"
"No, no. Just visiting some family," Alex lied smoothly. "We heard about the little girls, though. Terrible. And no-one has any idea what happened to them?"
The girl shook her head.
"Me, I think maybe we got ourselves some kind of sick freak bodysnatcher. As if the kids getting ill wasn't enough…"
Again, the sisters exchanged significant glances.
"A bodysnatcher?"
"You know what I mean. The girls…the kids. They were dying. Why would anyone, anyone abduct them?"
The girl began to cry, so Alex squeezed her shoulder, muttered something sympathetic and the Winchesters made their excuses.
"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Tara asked as they walked away, her face grim.
"I don't know, Tara. This doesn't sound like a shtriga. Not like the last one, anyway."
"Then what? We got a mysterious illness no-one's ever seen before that kills within days. We got bodies vanishing without trace and no witnesses, despite all this police presence. And now we got witches."
"Wiccans," Alex corrected.
"Same difference."
"Hardly."
Alex glanced back over her shoulder at the chanting crowd.
"This lot aren't exactly the type to murder kids, are they?"
"Shtrigas take on human faces, remember?"
Alex sighed.
"Okay, fine. So, we go back to the hospital tonight? Stake out the kid's room and see who shows up?"
"Sounds like a plan."
Tara shivered, cursing her luck that she's lost Rock, Paper, Scissors – again -and had to wait outside in the freezing cold while her sister got to sit in the nice, warm hospital, 'observing' the patient. And the window to the patient's room was on the wrong side of the building for her to sit in the car, so that meant she had to hide in the trees, toting binoculars like some kind of wannabe spy, waiting for the sonofabitch to show up so she could kill it. Alex still wasn't convinced it was a shtriga, so instead of nice, easy to carry iron rounds, Tara was lugging half her weapons collection with her, just in case.
"I almost hope you're right, Lexie," she muttered to herself, slinging her leather jacket on over her suit, wrapping it tight around herself and breathing on her hands to warm them a little.
"I'm gonna be pissed if you're not, whatever happens."
It had gotten dark early, and it felt like hours in the first ten minutes, so the real hours dragged and dragged, leaving Tara wishing her cell phone had a few decent games on it. Not that she'd admit that to Alex, of course. Technology was yet another thing the sisters argued about, although at least that argument was one they almost enjoyed, compared with the real ones.
Tara picked up the binoculars again; Alex was still sitting tucked away in the corner of the hospital room, reading. The doctors came and went, checking the little girl. The parents were sat at her bedside, not moving an inch and Tara, for a moment, felt that she understood what they were going through. Then she remembered that she didn't, that her baby had been the product of some acid trip dream, nothing more, was never real, and she shoved that thought firmly out of her head.
"Concentrate, girl", she thought.
After a small eternity, one of the doctors took the parents out of the room to talk to them, and almost immediately, Tara saw movement right outside the hospital window, as if whatever this was had been waiting for such an opportunity.
That was different; she'd been expecting the attack to come from within – if this monster wasn't one of the hospital staff, then that just added to the mystery. A shadow stood just to the side of the window; from where Tara was sitting, it looked like a man. The light was poor, but he seemed tall, broad shouldered, with a lot of hair and a beard. Not someone they'd met before, then.
Tara unholstered her gun, moving forward as quietly as she could. If this was a shtriga, then they had to wait until it fed, which meant this rested with Alex. But if it wasn't, then Tara was ready. Whatever it was, it killed kids, and that was a special kind of nasty that Tara couldn't wait to gank.
What happened next, Tara was never entirely sure of. The man put his hand to the window, and Tara broke into a run, but the thing, whatever it was, god it was fast. The window was open and the figure had leapt through before Alex, whom the creature didn't seem to have noticed, had even gotten to her feet. As Tara sprinted to the window, shots were fired, glass shattered and there were the sounds of something like an explosion. Then Alex screamed and Tara saw something that made even her, a lifelong Hunter, stop and stare.
This was no shtriga.
