I don't own Supernatural. Darn. I do own Asher Michaels and this story, excluding the bits from the show. My friend Shauna owns Amelia Shaw, and I am using her in my story with her permission. This fic is rated for violence, blood, language, drinking, sexual situations and, hopefully, some scary shit. I don't know how good I will be at writing scary stuff since I've never actually tried before. Enjoy the stories.
Monster Hospital, Book One: Zombies.
Chapter One: On the Road.
The hotel room smelled funny. Like someone had cooked a little too much curry in the kitchenette, and the pungent fumes had permeated every surface in the large room to the point where no amount of cleaning would ever get it out. But, regardless of the smell, the beds were comfortable and warm, and there was more than enough space for the two hunters renting the room to spread out their meagre possessions, and spread out they did; one would never know there were only two people in that room if they looked at the state it had dissolved into in the past couple weeks. It wasn't, by any means, the best room they had ever stayed in, but neither Asher Michaels nor Amelia Shaw had a history of complaining about accommodations. They had chosen the life as hunters of the supernatural after all, and welcomed all the things that came with it, including smelly hotel rooms.
Most of the time.
"Have you found anything yet?"
Sometimes there was nothing to welcome. Sometimes, hunting the boogieman was a slow business. Asher looked up from the newspaper she had spread out across the table and shook her head, her long and wavy black hair falling over her shoulders and across the pages. She flicked it back impatiently. They had been looking for any hint of a case for hours, but so far there hadn't been anything that seemed even remotely weird. Amelia was surfing the internet, as she was much better at navigating the waters of search engines and websites than her older companion, who preferred the printed word anyway. "What about you? Any luck?" Asher asked as she turned her blue eyes back to the smudgy grey words in front of her.
"No. There doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary anywhere. And there doesn't seem to be much in the past couple weeks either." Amelia sighed and fell backwards on the bed, moving her favourite chestnut cowboy hat so it covered her eyes. She sighed again. "I am finding a whole lot of crap about the Winchesters through. Judging by the amount of e-mails other hunters are sending out, they've been pretty busy."
"So?"
"So, it just seems kind of interesting that these brothers would be generating so much news about themselves, that's all. But all rumours of them being good hunters have definitely been confirmed. People either sing their praises or are jealous of their talent." Amelia closed her laptop with her foot and pushed herself off the bed, moving across the hotel room to the kitchenette with her usual light steps; she always seemed coiled and ready to attack at any moment. It was a good state for a hunter to be in, even if that hunter was still learning. She pushed her hat back over her blonde hair as she poured herself another mug full of coffee. "You met them once, didn't you?"
Asher nodded, the memory rising to the surface without much effort. "You were four, I think, and asleep at the time. Dean and his dad, John, came to the door looking for… for Austin." The hunter swallowed heavily and forced herself not to dwell on the image of the man who had raised and trained her and Amelia. "I was in the kitchen looking for something to eat. They weren't all that exciting."
"Wait, you didn't meet the other one? Sam?" Amelia took a drink from her mug before hopping up to sit on the small amount of counter space they had.
"No. He was about your age, maybe a year older, and asleep in the car. When they found out Austin wasn't home, they just left."
"What did they want?"
"I don't know. I don't think John wanted to talk to anyone by Austin, and he sure as hell wasn't going to share the information with a little girl, even if she did live with a hunter." Asher rose from the chair and moved to stand in front of Amelia, where she could refill her own mug of coffee. "We've got to find a case soon," she stated, subtly shifting the subject. She knew the course the conversation normally took when the Winchesters were brought up, and she didn't feel like talking about that right then. Or ever, but sometimes Amelia's stubbornness won out. "I'm going nuts just sitting around here."
Amelia smiled, as much for her friend's not-so-subtle avoidance of the taboo topic as it was for her impatience. "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find something soon. And don't change the subject, Ash. We're going to have to deal with it sooner or later."
"Later, please."
"Asher, the Winchesters are going to come after you as soon as they pick up the trail. They were the first ones on the case after you killed that guy, and they're not the type to just let a murder go."
"It was just one guy. They've got bigger fish to fry."
