Hunter of the Shadows Book 3
Enemy at the Door.
Chapter 2
Now…
Dean glances across at Sam, now in human form, curled up on the couch, head in Tobius' lap and fast asleep. Tobius' own eyes are closed but he's obviously awake, because he's idly stroking his grandson's soft hair and humming a soft tune.
Sam rolls his head to the side in his sleep, mutters softly, but otherwise seems quite content. There's an air of closeness about Grandpa and Grandson that hasn't been quite as obvious as it is now, and it might make the digital audience ponder its significance.
Dean is watching them with a speculative look on his face and a peaceful smile that gives the impression of some inner battles hard fought, and won.
Turning back to the camera, Dean carries on with his story telling.
"Bobby and Pastor Jim were supposed to be our first port of call, since John had damn near killed Jim," Dean tutts, angrily. "Wanted to check the poor guy was ok, but after the guest house demon, Bobby advised against it. Said he felt like he was being watched and didn't want to draw us out, just in case. We had no idea where John was, or who he was possessing… and that was the bitch of all this. It could have been absolutely anyone, and without getting up close and personal, there was no way to tell. But!" Dean raised a triumphant finger. "Bobby had a cunning plan…"
Then…
"So what's the plan?" I asked, eyeing Sire curiously while he climbed behind the wheel. With his usual calm grace he closed the driver's door, and sat quietly for a minute or two.
Sam sat up, frowning behind his shades, and inclined his head slightly towards me in a silent question.
I just shrugged in response, my shoulder lightly jostling his. Blind as Sam was, he got the message. Sire had just been involved in another highly interesting discussion with Bobby Singer about our situation. I'd stayed in the car with Sam, keeping my eyes and ears peeled for trouble.
Call us paranoid, but we weren't too keen on using cell phones, or communication magic, with someone like John Winchester on our tail. An ordinary public pay phone was less easily traced, but we had to be quick in case Bobby's phone was being demonically 'tapped'.
But Tobius looked troubled.
"Sire?" I prompted, gently.
"Hmm?" he blinked and twisted his body round to face us.
More and more these days, I was happily relegated to the rear seat with my son. Made it all the easier to protect him, and not riding shotgun beside Sire no longer rankled like it used to. I guess I really was growing up.
"Oh. Yes. Well…" he trailed off, turned to face forward again, and tapped the steering wheel with his index finger.
Another silence.
I rolled my eyes. This was getting us nowhere.
"Uh… you were saying?" I waved my hand in a 'roll on' gesture.
Tobius sighed, reached down and turned the key in the ignition. As the engine roared to life, he finally started talking.
"For a start, Bobby advised me to find a quiet, out of the way place in order conduct a cloaking spell," checking his blind spot and finding it safe, he pulled the car back onto the road. "As soon as it's activated, we move on…"
I was getting frustrated with his hesitation. "Ok. So after we make like a Klingon Bird of Prey, where do we move on to next?"
"Canada," his reply was short and to the point.
"Canada?" Sam murmured. "As in…"
"As in as far as north as possible without getting our paws wet," Tobius nodded grimly, then added "Or frozen."
I chewed on my bottom lip, giving this careful consideration.
"What's up north?" I asked, casually.
"The Aurora Borealis, for one thing," Tobius replied, all fake joviality.
"What's so special about the Northern Lights?" asked Sam, dolefully. "It's just the Earth's magnetic field."
Tobius and I shared a sad look in the rear-view mirror. Sammy wouldn't be able to appreciate them in any case. Apparently, non-lunars can only see the Aurora Borealis in human form. Don't ask me why. We can see everything else in this world, up to and including some sights we wished we never could. But magnetic radiation? Nope. Not in wolf form, the one form Sam's sight was functioning well for.
"The break will do us good, and we have a place to stay," Tobius deliberately ignored Sam's uncomfortable question. "I think you'll like it up there."
"What aren't you telling us?" I demanded, fed up with the typical Tobius cryptics.
"Lots of things," he answered, smugly. "But you should be used to that, young pup."
This time, both Sam and I huffed impatiently and folded our arms in a deep sulk. I spied Sire's self-satisfied grin in the rear-view mirror and scowled.
Must've been hours later when I woke up and the car was just bumping gently off the road again. Sire pulled in behind some dark conifers, switched off the headlamps and kept on going, while I yawned and stretched, jostling Sammy in the process.
Taking a good look around, I nodded in approval just as the car coasted to stop. We were nicely hidden up in thick forest, night was falling fast, and no human would be able to find us out here.
Damn shame it wasn't humans on our tails, huh?