As Tara stared, open-mouthed, it threw back its head and roared, revealing the three rows of razor-sharp teeth that filled its mouth. Blue eyes blazed from a face that was sort of human, covered in a mass of red hair, like the mane of a lion, and the damn thing breathed fire. The curtains had burned up, leaving nothing behind and through the smoke, the thing raised a hand, exposing talons that looked as sharp as the teeth. Tara saw it had some kind of opening on the inside of its wrist, like the one that hid the spike on a wraith. Instinct took over, and Tara dodged as something shot past her ear to land in the bushes.
A man in security uniform came bursting into the room, stopping in complete disbelief at the scene that greeted his eyes. Fumbling for his gun, he was too slow and the creature scythed its claws across his chest before backhanding him across the room, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. Snapping out of her shock and into action, Tara went on the attack, emptying her clip into the back of the thing – monster – whatever the hell it was, barely making it stagger. But the shots brought more people running and, faced with the prospect of further confrontation, the creature fled, leaping back through the open window and vanishing, faster than Tara would've thought possible. With that speed, no wonder nothing had shown up on the security cameras for the last three children, having found quieter moments to strike on those occasions.
"What the hell?"
Tara vaulted through the broken window into the ruined hospital room. The little girl in the bed was miraculously unharmed by the attack, but Alex was slumped on the floor, unconscious and unmoving.
"Lexie!"
She barely had time to take this in when the doctor and the girl's parents ran into the room.
"Help me!" Tara screamed as Alex began to choke and convulse.
What had happened? What had that thing done to her sister?
Forcing away her panic, Tara noticed a black spike sticking out of Lexie's throat. It was small and appeared to be dissolving, vanishing without trace as Tara tried to grab hold of it, leaving not so much as a mark on her sister's skin.
And then the doctor, having hit the alarm and seen that the little girl had come through the attack unscathed, pushed Tara aside, checking Alex's vital signs. More medics came in, pushing a gurney and Tara got to her feet, brushing away tears of panic and shock as the medics lifted her sister up and wheeled her away. Tara followed, clutching at Lexie's hand as her sister's whole body shook, reacting to whatever the hell that thing had done to her. But as they reached a set of double doors, orderlies grabbed hold of Tara, wrenching her away so the doctors could start work on Alex.
"What in the world happened?"
Tara, gnawing her fingers as she watched through the porthole window, turned to see Dr Weir came up, confusion radiating from him. Even through her fear for her sister, Tara found she could still lie like a champ.
"I have no freakin' idea. We were – monitoring the little girl, seeing if there was any change. Then this guy comes in through the window - I swear to you, he just leapt in – and attacked her. He killed the guard and… he shot Lexie with some kind of dart; I think he poisoned her."
"Poison?" Dr Weir's eyebrows shot up. "That doesn't – I mean…"
"You said it looked like the girls had been poisoned."
"But their toxicology tests were clean."
"Hers might not be."
Tara pointed through the window, where three medics were holding her sister down, trying to control her convulsions.
"Please, you gotta help her."
"Of course. But, one thing. Security said shots were fired. He had a gun?"
"No, we did."
"CDC issue handguns?"
Tara cursed their choice of alibi – knew they should've gone for FBI.
"When bodies start vanishing from hospitals, it's best to take precautions, yeah?"
Dr Weir was staring at her, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Look, I gotta start making calls, okay?"
Tara pulled out her cell phone and headed outside. She wanted to stay with Lexie, but what could she do?
So she called Bobby.
"Hey, Tara. How's the hunt goin'?"
"Bad. This thing, I don't know what it is and Lexie's hurt. I don't know what to do-"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down there, kid. Alex is hurt? What happened?"
Despite his habitual gruffness, Tara could hear the concern in Bobby's voice.
"I don't know. It's fast, Bobby. Real fast. I barely got a shot in."
"What happened to Alex?"
"It hit her with some kind of poison dart…it dissolved before I could pull it out, and now she's sick, like the little girls."
There was a silence at the end of the phone.
"Bobby? You there?"
"I'm here. I think I got an idea what it might be. You get a good look at it?"
"Not really. Looked like a man… big, lot of red hair, kinda like Groundskeeper Willie? You know, from the Simpsons?"