"You're one of those fish. Like it or not." Amelia hopped off the counter, putting herself as close as she could get to the taller woman without actually touching her. "You may not want to acknowledge it, but you are a werewolf, Asher, and some hunter, if not the Winchesters, is going to come after you. And even if, by some miracle they don't pick up your trail, we are going to run into another hunter or group of hunters eventually and then all hell will break loose. They know your name, Ash." Amelia's tone had deepened until it was deadly serious. It was not a tone she took often. "Yes, you've only killed one man, but you did it as a werewolf and people have already noticed."
Asher huffed and shifted her weight to one foot. "Amelia," she said as she placed her coffee mug on the counter. "We will worry about that when we have to. As of right now, this moment, I'm more worried about getting a case and getting some food. You keeping looking and I am going to go out and get something for supper. What do you want?"
The only thing more impossible to fight than Amelia's stubbornness was Asher's. The young hunter sighed and consented to Asher's desire to ignore the inevitable. "Anything except Chinese," she said with an air of defeat.
"Pizza it is."
Asher dumped the rest of her cold coffee down the drain and grabbed her keys from the bedside table where she'd left them. She grabbed her handgun in its shoulder holster from the table as well and slipped it on, the gun settling just below her left breast. As she pushed her arms through the sleeves of her cropped leather jacket that fell to her hips, she patted the side to make sure her wallet and cell phone were in her pocket, and then headed out the door, leaving Amelia standing by the counter with a displeased look on her face. They had passed a pizza place on the way to the hotel two days before, so Asher hopped into the massive black pickup truck her and Amelia drove around the country and headed back the way they'd come. Once she had placed the order, she settled onto one of the stools and waited, her eyes trained on the truck outside and her ears listening to the sounds around her.
Her cell phone rang five minutes after she'd sat down. She flipped it open and pressed it to her ear, sparing only a glance at the caller ID. "Yeah?"
"Hurry up and get back here, Ash. I think I've found something. I don't know how I missed it before."
"Be there as soon as the pizza's ready." Without waiting for a reply she knew wouldn't come anyway, she hung up the phone and returned it to her pocket.
Twenty minutes later, she was back in the funny-smelling hotel room, staring at the screen of Amelia's laptop, reading an article from last week's paper in the town over with a slice of pepperoni and extra cheese pizza hanging out of her mouth; a bottle of beer fizzed within reach of her left hand. Amelia sat to her other side, quietly munching her food and waiting for the aha! moment she knew Asher would have.
"Priest goes mad out of nowhere and shoots his wife and kids and then turns the gun on himself," Asher paraphrased. She took a long drink from her beer and finished the slice of pizza before turning to Amelia. "You sure this is our department weird? This isn't just normal weird? People do do things like this to each other."
"I'm pretty sure it's our kind of weird."
Asher nodded once. "All right then. I guess we head out in the morning. It's too late now to get any information from anyone."
"I suppose."
"Amelia, this happened a week ago, in the next town over. Even if it was a demon or something, it's probably long gone. Unless it was a spirit or ghost…" Asher shook her head. "There hasn't been any other evidence of supernatural baddies in the area. We find out what did it, and if it's still around, we kill it." The dark-haired hunter sighed and grabbed another piece of pizza from the box. "This is the best we've got… Damn it, but it's been slow lately."
Amelia rolled her eyes and closed the laptop, almost on Asher's fingers. "Stop complaining."
"Stop being bitter just because I won't get freaked out about the possibility of being hunted." Asher finished the last slice of pizza in four large bites and then climbed into bed. "Just chill out for once Amelia. Worry about it when I worry about it. You are such a worrywart."
"You never worry about anything," Amelia muttered as she closed the light and climbed into her own bed.
Asher's nonchalant attitude towards her situation may have fooled Amelia and everyone else who knew her secret, but it wasn't the whole truth. She was, in fact, very worried about becoming prey to some hunter, and that night she dreamed of being chased, of being shot at, and being tortured with silver weapons. She dreamed of being forever bound with the silver chains that kept her from running off on a killing rampage every month, the metal burning her skin continuously, the wounds never healing, her skin remaining red and raw. She dreamed of killing and becoming the monster she should have become a long time ago. She woke once in the middle of the night, covered in cold sweat and still able to taste the blood from her dream Thankfully, Amelia was a heavy sleeper, so the startled gasp which escaped Asher's lips didn't wake her. When she fell back asleep, it was dreamless. She was quite terrified for herself, but she possessed the ability to push that worry to the background and concentrate on getting the bad guy. She did appreciate Amelia's worrying, but it got in the way more often than not.
