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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.

Blood Trail – Hunting Monsters

Chapter 11

The Tiger Hunts

Tyger, tyger , burning bright,

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

The Tyger by William Blake, Published 1794

It was early morning in Corpus Christi and Dean woke with Sam in his arms. Rolling away from the warm body he sat up and stretched. He reached for the ceiling, loosening his back and bobbing his head back and forth. Once all the kinks were worked out and his bones stopped popping he ran a hand down Sam's warm back.

His brother opened a single eye. "What's up, Dean? Morning?"

Running his fingers over the firm muscles Dean leaned over. "You can go back to sleep if you want. I'm going to get up. Maybe I'll get you some breakfast and wake you up later."

They had made the rounds yesterday, convincing witnesses to conceal their stories; making a deal with Ron Elbert in the hospital so he would change his story in trade for healing his leg wound. Now, all the bases were covered, Dean thought. There wouldn't be any unpleasant rumors going around the barrier island park about anything nasty in the water. Ranger McVey could report back to the Chamber of Commerce that all was right in their world again and some guys coming into the local bank to cash a Park Service chit deserved the money.

Dean thought they deserved an escort or maybe the money delivered straight to their room. He smiled at the thought of the cranky old ranger having to be the bag man for a group of scruffy hunters.

He got up and headed for the shower.

XXXXXXX

In was much later in the morning when Sam's eyes opened again. He pushed himself up against the headboard but the only person in the room was Silas and the blond Hunter most likely didn't appreciate the view. Silas sat at the little kitchen table with his laptop open and Dean was nowhere in sight.

"Good morning, Silas," Sam said as he stretched his arms over his head like a cat awakening in a patch of sunlight. "What's going on and, more importantly, is there any breakfast?"

Silas leaned over and grabbed some clothes off the duffel on the floor and threw them at Sam.

"Dean's gone out to get you some breakfast. He said to tell you to get your lazy butt out of bed and get dressed. I personally don't want my psyche damaged any further by you parading around naked." Sam smiled at the young Hunter.

"What are you looking for?" Sam asked on his way to the bathroom, clothes in hand.

Silas looked up. "Christ, Sam." he huffed and looked back at the monitor. "I saw some news on the T.V. this morning about some weird deaths up in San Antonio. We're going to be passing by there on our way over to New Orleans so I thought we might look into it."

Now Dean's voice came from the motel door. "What'd you mean, weird?"

He walked in with a tray of tall coffee cups and a promising white deli bag. Glancing at Sam, he said, "Better get in the shower, Sasquatch. I might save you a couple of doughnuts but if you're slow, I'm not making you any promises." Dean's eyes flickered over his brother's body. He appreciated the view, unlike Silas.

Dean leaned over Silas' shoulder and peered into the monitor. "Humph, guys drowning in the San Antonio River. What makes it one of ours?"

Silas responded. "That's just it, they didn't drown. According to the autopsy reports they were clawed to death and the bodies then dumped into the river. It's been happening once a week for the past month and the cops are beginning to freak out looking for the "River Slasher".

"They're really worried because San Antonio's River Walk is their biggest tourist attraction next to The Alamo and they don't want some teacher from Ohio getting gutted and giving the city a bad name. So far it looks like the victims are all homeless guys known to be sleeping on the river's banks."

Sam's voice floated out of the bathroom. "So what do you think, Silas; a river monster?"

"Looks like it," Silas responded and turned the monitor so that Dean was able to look more closely at the material Silas had dug up. Dean settled in to review the evidence.

Sam appeared, dressed in low hanging jeans and a tight, white T-shirt. He continued to towel off his hair and shared Dean's space at first then went for his own computer.

In a few moments Sam and Silas were sharing the table top in companionable geekdom. Dean was glad to opt out of the party and leave the research to his partners.

He passed out the coffees and ripped the deli bag open to expose the yummy contents then went over and threw himself on the bed to watch some morning T.V. He thought of himself as the man of action and was quite happy to leave the research to guys who had the talent for it. He trusted they would let him know what he needed to do.