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, teeth. Lots of teeth. More than one set."
"Like a shark?"
"I don't know, I never had a run-in with a shark!"
"Ever see Jaws?"
"Bobby, it wasn't a freakin' shark, okay? This was on land, in a hospital and Lexie could be dyin' right now!"
"Alright, hold your horses. This thing had red hair, lots of teeth, it's fast and it shoots poison darts?"
"That's pretty much it, yeah. Oh and it breathes fire. Can you believe that?"
"Aw, hell."
Bobby sounded serious.
"Tara… that's a Manticore."
This did not make Tara feel any better.
"What's a Manticore?"
"Bad news. These things are rare… I never seen one for real. They come from what used to be Persia, originally. Their name means 'eater of people' and that's what they do – poison people and then eat them."
"Look, how do I kill it? That's all I care about right now. That and how to make Alex better."
"I don't know if there's a way to do either. I'm real sorry, Tara - "
"Sorry, my ass! This is Lexie, Bobby. You got a house full of books and you're telling me you don't know?"
"Don't yell at me, girl. I didn't say I wouldn't try. I'm just tellin' it like it is, so you know this might not go the way you want it to."
"You think I don't know that? You didn't see her, Bobby. This is – hell, this is something new. I don't know what else to do."
"I'm on it, Tara. I'll call you back soon as I have anything, then I'm coming your way."
Tara closed her eyes, exhaling heavily, trying to steady herself.
"Okay. Thanks."
"Did ya really think I weren't gonna help you? Idjit."
Despite everything, Tara smiled.
"So… who'd know about poisons? You got any contacts?"
"Not really. I'll see what comes up."
Tara hung up, but as she turned to go back in to the hospital, she saw she wasn't alone.
"Poisons?"
It was the young red-headed woman from the park; she held a cigarette in her hand and Tara had no idea how long she's been there.
"Who's poisoned? You think the kids were poisoned?"
Tara's first reaction was to lie, lie and lie again, but she knew the best chance for Lexie was to find a cure, an antidote and the more people who were looking, the better.
"Yeah. This guy just broke into the little girl's room and he attacked my sister. Now she's sick too."
"Did I hear you right? You said Manticore?"
Tara started. The girl looked apologetic
"I didn't mean to eavesdrop… just came out for a smoke."
She looked down at the still-burning cigarette in her hand, threw it away and ground it out with her toe.
"I know these things'll kill me, but I just can't seem to quit… why were you talking about Manticores?"
Again, Tara hesitated.
"You know what that is?"
"I read about them. Some kind of mythical wild beast in Asia… has the body of a lion and head of a man, eats people?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right. Don't suppose anything you read told you how to kill them, did it?"
The girl's eyes went very wide and for a moment her lips moved with no sound coming out.
"Um… no. Are you serious?"
"That thing poisoned my sister. It's killed three kids already and tried to kill another. Damn straight I'm serious."
"Are you sure about this? The poisoning thing, I mean. The doctor said-"
"The doctors don't know a damn thing! Look, I never heard of this thing before tonight, but my friend tells me that's what it is, then that's my best shot."
"Okay."
There was a pause.
"You got a car?"
"Why?"
"I think I got something that could help, but it's at the shop. Can you give me a ride?"
"What sort of thing?"
The girl sighed.
"The woman that owns the shop… she has a collection of weird stuff I'm not supposed to know about. But I do and, well. You know what a bezoar is?"
"No."
"It's supposed to be the ultimate antidote."
Tara stared at her, uncomprehendingly.
"You know, it's supposed to counter poison."
"For real?"
"Well, I don't know about that. But that's what it says on the jar, and I did some research-"
"It cures poisoning?"
Tara grasped onto this faint ray of hope with both hands.
"Like I said, supposedly. I don't know for sure-"
Tara was already digging through her pockets for the Impala's keys.
"How far away's this store of yours?"
