We walked into the asylum and immediately could smell something off. Like burnt flesh or something. It was weird, I hadn't heard of wendigoes cooking the remains before eating them. Dean and Sam drew their guns, and I pulled a large knife out of a pocket in my jacket.
"What's with that?" Sam asked.
I smirked, and studied it in the dim light. "I had it blessed by the Pope. Can kill anything, this bad boy."
"You met the Pope?" Sam questioned, laughing.
"Yeah. He's a real nice guy. He's got a real admiration for us hunters. That's what he said anyway." I replied.
The two looked stunned, and we walked down the long corridor. As we passed a patient's room, we saw a fire burning. "I really don't get that. From what I've heard, wendigoes don't cook the flesh. They just eat." I said, voicing my earlier thought.
"Well, you've done your homework, haven't you?" Dean quipped from behind me, as I stood in the doorway of the room, looking around to see if the wendigo was in the room. I turned around and faced Dean.
"'Course I have." I answered.
"Guys, I think I found something." Sam's voice called from further down the long corridor.
"Yeah, like what? A ghost in a strait-jacket? I wouldn't be surprised. We're in a freaking asylum." I quipped, as Dean and I walked to catch up with Sam.
Dean chuckled. "That's a good one."
I grinned back at him as we stood either side of Sam. Looking ahead, Dean and I saw exactly what Sam was talking about, and the grins just disappeared from our faces. Three now-dead people were chained to the wall, and all of them had pieces of skin and muscle missing from various parts of the body. I'm telling you, it wasn't a pretty sight, and I should be able to deal with this sort of thing, I'm a hunter.
"The wendigo must be keeping them alive for some reason." Sam said, moving back a step from the scene.
"Or it's just a real sick puppy." Dean added, as I heard a small whimpering sound coming from the cell behind me.
"Uh-oh," I said, wincing as I was looking into a small cell where I had heard the noise from. "this is not good."
"What? What'd you find?" Sam asked, he and Dean coming to stand in the doorway behind me. They peered inside, and both looked at me, confused.
"You gotta be kidding me, right? You two have never seen a birth before?" I asked.
"What, is that supposed to be normal?" Dean asked, gesturing back to the scene in front of us.
"You talking about the birth, or the things included?" I asked.
Sam looked plain old puzzled. "I had no idea that it is even possible." He added.
Okay, this is probably the part where I tell you what was going on in that room. See, legend goes, that in this asylum, there are psychotic ghosts that scream constantly, right? That would be explainable. But it turns out that the screaming is no ghosts, its wendigoes and their victims. Also explainable, and more rational. Well, in our line of work. But what we saw is a female wendigo giving birth to other baby wendigoes. This explains the tied up humans. But what are we supposed to do, kill it while it's in birth? Now, this situation is very confusing.
"Neither did I. Now we do." I added.
"Well, where's your knife?" Dean asked.
"We're really going to kill it?" I asked him.
"Yeah. It kills people, eats some of them and then it's going to give the rest to the kiddies." Dean replied.
"Okay, then." I replied, replacing my knife in my back pocked, and pulled a gun from my waistband, filled with both iron and silver bullets.
"Why'd you replace your knife? You said it kills anything." Sam asked.
"Don't want to make it personal, 'kay Sam." I replied, remembering the times that I had been in the room with a woman giving birth. As I aimed the gun at the wendigo, I heard both boys start shooting at the wendigo from beside me. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill a mother. Once the wendigoes were all dead, I walked out of the asylum, and jumped over the fence again.
"Hey! Hey!" I heard Dean call from behind me.
"What, did I miss one?" I asked sarcastically, turning so I could see him through the wire fence.
"No. But, you gotta try and push all of the personal stuff out of your mind while you are on this hunting trip. Otherwise, it can drive you nuts." Dean replied.
I felt tears burn my eyes. "I can't." I said simply, turning back to my car.
Later that night, I was sitting at the local bar, drowning my sorrows with Jack. I was dwelling on what Dean said about pushing away all of the personal stuff out of my mind. He didn't get how much I wanted to, but for some reason, the fire, it just stuck on replay, over and over again. I thought I was going nuts. Almost every time I went to sleep, I would see it. See the faces…
"Drowning the hunt with Jack, I see." Dean's voice said suddenly from beside me.
"What do you want, Dean?" I asked, before downing another glass of Jack Daniels.
"What's eating you, kid?" he asked back.
I motioned for the bartender to pour me another drink. "Tell me something, Dean. You ever been on a hunt that's hit close to home?" I replied.
Dean smiled wryly as the bartender slid another cup of Jack Daniels to me. "You have no idea."
"Well – I dunno, the whole thing, it sort of reminded me of home." I confessed.
"You deal with pregnant wendigoes a lot at home?" Dean asked, chuckling.