Around five in the morning, Asher climbed out of bed, grabbed her clothes, woke Amelia by pulling off her blankets as she walked by, and headed into the bathroom like the bad dreams had never occured. Showered, brushed and dressed, she set about the hotel room, packing her large duffel with her clothes and weapons that had made it out and about. Amelia emerged from a steaming bathroom a short time later and began performing the same task, albeit a little more slowly than Asher. Guess who was more functional in the morning. They met a blurry-eyed clerk at the desk downstairs and checked out. The last stop before they hit the highway was a coffee shop where they stocked up on the hot, rejuvenating liquid and various baked goods to get them through the drive.
"Ash, are you at all worried about being hunted?" Amelia asked as the monotony of the highway took over.
Asher sighed and spent more time than required chewing her muffin. "Of course I am, but I don't see any point in freaking out about it until I have to. Why are you so worried about it?"
"Aside from the obvious fear of losing my best friend?"
"Yeah. I mean, I know you'd miss me if I died, but you'd move on eventually. Austin and I have trained you well and we've on from Austin's death." For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Asher had to fight off images of her surrogate father and face the fact that she hadn't moved on as well as she kept telling herself she had.
It was a moment before Amelia answered, and Asher was sure it was because she was trying not to think to hard about Austin either. "You saved me," she said after a moment. "Who knows where I could have ended up wandering down that road all bloody and whatever. You found me and took me in, you and Austin gave me a life, and I have yet to repay that favour."
"So you see getting freaked out about being hunted as a werewolf as repayment for that? You don't have to repay me for taking you to Austin's. For all you know, you would have ended up with a normal life if I hadn't found you."
"Or I could have ended up as road kill, or attacked by animals, or picked up by some murderer…"
"Okay, okay, enough with the melodrama." Asher sighed and took a long drink from her still-hot coffee. "You're welcome for saving your life, but you don't have to repay me. It was an impulsive decision and impulsivity doesn't usually warrant a reward. You don't have to freak out about me being hunted, either. At least, not until you have to worry. You'll give yourself grey hair if you keep it up."
Amelia tried to sigh intolerantly, but the gesture was interrupted by laughter. As the laughter escalated, Amelia pulled her cowboy hat—a black one today—down over her face, covering her steadily reddening cheeks and muffling the hyena-like noise she made when she laughed too hard. Asher chuckled quietly in the driver's seat, not as prone to outright guffawing. As the moment passed and Amelia's hat made it back onto her head, the mood in the cab of the truck settled back on tense; moments of levity were few and far between. The only other time during the drive that the girls exchanged words was when they passed a road-side diner and saw a sleek, black muscle car sitting out front. Amelia immediately identified it as the Winchesters' Impala, though how she knew it was their care was anyone's guess.
"Just chill Amelia, before you force me to knock you unconscious."
"I bet you they're on the same case as us."
"So? Just relax."
But there was no relaxing for Amelia, and as they drove, Asher became less and less relaxed. As they passed the diner, two young men exited the diner and climbed into the Impala and pulled out onto the highway behind the truck. The Impala didn't disappear as they drove into the parking lot of a motel either, although the Winchester boys got out and headed into the office first, so apparently they didn't recognize the truck or the women in the cab, or they hadn't noticed. Either would be a bonus.
"If traveling with a werewolf is so detrimental to your health, why don't you stop doing it?" Asher snapped as Amelia opened her mouth to make some other comment once they had parked and were standing at the back of the truck.
The shorter hunter froze with one hand on her duffel. "I didn't say it was detrimental to my health."
Asher hoisted her duffel out of the bed of her truck and slung it onto her shoulder. "Well clearly you're not enjoying it, so let's just get this job over with so you can move on with your life, okay?"