Aradia on Myrtle Street, it turned out, was pretty close, but Tara was still hopping from foot to foot with impatience as the girl worked her way through the locks on the front door. It was something of a novelty to be entering a closed store at night without having to break in, but waiting for her to use three separate keys, then disable the alarm took way too long for Tara. Lexie was lying in a hospital bed, dying and Tara didn't give a rat's ass for somebody else's security alarm at a time like this.
"Sorry."
The girl noticed Tara's anxiety.
"We have a little trouble, now and then, from some of the more… vocal religious groups. Think we're Satan worshippers and all that."
"Are you?"
"Excuse me!" The girl was insulted. "They're the ones who believe Satan exists, not us!"
"Okay, whatever. I'm Tara, by the way. What's your name?"
Tara realised she knew nothing about this girl she was essentially trusting Lexie's life to. Again, the reply was rather startling.
"Aedre. Aedre Seren."
"Really?"
"Well, it's my craft name, not my birth name. It means River Star."
"Craft name?"
"Yeah. You know, my Wiccan name? The one I practise under."
Tara stopped, suspicious.
"You're a witch?"
"No, I said Wiccan. You're the one who started talking about mythical creatures poisoning our kids. Remember?"
"Yeah, I Hunt things like that. Monsters, spirits, things that prey on people. Evil things. I Hunt them, and I kill them."
Aedre Seren paused in the act of keying in the code for the alarm.
"You what?"
"It's what we do, my sister and me. We came here to find out what was killing those kids and to take it down."
There was a long, heavy silence.
"Good. Let's find that bezoar, shall we?"
She went straight to the back room behind the counter – the store was fairly small, divided into two, with books on one side, and more esoteric supplies on the other. Beckoning Tara to follow her, Aedre unlocked a huge old oak cabinet in the corner of the room and began to rummage through it. Sinking to her knees, she pulled out box after box, searching through them until, after a few minutes she found what she was looking for.
"That's it?"
Tara stared at the earthenware pot Aedre had taken from a cardboard box, and the small rounded grey stone that nestled inside it on a bed of what looked like hay.
She reached out to pick it up but Aedre slapped her hand away.
"Don't touch it! It has to be distilled to work."
"Distilled?"
"That's what I read, anyway."
She got to her feet, carrying the pot over to the store's counter and carefully setting it down.
"Okay. Now we need to make some Clearwater. Fill that, would you?"
She pointed at a large glass jar with a stopper on the cabinet next to the counter.
"There's a faucet out back."
Tara did as she was asked.
"So, uh, what's Cleanwater?"
"Clearwater. Sort of like… holy water for Wiccans."
Aedre Seren sorted through the charms around her neck, taking off the pentagram and wrapping the cord around her palm. She glanced up at Tara.
"What's yours?"
"Excuse me?"
"Your talisman."
She indicated Tara's neck.
"Um. Not exactly sure. Lexie gave it to me, when we were kids."
"Looks like Hathor. Or maybe Mithras. Can I borrow it?"
Tara started, her hand closing instinctively around the amulet, protective.
"Why?"
"You'll get it back. I'm not gonna damage it… it's clearly a strong link between you and your sister, and that makes it powerful. It'll help the Clearwater start to work."
Tara hesitated, then took off the amulet, handing it over. Aedre added it to her own charm, dunking them both in the water, closing her eyes and beginning a silent chant.
Tara watched for a moment as the other girl's lips moved in words she couldn't follow, trying to bite down on her impatience. She cast her eye over the store's contents, besides the books, looking for anything that might prove useful but they were the standard supplies for the Craft, nothing she hadn't used herself when she had to. Eventually, Aedre Seren finished her spell and handed back Tara's amulet, hanging her own back around her neck.
Then she grabbed a pair of tongs, lifting the bezoar out from the pot with tongs, took a deep breath, and dropped the stone into the jar. The moment the stone made contact with the Clearwater, it began to smoke and bubble, like something out of Doctor Frankenstein's lab.
"Holy crap!"
Tara stared at the transforming liquid. She'd cast a number of spells herself, but sometimes these things still caught her by surprise.
"Blessed be," was Aedre Seren's reply, a rather mischievious smile on her face.
"You knew it'd do that?"