Sam lifted his head from my shoulder, raised his chin and took a long hard sniff. One hand reached up and scrabbled at the shades, pulling them off his face.
"We can't be far from the Canadian border," he announced, and sniffed again. "Forests smell differently up here, and the air…" another sniff. "Snow's on the way."
Tobius smiled, obviously impressed, teeth gleaming in the fading evening light.
"Only another couple of hours and we'll be on Canadian soil," he agreed and winked at me in the mirror. "And the snow will help cover our tracks. Now!" Sire thumped the steering wheel lightly and opened the driver's door with a flourish. "Let's get that cloaking spell activated."
"What's involved?" I asked, following Sam out the rear seat. "We don't have to sacrifice anything do we?"
Tobius turned a surprised expression on me. "What an absurd thing to say."
"No. It's probably something simple," explained Sam. "You don't need much to keep a demon off the scent. Just a lot of holy water and a shit load of patience."
Tobius spluttered a little and even I had a hard time containing my shock. Sam wasn't usually one for profanities but lately he was becoming more and more expressive.
"Sam's right," Tobius recovered more quickly than I did and he seemed to take great pleasure in that. "Holy water is the easy part. But as Sam so eloquently put it, the incantation itself is extremely… wearing, I suppose you could say. It has to be, in order to be powerful enough to keep us off the demonic radarscope."
I was sceptical. "And you're sure this thing'll work?"
Sire shrugged. "I trust Bobby Singer's judgment in these matters."
"Ok." I nodded, still not entirely happy. "What if it wears off? Even holy water will evaporate eventually."
Sam bumped my shoulder with his. "The holy water is probably only the catalyst for the spell to take, but not essential to keep it running."
"Sam's right," said Sire. "There is one counter-point to contend with, however. It'll cloak our movements, as in our aura or signature, but if we run headlong into John by chance we won't be invisible to him. That's just not how it works," he added when he saw the obvious protest on my face. "As soon as the spell takes, we head straight up north to safety before he catches on something's amiss."
I felt like sulking. There was me thinking of Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility, and how cool that would be, but it turned out to be nothing of the kind.
"Won't he sense it?" Sam frowned and shuffled his feet against the forest floor impatiently. "Us disappearing off the face of the earth, I mean?"
"It's possible," Tobius admitted, opening the trunk and pulling out our supply of holy water. "But Bobby feels the risk is minimal. And in any case, John can't just materialise like an incorporeal demon. He needs a human host and a means to travel. Those limitations should buy us some time."
We can hope, I guess. But I wasn't convinced this was going to work. Still, it was worth a shot and we had nothing better to do until we hit Canada.
"Alrighty then," I wrapped an arm round Sam's shoulders and watched Sire begin to pour the water all over my baby, starting with the hood. He muttered low in his throat, words I couldn't hear and wouldn't have been able to understand anyhow, and as he did so, the holy water took on a weird blue sheen.
Tobius carried on, unconcerned. He'd clearly been warned about this.
And boy. Sam sure wasn't wrong about needing patience.
The strange ritual went on for one very long and very boring hour before anything else happened.
I yawned.
Yawned again.
Shuffled from foot to foot.
Checked my Rolex more than once.
Boring.
Another watch check.
Boring.
Another yawn.
Dying of boredom here…
You get the picture? I was about to crack.
Oh for the love of God, please tell me you're nearly finished!
Tobius smirked but carried on chanting. Do we really want another conversation about patience being a virtue?
"Screw virtue! What's happening? Is it working?" Sam tugged on my elbow, anxiously. Poor kid was already running on a limited supply of patience so he was worse off than any of us.
"Uh…" I muttered, eyes widening, because something was happening.
At fucking last.
The sheen began to shimmer and turn into a full on glow, and a low hum built up like a pylon gaining electric charge.
"Dean!" Sam was shaking my entire arm, desperate to know what was going on.
"Yeah, I think it's working, Sammy." Knowing that wasn't enough for my curious brotherson, I began to describe the strange scene in detail. "Tobius just drowned the Impala in holy water, from bumper to bumper, and as soon as he started chanting that spell, the water… whoa!"
I lifted a hand to shield my eyes and turned my head away when the glow burst into a bright, retina popping display of light, and the electric charge crackled around the forest.
Tobius presumably reacted the same way because he halted the incantation for a few seconds, then resumed the chant.
"What happened?" Sam insisted, like a little kid pestering for candy.
"I think my hair is standing on end," I mumbled, feeling a little overwhelmed. "If I'd known holy water could do that I'd have saved a fortune on 4th of July fireworks that year, huh?"