Once they had procured a room, they fished two outfits off the hangers in the backseat of the truck and changed themselves into the white and black pant suits that made them look like Agent Amy Williams and Agent Naomi Black. As they tucked their fake IDs and weapons into their respective pockets, they headed back out to the truck and climbed into the cab. The Impala was still in its parking spot a few spaces away and Asher breathed a silent sigh of relief. They were moving faster than the Winchesters which meant they might pull this off without meeting up with them. The girls remained in silence as they entered the city proper, destined for the address where the murder-suicide had taken place.
"I'm sorry I get so worried," Amelia said as Asher parked the truck around the corner from the house.
"And I'm sorry I said you should leave." They exchanged a small smile before hopping down to the ground, the heels of their boots clicking along the pavement. "I hate these boots," Asher groaned.
"Maybe if you wore shoes made for women on a regular basis, they wouldn't be so uncomfortable."
Asher resisted the urge to give her hunting partner the finger and settled for a whispered "Fuck you" as they approached the empty house with the yellow crime scene tape still semi-attached to the doorway. It flapped in the wind, snapping almost angrily against the window beside the door. As they ascended onto the porch, a frail-looking woman appeared out of nowhere in the yard next door, leaning on her side of the fence.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice rough and bird-like.
"Possibly," Asher said, digging her badge out of her pocket and flashing it expertly at the woman's thick glasses. "I'm Agent Black and this is my partner, Agent Williams. What can you tell us about what happened here last week?"
"The man went crazy and shot his wife and three kids in the face before shooting himself. What else is there to know?" She peered over the rim of her glasses at them, probably trying to decide if they actually looked like federal agents, and if they did, why exactly the FBI would be interested in this particular case. Apparently, she reached a satisfactory conclusion and regarded the women with a glance that was a little less suspicious than before.
Amelia stepped forward, her face taking on the caring and compassionate expression Asher had never quite mastered. All the really sensitive people work fell to Amelia, who had better communication skills and was just generally a nicer person when it came to strangers. "Was there anything in the man's previous behaviour to indicate he might do something like this?" she asked, crossing her arms across her chest as if to ward off the chill from the fall breeze.
"Not really. He was a priest at the church I go to every Sunday, although I probably won't go there anymore, and he always seemed like a nice man. I guess even the best of them can go bad." The woman sighed and ran her bony fingers along the top of the fence. "I did notice something odd about him the day before it happened, though." She dropped her eyes to the grass and shook her head slowly. "He spoke differently. He was rude."
"And that was new?"
"I just said it was different behaviour." She sighed again. "Before he'd always been so polite to everyone," she breathed, her voice taking on a whimsical quality.
"Did you notice anything strange about his face? Like his eyes?"
The woman's head snapped up. one eyebrow raised higher than the other. "What would that have to do with anything? And no, I didn't. He looked the same, sounded the same, but he wasn't the same."
Amelia nodded once. "Thank you for your time." She turned on her heel and crossed the lawn to stand in front of Asher. "It definitely sounds like demonic possession," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "But we should get inside the house and see if we can find anything. Maybe talk to the other neighbours and the people he worked with at the church."
"I agree, but right now, I think we have another problem," Asher said tiredly.
She reluctantly pointed across the road to where two recognizable figures had just appeared, knowing full well what Amelia's reaction would be. Instead of letting her freak out however, Asher strode confidently across the lawn before she could say anything and stood with her arms crossed under her chest watching as the Winchesters cross the street, dressed identically in black suits, white shirts and black ties. Asher recognized the shorter of the two as Dean Winchester, which meant the other one had to be Sam, since he wasn't old enough to be Dean's father, and the gossip mill said Daddy Winchester didn't hunt with his boys anyway. Both of them looked mighty uncomfortable in the suits and neither looked too happy about running into other hunters either.
Dean reached the lawn first and approached Asher. "Who are you?" he asked, tone just short of a demand.
"Agent Naomi Black, what about you?" she snapped, well aware of the woman next door still watching them.
Dean's eyes flicked over her shoulder to the woman before he answered, "Agent Perry."