"This is as far as I got with testing it out. I mean, I wasn't exactly gonna try poisoning someone to see if it works without being pretty damn sure first."
"Okay… what now?"
"It has to sit for a while, I think…"
Aedre returned to the back room, taking down a massive leather-bound tome from the bookshelf.
"This is the owner's Book of Shadows. I'm not really supposed to read it."
"But you did anyway."
Aedre gave a guilty smile.
"Most other Wiccans I meet aren't all that into practising much that isn't about female empowerment and embracing the love of the Mother. Like the flower children, you know? But the stuff in here-"
She tapped the front of the book, flipping it open and searching through the pages.
"Works."
Tara found herself curious despite everything, had to remind herself what some – all, in her experience – witches were capable of. Wondered if she could get away with stealing this book when everything else was done. Could be useful.
"Okay, here we are… yeah, it has to lie for two to three hours, then we can take it back to the hospital."
"Three hours? What, I'm just supposed to sit here and stare at the walls while my sister's dying?"
"She's in the best place she can be, for now," Aedre reminded her gently. "If you want to go back and wait there, I'll make my own way to the hospital once this is ready."
But much as Tara wanted to go back and stand guard over her baby sister, she knew she needed more information – namely how to kill this sonofabitch.
"Can I see that?" she indicated the Book of Shadows.
Aedre hesitated.
"This is where you heard about Manticores, right?"
"It's the best source, yeah."
Aedre slid the book towards Tara and went over to the bookshelves, scanning through the titles while Tara flipped the pages of the handwritten tome, pulling out her cell phone.
Bobby answered within the first few rings.
"Yeah?"
"Bobby, you ever hear of a bezoar?"
"Nope. You hunting something else now?"
"No, nothing like that. It's supposed to be an antidote to poisoning."
"Where'd you hear of a thing like that?"
"I got one here."
Silence greeted that revelation.
"You still there?"
"Tara… what're you doin'?"
Tara ignored the disapproval in Bobby's voice; she'd gotten enough of that from her actual father, when he was still alive. She didn't need it from his substitute as well.
"I'm trying to save Lexie. And if it works, then, who cares?"
"I care. Look, I know how you feel…"
"No, Bobby. You don't."
"I'm coming out there now."
"You know how to kill this thing yet?"
"Not unless you have the horn of a unicorn handy."
"Seriously?"
Tara had heard all sorts of weird things that day, but that was a new one.
"That's the only thing I've read so far that's said to work."
"Then you need to keep on it until we're sure we can waste this thing. Call me when you know."
Tara hung up, continuing to flip through the book until she found the entry she was looking for.
"The Manticore is a legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. Name comes from early Middle Persian, means "the Eater of People," considered to be the most dangerous predator in Asia, has the body of a lion and the head of a human," she read aloud, skim-reading the opening paragraphs.
"Close, but no cigar. 'Size reports range from lion-sized up to horse-sized, however, as early as the second century A.D. writers thought that the Manticore was nothing more than a man-eating Indian tiger. The physical embellishments, either indicative of the fears the people had for the beast or anecdotal exaggeration or misinterpretations of Indian sculptures.' Huh. If only."
Aedre dumped several books down on the counter and went back to the shelf. Tara sighed.
"It was seen as an unholy hybrid of the zodiacal signs Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, has three rows of sharp teeth, may be horned, winged, or both – yikes. It has poisonous spines which it shoots like arrows to either paralyze or kill its victims, which it then feeds on… Its size ranges from the size of a lion to the size of a horse. It is also mistaken as a bearded man when seen from a distance.' Blah blah blah. How do I kill it?"
"I remember reading somewhere that Manticores challenge their prey with riddles," Aedre interjected, flicking through one of the books she had picked out.
"Do they die if you guess right?" Tara asked, sourly.
"Uh… don't think so. I think you just get to live."
"Fantastic. Just to ask… you don't have a unicorn horn in that magic closet of yours, do you?"
Aedre gave her a long, steady look, trying to figure out if that was a serious question.
"No. No, I don't. Dare I ask?"