"No," I answered, smiling a bit, "but I had to deal with a few pregnant woman, and I guess that, with what we deal with, and me being an aunt, I guess I weirded out a bit, huh?"
"No kidding." Dean replied.
"I think I've had enough of Jack for tonight. I'm going to head back to the hotel. Later, Dean." I said, downing the drink in front of me. I pulled out my wallet, and slid a fifty to the bartender. "Keep the change." I added to the confused man.
Then I walked out of the bar, and out to my car. When I got back to the hotel and crawled into the bed, I swear, I could have slept for days.
I plopped down next to the boys the next morning in the local café with my laptop up and running under my arm, and holding my coffee and bagel.
"Where to next, boys?" I asked, before taking a sip of my coffee.
Both looked at me oddly. "You ain't coming with us. You do your own jobs, we'll do ours." Dean added.
"Oh, and here was me thinking that we did pretty well together." I replied, not flinching in the slightest.
"Yeah, and we did all the hard parts." Dean laughed.
I paused for a minute, seeming to be in thought. "Hmm, I think it was me that actually found the bastard thing. I just let you deal with the messy part."
"Really, you walking away is just letting us?" Sam asked.
Shrugging, I replied "You caught me on an off day, so what?"
"Fine. Next one we go after is your test run." Dean said, taking a bite of his pancake.
"Okay." I replied, raising my cup to my lips and grinning. This was going well.
"Hey, I think I found something up our alley," I called to the boys from the bed in their hotel room. I peered a little closer to the laptop to have a closer look at the picture which I had already magnified. "seriously up our alley."
Sam and Dean sat next to me on the bed and looked at the picture that I had dug up. It was of a crime scene, where a man had his throat slit while in his bed. His apartment was locked from the inside, and all windows were also locked from the inside. The police seemed to be completely stumped by the case. I dug through the town's archives and this sort of murder had been happening steadily since March.
"Well, looks like we have a succubus on our hands, boys." I said, closing my laptop.
"A succubus?" Dean asked incredulously.
"Yeah, you know - a succubus. Who has sex with them in their sleep, and also kills them in their sleep." Sam explained.
"I know that!" Dean retorted angrily.
"What I've heard is that we have to draw them out of the men's sleeping states with a little mix of herbs, and then use iron bullets to kill her." I added, opening my laptop again to see file on my computer that I wrote down about monsters I had killed.
Dean peered over my shoulder and said "You've dealt with all of these bastards?"
"Yes, Dean, I have." I replied, after looking at the recipe for the mixture that would expel the succubus from the man's dreams, and reaching for the suitcase that housed all of the herbs that I carried around.
"Hey Sam, listen to this. 'The striga's feed off of life force and have been heard of clear back to ancient Rome, they are immune to weapons forged by god or man, although they can be killed by consecrated iron while feeding, and in between feedings they masquerade as a human. Often they appear to be an old crone like woman.'," Dean read off my open laptop. He looked at me. "you've actually dealt with a striga?"
"Yeah. Haven't you heard of them?" I asked, mixing rosemary, thyme, tarragon, sage, dill, lemon verbena, and foxglove in my mortar and pestle.
Sam also looked through the list of demons and evil entities I had faced and added, "We've faced one too. From what we've heard, they aren't very common."
"Well, unfortunately not." I replied, pouring a bit of lavender essence into one of the vials I got out, and added a pinch of the herbal mixture. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam and Dean exchange a look. Sam quickly covered the awkward silence.
"So, what have you got there, Morgan?" He asked, as I placed the last vial on the bedside table and closed the case.
I smiled to myself and threw them each a vial. "This little puppy will help us to get out the succubus from the man's mind. So she won't kill him while he's sleeping. The foxglove, lavender and rosemary will make her disorientated, since they are very feminine herbs, and the other herbs are to expel her from the man's mind." I explained.
"Is this some sort of potion or something?" Dean asked, as both men examined the vials in the dim afternoon light.
"Or something." I replied.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Sam asked, pocketing the small bottle.
"'Course I am. I've done this before," I said, smiling. "obviously you two haven't."
"No, we haven't had to deal with a succubus yet." Sam answered.
"It doesn't mean that we'll be ignorant of it though." Dean retorted, to my subtle accusation.
"Mmhm. Sure." I replied, smirking, as I pulled a map of USA out of my bag. I looked it over, to see how far we had to drive from Michigan to Kansas. From what I could see, it would take at least two days to cross the border, and get into the small town in Kansas.
"So, this is the town?" Dean asked, as we all stood at the town's first set of street signs.
"Looks like it." I replied, pulling my mp3 player earplugs out of my ears. I looked around, and couldn't see much of anything, as it was all fogged up, and the fog just seemed to keep rolling in.
"Well, let's find a hotel in this foggy damn town." Sam replied, slinging a bag over his shoulder.
We got back in our cars, and drove down the main road with our headlights on the highest setting so we could see where we were going, and soon we stumbled upon a hotel.