XXXXXXX

Daytime T.V. was really boring. Dean found himself dozing off, lulled by some inane game show. Sometime later he was pulled from sleep by an argument between Sam and Silas.

"Really, Sam?" Silas snorted. "What would she be doing in Texas?'

Sam defended himself. "Come up with something better. It fits perfectly. I think we have a Rusalka in the San Antonio River. Maybe the Russians bought her a plane ticket to Texas. I don't know how she got her. Maybe she swam. Better a Rusalka than your guess. What did you find; a Soucouyant? "

"Hey, hey , hey, library geeks. Calm down." Dean stood up and rubbed his eyes. "What's the fight about?"

Sam turned to his brother. "We're having a disagreement about our possible monster. I vote for a classic Slavic 'fish-woman', a Rusalka, who hunts at night and conceals her victims at the bottom of a river. She's related closely to the Ondine and the Selkie from other myths. She lives and hunts on the banks and takes only men. Silas has a different candidate."

Silas plunged in. "I tend to think it might be a Soucouyant, another classic female monster but she conceals herself by day disguised as an old woman. At night she hunts for victims; she's a kind of witch and at least they're from Central America. That's closer than Russia and more likely to show up here."

Sam argued back. "The Soucouyant moves around at night as a kind of fire ball. She's a blood sucker and I never heard of one of them dumping her victims in a river. I didn't see anything in the reports about lights moving round the River Walk in the night either."

Dean decided to mediate although he though Sam's monster sounded more possible. "So, other than geographical location, any other reason you think it's a Soucouyant, Silas? Sam's monster really fits the M.O. nicely and we've had other instances of monsters moving along with an immigrant population."

Silas shrugged. "Just consider it as covering all the bases. I just tend to favor a Guatemalan monster over a Russian one."

"How about this," Dean said. "What if we go in loaded for both? What does it take to kill a Rusalka and what does it take to kill a Soucouyant?"

"A Soucouyant is a little difficult," Silas admitted. "You have to find her home and then the mortar she leaves her day-time skin in. You load up the skin with salt and, if she doesn't burn you alive, she dies when she can't put her skin back on."

"Troublesome," Dean commented. "Sam, what about the Rusalka?"

"A little more direct; even though she is supernatural she has a physical body that can be killed. A man could do it with any knife although iron burns her most. That, or Maahes could break her neck when he catches her."

"Are you suggesting that Maahes go hunting on San Antonio's River Walk?" Dean was smiling at the thought.

"Sure, why not?" Sam smiled back. "If anyone saw him the cops could blame the rash of killings on a rogue mountain lion. Do they have mountain lions in Texas? Better check."

They determined that San Antonio was only a little over two hours away from Corpus Christi, straight up I-37 North about a hundred and fifty miles away. If they left after lunch in the late afternoon they could intersect the San Antonio River just after sunset. That would give them plenty of time to set up in a new motel and find a place to drop Sam so he could go hunting along the river banks.

XXXXXX

It was cool along the river. The heat of the day evaporated the river water until the chill evening air pulled it back into fog banks that drifted along the waterway. South of San Antonio, far from the tourist packed River Walk, the river banks were quiet, secluded and dark. Dean had dropped Maahes a few miles from their motel and the great cat stalked on all fours. He searched and watched and listened. Occasionally he passed a sleeping body, wrapped in layers against the winter air. Lonely men, lost men, marking out their private space among the trees beside the river; they were not the prey he wanted.

The great cat drifted with the shadows cast by the clouds that covered the moon's face. His patrol sent him steadily northward, closer to the city but still in the quiet, still in the dark. He listened carefully for a sound that did not fit. He expected some sign, some signal of the other predator concealed by the night.

The Rusalka was a seductress. She enticed her prey with false images. By the time her true form was revealed her claws were sunk too deeply for the prey to escape. Maahes listened for her song, a vague murmuring in the dark.

