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 Two: Vampires.
Chapter Seven: Dead Man's Blood.
The air inside the truck's cab was thick with tension. Asher was behind the wheel, her knuckles white and her jaw clenched when she wasn't muttering incoherently under her breath. John Winchester was in the passenger seat and he kept shooting the driver suspicious looks which went ignored. Bobby and Sam were sitting the back seat, the former watching his companions and the latter steaming almost as much as the resident werewolf, but while Sam was also wound, he was keeping an eye on Asher; it wouldn't do to have to her change with John in the front seat.
They had left the Impala at the motel for several reasons. One, the truck held more equipment and there was room for everyone; two, Sam was beyond positive that Dean would pitch a fit if anything happened to his baby; and three, Asher simply would not drive the Impala.
The plan was simple. They were going to drive to the spot on the highway where they were attacked and then split up and try to find anywhere the vampires could be hiding. John had walkie-talkies, so the two teams could stay in touch, but none of the four hunters were particularly keen on venturing off in pairs: Bobby and Sam would be one team and John and Asher the other. When Asher had protested the arrangement, John had asked her why, and when she couldn't give him a reason, he'd yelled at her for wasting time. Regardless of how against following the elder Winchester's Asher was, she had had to cave if she wanted to get anything done as Bobby and Sam had fallen under John's control almost instantly.
When they reached the spot on the highway, Asher pulled her mammoth truck onto the gravel shoulder and the hunters piled out and headed around to the bed of the pickup. Sam stepped in front of Asher as she climbed out of the driver's seat.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She raised one eyebrow at the tension in the tall man's voice. "No, I'm not Bambi. But I'm not going to change and I'll be fine once I know Dean and Amelia are alive."
Sam seemed to accept this answer, as he turned and joined the older men at the tailgate.
The four hunters armed themselves with crossbow bolts and throwing knives dipped in Dead Man's Blood. Sam helped Asher get into her sword holster, all the while the four hunters keeping their eyes peeled for any signs of movement; it may have been daylight, but the vampires could still have scouts out and about.
"Okay," John said when everyone was armed to the teeth. "Bobby and Sam, you two take the left and Asher and I will take the right. Radio in as soon as you find anything and we'll meet up before we hit the target." His dark eyes found Asher and he narrowed his gaze. "No one do anything stupid; don't be a hero. Top priority is to get Dean and Amelia out alive. We can always hit the nest again."
Asher scowled loudly, but didn't say anything.
Bobby and Sam shot Asher identical looks of warning before they headed into the long grass of the field to the left. Scowling again, Asher lifted her sawed-off—they might meet something other than vampire, something that regular old bullets could take out—and scrambled down the slope into the field of corn on the right-hand side of the road.
Asher and John proceeded in silence through the field, the more experienced hunter a few steps ahead of the young woman; Asher's face didn't relax from a scowl for the entirety of the walk. They marched forward for close to ten minutes until John stuck his arm out in front of Asher, cutting off her progress. She bit off a snarky remark when John pointed into the distance, at a large white farmhouse with three red barns surrounding it in a rough semi-circle. There had to have been close to thirty cars parked haphazardly around the structures, all of varying makes, models and degrees of newness.
John lifted his walkie-talkie from his belt. "We've got the nest," he said quietly. "About ten minutes in. White farmhouse, three red barns."
Asher could just hear Bobby say, "Gotcha."
She took a step forward, but John stopped her with his arm again. "We wait," he snapped.
Asher scowled again, but instead of fighting, she returned her shotgun to its holster on her thigh and bent over to touch her toes. This gesture however, turned out to be a mistake as John shot her a dark gaze.
"Doesn't that hurt your stitches?"
Asher returned to an upright position, mentally cursing herself for her carelessness. "It does," she said, forcing herself to make eye contact; under the full force of John Winchester's gaze, Asher thought she might have understood why Sam and Bobby, both grown, intelligent men, seemed so willing to bend to the man's will. He had seen it all and was clearly skilled; Asher recalled something about him being a marine. "But I need to stretch," she added.
John didn't say anything else on the matter, but his eyes remained dark and Asher caught several more suspicious glances as they waited for Bobby and Sam to join them. After a few more moments of the waiting in tense silence, the rest of the hunters appeared through the corn and the group set off, moving quickly and quietly towards the house, using the copious amounts of cars for cover and always being sure to keep something between them and the windows. They reached the main building and pressed themselves against the board, John gesturing towards the centre barn, where most of the cars seemed to be concentrated.
Asher made to follow the directions, but something fell on her head. "Fuck," she breathed, looking up.
Dean wiggled his eyebrows from a tiny window at the top of the house.
Immediately, John, Bobby and Sam started looking for a way into the house, their motions slightly more frantic now that they knew where their son, brother and friends were hiding. Asher rolled her eyes and looked up the wall. The boards were old, but well-maintained; she had a sneaking suspicion that the vampires had used the former owners of the house as snacks before moving in. She quickly made sure all her weapons were secure and double-checked that no one was watching her before she bent her knees and jumped much higher in the air than any normal human, even a professional basketball player. Asher grasped the wide sill on the second-storey window and pulled herself up just enough to peek inside: no one. She scrambled up until she was standing on the sill and then, now that she was safely out of immediate viewing range, closed her eyes and concentrated on her hands.