They stared at each other for a tense minute, Sam shifting uncomfortably behind Dean and Amelia watching a couple of squirrels play in one corner of the lawn, probably trying not to grab Asher by the wrist and drag her away from the potential danger. "We should go somewhere else and talk about the 'case'," Asher finally said, her eyes narrowing dangerously, the blue of her irises lightening as it always did when she was mad.
"I agree."
As a group, the four hunters headed around the corner to where Asher had parked the truck and where Dean had evidently parked the Impala. They stood beside the truck, trying to look as if what was happening was a normal occurrence, but it was early in the day and there was no one around, so the FBI-talk dissolved into normal speech, which was a pretty careless move, but no one seemed to notice. Everyone seemed to intent on finding out who the hell the others were and what the hell they were doing at the same crime scene.
"You two are hunters, right?" Dean demanded almost before they'd stopped walking.
"And if we are?"
Sam stepped forward, stopping his brother's obviously angry reply. "We can work together on this case," he offered. Asher knew instantly that he was the peacekeeper of the two, just as Amelia usually was for their team.
"We're hunters," Asher confirmed. She regarded the brothers for a moment before saying, "I'm Asher Michaels and this is Amelia Shaw."
"Sam and Dean Winchester," the tall young man said, his shoulders dropping as most of the tension evaporated. Dean took a step away from his brother, and turned his back to the conversation, a look on his face that said he was trying to place something in his mind. "Do you think this was demonic possession as well?" Sam asked, trying to remove the remaining tension as quickly as he could.
Asher nodded. "The woman Amelia talked to said the man—"
"Philip Huxley."
She consented to Sam's injection of the name. "That Philip Huxley started acting out of character the day before—'"
"You're the werewolf!" Dean suddenly yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Asher.
Sam shot a confused look at his brother and then at the girls and then recognition clicked somewhere behind his hazel eyes. Amelia stepped up beside Asher and glared at the Winchesters and Asher took an involuntary step backwards, pressing her back against the side of her truck. Her hand subconsciously went to her gun, but by the time she thought to withdraw it, Dean was already readying his weapon to shoot her in the heart and his eyes were narrowed in anger. Amelia shifted so she was between the gun and her friend's chest at the same time Sam grabbed Dean's wrist to divert the direction of fire.
"Put the gun away, Dean," Sam said.
"She's a werewolf Sam!"
"I told you this would happen," Amelia hissed under her breath.
"We don't have to kill her right this second. The lunar cycle just started, Dean. She's not going to change for a month."
"So we should get let her go on a rampage in a month then? And kill God knows how many people?" Dean may have been yelling at his brother, but the gun was still aimed forward, although it was now pointing at the ground instead of Asher's chest. Don't think that made her feel any better though.
"She won't go on a rampage in a month!" Amelia barked.
Asher tried to think of a way she could get to the door of her truck without attracting too much attention, but nothing was coming to her. She also tried to think of a way to get out of this mess without Amelia having to explain their cunning solution to keep her from killing whenever the moon was full, as it wasn't something she wanted to get out there; knowledge of the solution begged knowledge of the problem, and she really wasn't willing to share that with anyone voluntarily, especially not other hunters who she knew would have the same reaction Dean was having.
"Yes she will! She's a werewolf!"
"We found a way to keep that from happening!"
The Winchesters stared at the girls like they had both sprouted an extra head. Asher used the moment of shock to open the passenger door of the truck and jump inside, pulling Amelia with her as she moved. She got the truck going as quickly as she could and they sped back to the motel, knowing full well the Impala would be right behind them.
Author's Note.
So yeah, I'm starting another fic. Give me a break. I just love Supernatural so much and this one just came to me. Seriously, I had all the preliminary planning done in like, a day. Or less. So, I couldn't really keep this one inside for too long. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this beginning.
For the record, I'm making a lot of stuff up and expanding on the lore from the show, since they don't go into nitty-gritty details a lot, I've got some space. If I make a mistake, let me know so I can fix it, okay?
Also, the chapters for this fic are probably going to be shorter, but there will be a lot. Ten per book. And right now, there are five planned books. And don't worry, there will be plenty of explanation on all fronts as I go along.
Next Chapter: Can't Get Away That Easily.