"Dean!" growled Sam. "Did it work?"
As I stared at the Impala, and Sire finally reached the end of the incantation, my baby swum out of sight for a few seconds, then reappeared as though nothing had happened.
"I guess so," I whispered back.
I vaguely heard Sam give a huff of frustration as I walked around the car, examining her for burn marks or scratches, feeling highly relieved when I didn't find a thing.
"So." Tobius smiled. "Canada here we come…"
I spent the rest of the journey gazing out at the landscape, watching the forests thicken and the canopies become steadily loaded with snow. It reminded me of happier times spent with the Home Pack, the nomadic non-lunar werewolves we'd befriended during our recent adventures before the battle at Mont Noir.
I cast a glance at Sam's wistful smile. No doubt, all kinds of smells were triggering his own set of memories of the happy-go-lucky wolf pack.
Wish we could be with them, guys. I'm worried. Supposing Da… John goes after them, just out of spite?
Don't worry, pup, Tobius reassured his grandson. Lucas has taken his pack and the werebears deep into protected territory. And with a few tricks I passed on from Bobby, even your famous Navy SEALS would have a hard time finding them all. We'll catch up with them, one day. When this is all over.
I nearly snorted. Yeah. One day. That sounds real promising.
Tobius frowned at me in the rear-view mirror. It's not like you to cloak yourself in such pessimism, Dean.
Sam shifted slightly in his seat, half turning towards me, awaiting my response.
With a small sigh, I shrugged. Not pessimism, as such. I guess I'm just getting sick of all this. I want to go back to the way things were before all this shit started up. Before Jake, and Meg… I gave another shrug. I'm sick of running for our lives. Time was, the enemy was running for their lives… away from us! Now it feels like all we do is retreat.
Sire stayed silent for a moment, but a twitch at the corner of his mouth suggested he was fighting a grin.
He who fights and runs away…he intoned, wisely.
Lives to run another day. Sam and I finished off, chuckling softly.
Discretion is the better part of valour, cowardice is the better part of discretion…Sam added with a small grin, getting into the spirit of the discussion.
Therefore, I valiantly run away, I murmured with snort. Jeez, yeah, I know.
"Where on earth did he come from?" Tobius suddenly snapped out, eyes darting back and forth between his side mirror and the windshield.
"Where did who come from?" asked Sam, nervously.
I glanced behind out the rear window, saw the flashing lights and my heart sank.
"Ah, shit! It's the cops."
The annoying whine of a siren blared out briefly, and followed us off the road.
Sire rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "We might have to get a little rough with the poor chap if he insists on detaining us for any reason."
We all kept facing the front, and stayed absolutely still. The crunch of heavy boots on the road had Sam twitching a little. Must have been pretty frustrating and scary, not able to see or predict what was going to happen next.
I tightened my arm around his shoulders. Easy, Sam.
But what followed was a complete revelation, and secured a little more confidence in our future.
The cop drew level with Tobius, tipped his hat in greeting and leaned down to look through the window.
"Evening, M'am," he said, friendly enough, eyes searching the rear of the car, probably out of habit.
Sam and I glanced at each other in surprise, Tobius eyes widened.
M'am?
But there were more surprises on the way. The cop's gaze swept right over us. Guy ignored us completely, as though we weren't even there.
"No need for alarm," the guy continued. "We're expecting some pretty harsh weather up here in a few hours. Might be best you turn off to the nearest town and wait it out. Roads'll clear up a little in a few days."
Sam nodded slowly and nudged me.
Bobby's incantation doubled as a glamour spell. That cop can't see us, and he thinks Tobius is a girl.
Tobius, to his credit, recovered quickly. I half expected him to put on a woman's voice.
"Thank you, officer, but w… I won't be stopping," he covered his slip so smoothly only an ear experienced in the ways of Le Salle might have noticed. "I have to be in Canada fairly urgently for medical reasons."
Thank God he didn't put on a woman's voice. That might just have been my undoing. I wasn't sure how that glamour thingy worked, but if Tobius had pulled a Life of Brian, they'd have heard me laughing down in Florida.
The cop, a young guy, fairly innocent and obviously keen about his duties, gave Tobius a small salute and tipped his hat again.
"In that case, I won't keep you," he patted the roof, gently. "Good luck, m'am, and stay safe now. Make sure you drive slowly round those mountain passes. These old Buicks don't corner too good."
I started in angry shock. But we were all saved from me giving the game away by Sam ramming his elbow gently into my open mouth.
Dean, calm down!
He called the Impala a Buick, Sammy! He called it a piece of shit Buick! What the hell has Bobby turned my baby into?