When the full moon was close, Asher could sometimes perform a semi-transformation, and it was easier when she was emotional. Focusing her anger into her hands, she could feel the bones shift and grow and soon, she was able to dig her newly formed claws into the wooden siding and pull herself up to the small attic window.
"Ash!" Amelia snarled in a whisper. "What do you think you're doing? They could see!"
Dean was staring at her half-wolf claws. "What—"
Asher held up a hand to silence him. "We'll have time later." She grabbed the chains binding her friends with her hands and pulled, the metal giving under her supernatural strength. "How many vampires are in the house?"
"As far as we can tell, just the leader and those closest to him, I'm guessing," Amelia said.
Asher slid her swords out of the holster and handed one each to Amelia and Dean. "Give me a number."
Amelia shrugged. "I don't know. We haven't actually seen them."
"I've counted six different voices," Dean said.
Asher nodded. "All right. We're going to try and get out of here as quietly as possible. Only kill the vamps if you can do it without waking them all up."
Amelia and Dean nodded. The trio managed to make it down to the upper floor and kill the three vampires asleep up there without waking anyone. They were almost at the bottom of the rickety staircase when they were spotted by a very sleepy-looking vampire. Asher, who had a throwing knife in hand and ready, tossed it and the blade sunk into the fang's neck. Amelia leapt into action next, vaulting over the banister and decapitating the vampire in one smooth motion.
Silence settled around them and they waited, straining to hear any noises that would indicate the other vamps had started moving around. Confident they weren't about to be jumped, Asher, Amelia and Dean made their way towards the front door. As they passed the living room, Amelia tapped Asher on the shoulder and pointed to a tall, thin fang sprawled on the couch. He was wearing jeans and a baggy t-shirt and there were motorcycle boots discarded on the floor by his feet. Asher knew without asking that this unassuming being was the leader of the massive nest. Against her better judgement, she crept across the floor towards the vampire.
Dean and Amelia scowled in tandem and dispatched of the two other vampires in the room and quickly checked the adjoining kitchen and dining room. There were no others.
But, as soon as Asher was within arm's length of the vamp leader, his eyes opened and his hand shot out to wrap around Asher's neck. "What are you doing here, wolf?" he hissed.
Asher was too happy to snarl in an animalistic way at the man, her lip pulling back over her teeth. "Killing you and your brood," she spat.
The vampire squeezed harder, making Asher choke. "Alone?"
"She's not alone," Dean announced from the back of the room.
The vamp leader's head turned and he growled louder, his hand tightening more on Asher's neck; her face started to turn a deep shape of red. He opened his mouth and let out a strange growl.
"They won't come," Asher managed. "We've killed all the ones in the house. And you're next." Taking the silent cue, Amelia and Dean ran outside to join the others. Asher pulled her shotgun out of its holster and aimed it at the vamp's face, even as her vision started to blur; she could hardly get a breath.
"Your gun won't hurt me, wolf." The vampire leader rose to his feet, pulling Asher with him, still holding on to her by her neck.
Asher just did her best to grin nastily at him and pressed the mouth of her shotgun against the vampire's neck, pulling the trigger twice in quick succession. The close range of the shotgun tore his neck to pieces, nearly decapitating him. He dropped Asher, but before she could overcome a sudden coughing fit and finish the job, the leader started to heal. Asher was shocked—she'd never seen a vampire heal that fast. Instead of doing something stupid, she scrambled from the house, into the sunlight where she knew the vampires would be weakened.
Still coughing, she met up with the other hunters, all standing in a group, crossbows pointed towards the barns and the house. A flood of vampires could be seen in the doors of the barns, waiting to break free and overwhelm the hunters.
However, the rapidly healing leader seemed to have sent them signal to stop.
The hunters had no such signal. They all began firing the Dead Man's Blood-covered crossbow bolts into the waiting vampires, and soon, pitiful moaning filled the air.
"STOP!" the leader roared as he came out onto the front porch of the house.
The hunters did not listen; Asher, who was out of range of the vampires in the barn, threw three knives at the leader, who laughed and withdrew the blades from his torso. However, he did pale and lean against the railing for support.
"Stop killing us," he said.
"Why should we?" Dean and Asher bellowed together.
"Because you're killing my family."
Author's Note.
I'm not going to apologize for the length of time between updates because hardly anyone reads this fic aside from Shauna. Or at least, no one I hear from... *shameless plug for reviews*
Anyways, there are three more chapters of this fic and then the first one shot of several in this epically long thing called Monster Hospital. I can't wait for Supernatural to start up again. I miss the boys. And I need to have those questions they left us with answered. RUGG. Enjoy!
Next Chapter: Just Trying to Live.