"Never mind. Look, d'you mind keeping on with this? I have to go…well, I have to go steal some stuff, actually."
Aedre took this in her stride, which Tara appreciated. If only everyone they came across was this calm, not to mention useful.
"Sure."
Tara thought about trying to brazen it out, trusting in her faithful faked ID but decided in the end that might backfire and limited that to just getting in – security was going crazy, following the attack and the death of the guard – and so Tara settled for her more usual sneaking around the hospital. She risked a few minutes checking in on Lexie, who was lying like a corpse on a hospital bed, pale and unresponsive. But she couldn't stay, and headed back to Aradia, where she was pinning her hopes on some magic rock in a bottle of pagan hippy water.
Aedre Seren was still working her way through the pile of books, the bottle of bezoar water bubbling away beside her, when Tara returned, toting a handful of IV bags and lines and an organ box filled with ice.
"And these are for…?" Aedre asked.
"The hospital thinks my sister and I are from the CDC," Tara replied, blasé.
"And I figured we stand a better chance of actually getting this stuff in if they think it's some kind of medicine, a known antidote instead of-"
"Instead of what? Magic?"
"The truth don't go down too well in my experience. Especially not with the authorities. How's it cooking?"
Tara indicated the effervescing jar of water.
"Pretty steady, as far as I can tell. No luck on the rest of it, though."
Aedre closed the book in front of her, opening another and beginning to scan it. Tara pulled her father's journal from her pocket, having retrieved it from the car. She doubted John had ever come across a Manticore, seeing how rare Bobby said they were and, yet again, found herself wondering if he'd have been any help here, if he were still alive.
Tara had never been too good at the patience lark, so the wait was long and tense, but thankfully the research made it seem less of a wait, if only marginally. Tara and Aedre cautiously decanted the now slightly cloudy liquid into the IV bags, filling all of them and packing them into the medical box as gently as they could.
"Now what?" Aedre asked.
"Now, I take these back to the hospital and lie my ass off," was Tara's rather tense reply. Looked like Alex had been right to insist on a CDC alias, after all.
"You'd be better off staying out of this."
"As if! I have no idea if this is really going to work; you think I'm gonna sit here doing nothing? And Brooke - Max's mom – she's beside herself with worry: I want to be there for her."
"Okay. Just – go see the kid and stay out of my way."
Aedre didn't argue, heading for the little girl's room as soon as they reached the hospital and leaving Tara to deliver their home-brew medicine.
Dr Weir was clearly sceptical at Tara's story of an antidote helicoptered in from Atlanta in less than three hours, but he was just as obviously exhausted and out of options. The little girl, Max Wiley, was still dying and he had no other idea how to save her, so he agreed to install Tara's mystery cure in both girl's IV lines.
Tara sat at Alex's bedside, refusing to shift no matter what anyone said. She'd been hoping that this miraculous cure would be just that – a miracle. Alex would be instantly better, and they could get on with hunting and ending this ugly-ass monster. She found herself remembered her own brushes with death. Not the near-misses, which were too many to count, but the real ones; her electrocution, that would have been fatal had it not been for the faith healer and his wife's pet Reaper. And then there was the demon-induced car smash that had, technically, killed her. The massive guilt of the knowledge her father had sold his soul, condemning himself to Hell, so that she could live, still weighed heavily on Tara, and that was without the lingering memory of her djinn dream, which had taken her suicide to wake up from.
With a start, Tara realised that her other hand, the one that wasn't tightly gripping Lexie's hand, was gently stroking her stomach, where the baby from her dream had been. She snatched it away, cursing. Why was that so hard to shake? There was no baby. Had never been and, knowing her life, would never be. Surely the very real possibility that she might lose her sister was bad enough without bringing up things that weren't even real.
Tara only realised she'd fallen asleep when she woke with a start, sunlight landing on her face through the window. Alex was still unconscious, but she seemed to be breathing easier, and her forehead was cooler than it had been the night before.
"Coffee?"
Tara jumped; she was so wrapped up in Lexie's situation, she hadn't even heard the door open. She turned to see Dr Weir in the doorway, holding out a paper cup.