He finally heard what he was waiting for, the voice of a man completely enchanted, begging for her to stop, to wait for him. Maahes increased his speed and came upon the scene. The Rusalka was luring her victim near and the man, ensorcelled by her false beauty, followed.

Maahes roared and the Rusalka turned to face him, her victim forgotten. She fled to a nearby tree and climbed. Her victim, released from the spell turned and ran from the perceived threat of a giant wing cat.

Maahes stretch up the tree truck, almost to her feet simply by his height and sniffed at her naked foot. He could see her clearly. No song could affect his senses. He was a much of a part of the Supernatural world as she was. She knew her glamour would not work.

To Maahes she appeared as a naked, boney woman with damp long yellow hair that hung to her knees and long claws instead of fingernails adorning her hands. Her face was the worst. Instead of the vision of beauty the spellbound man had seen there were her large, round and protruding fish-like eyes and her lipless slit of a mouth. She hissed at the cat and tried to kick with her naked foot but Maahes was satisfied. This was his prey.

He coiled and sprung, landing lightly on the same branch as her and shot out a clawed paw, sweeping her to him. She fought and hissed and tried to slice at him with her own claws. He hesitated for only a moment, trying not to think about what he was about to put into his mouth.

Trying to imagine that she was just a different kind of fish he bit into her neck and snapped her spine instantly. Her head lolled to the side and he leaped back to the ground with her firmly pinned with his fangs. Dead, she was much lighter than he expected; a mere bag of loose bones and dank moldy hair.

Carrying his prize he fled south to find Dean.

XXXXXXX

Dean and Silas stood outside in the dark, leaning against the Impala's trunk, sharing a couple of beers. They were on edge waiting for Maahes to appear. Once the great cat came back they all would know where they stood with this hunt. They were both pulling for Sam to be right because that would mean they would be able to get back on the road sooner. The hunt for a Soucouyant would trap them in San Antonio for days

Just as Dean was thinking about going inside to avoid the evening chill the dark shadow of the cat appeared on the crest of the hill on the other side of the gully behind the motel. Dean nudged Silas. "There he is."

"I see him," Silas responded. "It looks like he's dragging something."

Maahes bounded up to the men and dropped the Rusalka at Dean's feet. The body had taken a beating being carried along for so far. Maahes had held his head high to make the best speed but even so the body had hit the ground a couple of times. Now it was dead, damp and dirty; not a very attractive object but it was obvious that Sam had won the monster argument. It appeared to be a very beat up Rusalka.

"What's he doing, Dean?" Silas asked.

Dean tilted the beer bottle up and drained the last of the liquid. "Typical cat behavior; he's had a successful hunt and now he's bringing me his prize. It's the cat equivalent of a dozen long stemmed roses."

Silas laughed. "What's he expect you to do with it?"

"He doesn't want me to do anything with it. He's asking for his reward."

Silas drank from his own beer. "What would his reward be, exactly?"

"Me." Dean answered.

Dean dug in his pants pocket and pulled out the Impala's keys. "Here, take these. Do you think you can drag this body down into the gully and light it up by yourself? It doesn't look that heavy but may be a little damp. After that take off. If Winchesters walking around naked offends you what going to be happening in the next half hour is going to be hard to take. It would be better if you went somewhere else for a couple of hours."

Maahes stood on his back legs and spread his wings. He pushed Dean back against the motel door. Silas grabbed the fish-woman by a convenient hunk of hair and dragged the body downhill. They had dug a shallow grave in anticipation while waiting for Maahes. He decided to concentrate on the task at hand and try to ignore the other action. Even so he could distinctly hear Maahes growl and Dean's response.

"Stop pushing. I'll get the damn door open in a second."

Silas got the body going and tried to concentrate on the sound of the wind and the rush of the flames instead of the thumps and crashes from the motel room behind him. As soon as the flames died down he shoveled some dirt over the embers and made tracks.

As he got into the Impala the last thing he heard was "Ouch, God damn it. Watch the claws."