Tobius was clearly having a hard time keeping a straight face but nodded his thanks to the cop, and carefully pulled the car away from the curb.
Once we'd put a safe distance between us and Mr Friendly, Sam removed his elbow and started laughing.
S'not funny, Sam! Bobby turned my car into a crap-heap fucking Buick!
Sam snorted and practically choked on his laughter. It's a glamour spell. It only looks like a Buick from the outside, but she's still the Impala. Feel it, Dean?
His hand felt its way along the seat until he could tap the ashtray, fingers gently brushing an old army man still wedged inside from when Sammy was six, bored and playful.
It must have taken a few minutes to cloak her true form.
I checked around me, nodding slowly. From what I could see, it was still my baby. Even a glance out the windshield showed me that this was no Buick. My heart began to settle down and I relaxed back into my seat.
Nerves now coming back under control, it was time for some Sire-baiting.
"So, Sire," I grinned.
He gave me a look that said he knew what was coming and he was dreading it.
I didn't disappoint.
"Never heard of an alpha bitch, dude. You sure you ain't holding out on us?"
Tobius' only tell was a slight clenching of his jaw.
"They occur, just not often," he remarked, pleasantly. "By the way, there's still enough of Bobby's mojo left over," he glanced over his shoulder at me with a peaceful smile. "As Vicky no doubt informed you, female betas do exist."
An eyebrow rose in challenge.
Laughing out loud, I shook my head. "No thanks. Women are insane."
"They'd have to be," snorted Sam. "No sane woman would sleep with you!"
"Right! That's it!" I launched across the seat and took my brotherson down.
There wasn't much space in the backseat for a real full on wrestling match, but I made that work to my advantage. Sammy must have been really tired because after only a few seconds of scuffling, in which Sire called out "would you mind awfully not banging against my seatback?" I held the kid in a tight headlock.
"Dean!" Sam struggled, but with his gigantor body trapped in such a small space, he found it almost impossible to gain any leverage to throw me off.
"You know what's coming, Sam," I shifted my grip a little when I heard him choke; anxious I might have been to keep him under restraint – guy's huge, after all - the last thing I wanted was to hurt him. Our play fights are rough, sure, but we never deliberately hurt each other. "Are ya ready?"
Sam pawed frantically at my arms. Experience had taught him what was coming and it wasn't going to be pleasant.
"NO… don't you dare, DEAN…"
I raised a finger to my mouth.
"Stop it! You know I hate that!"
I licked the finger, giving it a good ol'wash, making loud, disgusting sucking noises in the process. Sam shook his head from side to side, desperately trying to escape.
I pulled it from my mouth with a wet pop.
"C'mon, Dean," Sam tried a last minute, desperate plea of reason, but unfortunately took it too far. "You wouldn't do that to a blind guy, now, wouldja?"
I paused for effect.
"Aw Sammy. Shouldn't have said that, dude," then plunged my finger into the shell of his ear, swiping it round and reaching in to tickle the fine hairs further down.
"Noooooo….eeeewwwwww!"
Despite Sam's disgust, I still heard the underlying laughter he was trying so hard to reign in.
Tobius shook his head, chuckling. "The old ones are always the best, eh Dean?"
I just grinned and carried on tormenting my squirming little brotherson, until the both of us collapsed, exhausted from our play fight. I glanced down into Sam's sleepy face, and noted the ears sliding up the side of his head, the red fur and slowly developing snout.
"Get some sleep, kiddo," I whispered, running a hand through his fur. Fully wolfed out, Sam grumbled his approval and nosed his way into my neck, huffing warm breath down my shirt, and his soft whiskers tickling my chin.
No way was I ever using the word 'adorable' out loud, Sammy and Sire would never let me live it down, but you get the picture, right?
I joined him in the change, the two of us curled up together for warmth and safety, and we stayed that way until the next stop.
Which turned out to be a snowdrift.
What fun.
After three hours of travelling, followed by a large patch of inconveniently placed ice, we were stood on the roadside, staring in dismay at the Impala-Buick, the front end of which had disappeared under an appalling amount of snow. Several attempts to lever the car out of the drift had failed.
I guess when shit decides to happen it takes its job seriously.
"Oh dear," Sire muttered, blandly.
I was surprisingly calm. Looking back, I guess it's possible I'd gone into shock. What lay under the snow drift didn't look like my baby. It looked like a Buick. But I knew it was still technically my baby. Once we got out of the car, the glamour spell worked its wonders on us, too, so the Impala was disguised even from me. So yeah, I was calm.