"God, do you live here? When did you last go home?" Tara asked, taking the proffered caffeine gratefully.
"I could ask the same of you," Dr Weir replied, gently. He took the chair on the other side of Lexie's bed, drinking from his own cup.
"We're - close."
"I get that. As for me… I know these kids. Brooke Wiley and I were at school together. Seeing little Max like this… I wouldn't be able to sleep if I did go home."
"How's she doing?"
"Honestly? I don't know. Your concoction seems to have slowed down her decline, but as to getting better? Nothing about this case makes any sense."
"You're telling me."
"So, Dr Wretzky. You got a first name?"
Tara met his eyes, which were kind, concerned, and if she was not mistaken, interested. Every cloud…
"D'Arcy," she lied, glad that she was the one who got to make up their aliases. Made it easier to remember.
"How 'bout you?"
"Dylan."
Tara's growing smile faded instantly. Of all the co-incidences… not only the name of Alex's deceased boyfriend, but, in the dream the djinn gave her, the same Dylan had been the father of the baby she lost.
"Something wrong?"
"Uh, no. Just the name of a sort of – ex."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Don't be. It's the past."
"I got a middle name, if that helps?"
"Yeah? What is it?"
"John."
Tara laughed out loud, couldn't help it. Maybe sometimes there were such things as coincidences, but she couldn't help but feel the universe was deliberately trying to screw with her.
"Another ex?"
"My dad was called John. He – passed this year."
"Oh. Sorry again?"
"Stop apologising!"
Tara focused on Dr Weir's dark, pretty eyes to prevent herself getting all angsty and girly.
"It's fine. So, tell me. You lived here long?"
"Grew up here. Went away to college, but this place… it sort of pulls you back in."
"That good, huh?"
"Well, not right now. But apart from this-" Dr Weir gestured towards Alex's sick bed.
"Yeah. It's a good place to call home. How about you? You must move around a lot?"
"Like you wouldn't believe. But it's not all bad. We help a lot of people; that makes up for most of it."
"That why you became a doctor?"
Tara gulped her coffee, praying he'd shut up soon. She was too worried about Lexie to put her heart into lying this much, especially to a guy who, had she met him in a bar, she'd be trying to pick up.
"Pretty much. You the same?"
"Yeah. It can be tough, but when they get better… makes it all worth it."
And as if on cue, or perhaps to save her sister from having to keep on making up a fake backstory, Alex's eyelids flickered and she began to cough. Both her attendants leapt to their feet, Dr Weir checking the readings on her monitoring machines while Tara grabbed Alex's hand.
"Lexie? You there?"
Alex looked around, confused, trying to sit, but Dr Weir pressed a hand to her shoulder.
"Don't try and move. Your system took a hell of a pounding there; you need to rest. I have to go check on Max, but I'll be right back."
These last words were directed at Tara, who nodded.
"What-?" the oxygen mask over Alex's face muffled her words, but Tara understood.
"You were poisoned. The thing-"
Tara glanced toward to door, but the coast seemed to be clear.
"It wasn't a shtriga. It's a Manticore."
This didn't help Alex's confusion much.
"What?"
"I'll explain later. Bobby's coming up with a way to kill it right now, so you just get better, okay? Don't scare me like that, Lexie."
Whatever it was that the bezoar did, it made short work of the poison in Alex's bloodstream and within a few hours, she was almost completely recovered.
Dr Weir didn't know what to make of it.
"Max isn't out of the woods just yet, but she is improving. I think she stands a good chance of pulling through. You, however, are pretty close to a miracle. How d'you feel?"
"I'm okay," Alex replied, honestly. "A bit hazy on the memory side of things, but basically okay."
"Lucky your partner here came up with the goods."
"Yeah. I am."
He didn't want to discharge Alex, but couldn't stop her doing so herself, especially as he was still under the impression she was a doctor herself.
As soon as they were safely out of earshot, climbing into the Impala, Alex was all business.
"So… what the hell's going on?"
Tara sighed.
"It's complicated. And weird. There's someone you need to meet."