But I had one bitch of a headache just thinking about it.
Sam padded over to the drift, jammed his snout into the snow, and took a good long sniff.
It's clean. Blown here naturally. No one set an ambush. Blue green eyes, still slightly tinted with silver, glowed strangely against the backdrop of the pure white snow. It was totally an accident. And judging by the look of that ice back there? He raised his snout again and used it to gesture to the road behind. Completely unavoidable.
An ambush wasn't a likely prospect anyway, given that the car had slid off the road into the snow drift, but Sammy wasn't one to leave anything to chance. So after everything we've been through, finally we'd fallen victim to a plain, good old fashioned accident, despite Sire's careful driving in treacherous conditions.
In that case, Sire replied, heading to the trunk and popping the lid. Let's get digging.
Sam stayed in wolf form so he could see what he was doing, and dug away at the snow with his powerful paws. Tobius and I grabbed a shovel each, and took up position on opposite sides of the drift.
"Just remember!" I called out, sternly. "Be careful with that damn thing. Just one scratch and I'll hide your brandy!"
Tobius snorted loudly. "Just get on with it, pup. Let's not stand here all bloody night, eh? Got better things to do than let the grass grow under us!"
We began digging, great shovelfuls of snow piling up behind us. Sammy seemed to disappear into the hole he made, and it was pretty funny hearing the doggy grunts and pants of exertion as snow flew up and out in all directions. Funny, that is, until some of it trickled down towards me, and only added to my workload.
Uh, Sammy? Why don't you stay back and keep watch, huh?
The sound of digging stopped and Sam's snow covered snout appeared over the crest of his hole, and surveyed my sector of snow clearance.
What? Oh. Ok.
He padded off to the rear and sat down at the edge of road, while I carried on digging.
Sire seemed to make good progress and already had the driver's half of the hood uncovered. The side I was digging out was more of a chore, the snow a little deeper, the wheels embedded in some kind of icy puddle.
Great.
"Uh, Tobius? I'm gonna need a little more help here. Wheel's stuck."
Sire huffed out a laugh.
"You youngsters, honestly!" he shook his head. "Sam? Would you mind getting into the driver's seat and changing? We'll try pushing her backwards if you can just steer it, left hand down… Sam?"
My head shot up when I heard a note of concern creep into Sire's voice.
Sammy?
Nothing. Absolute silence. Road couldn't have been more clichéd-empty if a patch of tumbleweed had rolled on by.
Sammy, where the hell are you?
We both scrambled back to the roadside, eyes scanning the ground, calling for the kid in our thoughts.
"Sire, look!"
I pointed to the tyre marks in the ice and slush. Sam's huge paws had left their prints, but there had been someone else there.
Tobius and I sniffed the air frantically.
Sam! Are you here, pup?
Someone with no scent.
Sammy?
There were the smallest signs of a struggle. Sam hadn't gone willingly.
God! How could this happen? I fumed, angry, scared and about ready to rip something or someone to pieces. He was right there, for fuck sake! Not ten feet away from us!
Calm down, son, Sire, as usual, kept his cool successfully, but I could sense the tension drumming through him. We need to keep our heads to figure this out. Time is of the essence. The longer it takes us, the slimmer our chances of finding Sam…
'Alive'. That was the missing word.
The slimmer our chances of finding Sam 'alive'.
Tobius didn't want to freak me out any further, but I knew what he was saying, and he was right. Time to put my well practiced game face back on, and let the hunt for my little brotherson take priority.
Between us, Sire and I scoured the surrounding area for the slightest clue.
Whoever, or whatever, had taken him from us must have been hellish strong, because Sammy hadn't even cried out for help. He'd barely had time to put up much of a fight, from what we could tell.
Sire was staring closely at Sam's paw prints.
"There's another set here," he looked up at me, frowning. "It was a werewolf."
Sire stood up and stared out into the night.
"A werewolf with no scent, and Sam couldn't thought project his peril," he whispered. "We've come across someone like this before."
It was years ago, and the guy was dead. So, if Sam had been taken by another one just like him, then he was in real trouble.
We briefly went through all the possible scenarios in our heads, trying to understand how this came about, what Sam's kidnapper planned to do with the kid.
There was only one real conclusion we could come to.
I got the strange feeling we'd been herded here in some way, ridiculous as that sounds.
But one thing was evident: somehow, in spite of all the spells and holy water, we'd been found.
TBC
Just in case I've missed anyone, thanks for all your wonderful reviews and support.
Happy New Year for midnight, one and all!
Love and hugs,
ST, ST's husband, and Nelson (the big, black, overgrown puppydog).