February 1, 2007
Freddie whimpered and as if he was embarrassed hung his head. "You should be embarrassed," Lady scolded him as she tugged his leash. He was on a leash as punishment. He had woken her up in the middle of the night, nearly scared her to death. He was barking and howling as if someone was gutting him. "This is what happens when you try to eat a porcupine!" she snapped at him and he whined in pain. Lady let out a breath and rubbed his neck. Freddie hadn't let her even try to get the quills out. There were half a dozen in his snout, but worse were the few lodged in his mouth.
Thomas sighed as he looked at Freddie. "Seriously?"
"That's what I said!" Lady threw her arms up.
"Okay, big guy, let me..." Freddie snarled and Lady grabbed onto his collar. She saw Freddie wouldn't actually do anything, he just really didn't want to be touched, however the snarl was enough to spook Thomas. "Let's get you something for the pain," Thomas said gently.
Lady stayed next to Freddie, rubbing his back soothingly as his breathing calmed down and the painful whimpers quieted. "I don't think he's going to be able to eat for a few days," Thomas said as he looked down Freddie's throat. "A few of these are far back there. You find the porcupine?"
"No," Lady said.
"Is he up on rabies shots?" Thomas asked.
Lady's eyes widened, "I don't know, that's something I ask you about."
"I'll check his record," he said as he reached in to get another quill out of Freddie's tongue.
Lady felt Freddie take painful breaths and whimper, the sound made her stomach clench and she curled her fingers into his thick fur. She was coming down from the adrenaline now, her body feeling worn out and numb. She closed her eyes to his whimpers and focused on rubbing his back. "I'm here for you pal," she said, her own voice sounded strange.
When Lady opened her eyes she wasn't in Thomas's office with Freddie. Her eyes shifted over the new location, a bedroom. Soft pastel colors, the only light coming from a small plug-in nightlight. There was a woman on the bed dressed in an over-sized t-shirt and nothing else. She was silently watching someone, and a shadow was approaching her. Lady felt her heart stutter as something with red-raw skin and claw-like hands approached the woman. The woman greeted the thing warmly, pulling it into bed with her, letting it ravish her without once crying at its grotesque appearance. Cries of passion rose quickly, and when it was over the woman was on her back staring blankly at the ceiling, dead.
"...I'm a little concerned about the ones in his mouth. But it's your call, Lady."
Lady blinked as she returned to Thomas's office, "Huh?"
"He chewed some of these off, I can't get them out without making a few incisions," Thomas said. "Either way, he's going to need to stay in the kennels for a few days to make sure he doesn't get an infection. At least that is what I would tell anyone else."
Lady let out a breath and buried her face in Freddie's fur. She had just received a vision, a vision that included a monster she had no clue how to handle, and now her dog was not only injured but Thomas recommended him being locked up. Freddie was a good dog, he'd stay locked in a small car with her for days at a time, but without her he'd tear up Thomas' kennels in a day or two. "Thomas, I have to leave."
Thomas frowned, "I don't think you can take him. He's going to be fine, Lady, I'll make sure of it, but he needs at least a few days of care."
Lady looked sadly at her dog. She wanted to be mad, but shouting at him wouldn't make either of them feel better. "I really hope you feel stupid," she said as she said goodbye to Freddie and hooked her charm bracelet on his collar. "Be good."
"I'll take good care of him," Thomas promised.
That evening she was at Bobby's, telling him about her vision and tapping her foot anxiously as she waited for him to tell her what it was.
"You aren't even going to try and guess?" Bobby asked, walking slowly around his living room looking over his books.
"Tell me in two seconds or I'm beating it out of you," Lady said. Hyper and anxious with the vision playing over and over in her head. "I'm tired of watching monster sex, I want to stop this."
"Okay," Bobby said. "It's an incubus."
"Oh," Lady said.
"A type of one, anyways," Bobby continued.
"I don't need the history. How do I kill it?" Lady asked.
"You don't," Bobby said as he pulled out a few daggers. "Silver does the trick, but you need help."
"Fine, lets go," Lady said, clapping her hands and snapping her fingers to make him hurry up.
Lady left Mason's truck at Bobby's and rode shotgun in Bobby's car. Bobby drove while Lady navigated, on the way he explained more about the creature. "There are several versions of these things out there. The one you saw is probably the oldest version. Not really a demon. Related to wraiths. Hard as hell to track down because they can put the illusion that they are something else in a persons head, but they have to be fairly close to do it. You probably saw its true form because you were all the way in North Dakota. Where is this happening anyway?"
"We'd find out faster if you let me drove," Lady said. Bobby, typical man, wouldn't give up his spot behind the wheel until he was about to fall asleep. "You know I don't get a map along with these things. We're going the right way, south is the most important direction right now."
"There is one big problem here, kid," Bobby continued. "As soon as you are within range of an incubus, there ain't much you can do. They mess with your head."
"Then how do we kill it?" Lady asked.
"I do," Bobby said. "Fortunately an incubus doesn't have much power over a man."
"Oh," Lady said shortly. And then it hit her, "Ooohhh. So, I get in the same room with this thing and I'll be the one getting banged to death. Got it."
"Glad you are catching up," Bobby said with a roll of his eyes. "Idjit."
Lady took over driving when Bobby got too tired, hyped up from the vision playing in her head she didn't feel the need to sleep. Bobby had trouble sleeping in the passenger seat as she made his car's speedometer tip over a hundred but once she had the wheel she wasn't giving it up until she finally had to stop for gas. The next evening they were in El Paso, Texas and Lady was getting jittery as the vision played more urgently in her mind.
Bobby parked his car outside of a nightclub. "This is where it was?"
Lady shook her head, "No, this is just where she is right now." She frowned. If they wanted to get rid of the incubus they had to wait until the victim went to where Lady knew it would attack. She wouldn't make the same mistake she made in Oregon.
"You wanna go in and watch her?" Bobby asked.
Lady shook her head, "I don't think I should interfere. We'll just hang close by."
"You know these things are hard as hell to track," Bobby said. "They only attack their victims when they are alone, don't always leave a body and if they do it appears to be from natural causes. Heart giving out, or something."
Lady and Bobby watched the time, Lady switched from tapping her foot to drumming on her knees with her thumbs to tapping the glass of the window with her fingernails. Just when Bobby felt like he was about to snap Lady went still, "She's leaving. Moving. That-a-way," Lady pointed.
"It's a one way street, I can't go that-a-way!" Bobby snapped.
"It's not my fault that's the way she's going!" Lady snapped back. The clock said it was one in the morning. The way the vision felt it seemed like they had at least another hour. Usually her visions were taken care of by now, but this one she'd have to ride out the anxious feeling to the near end.
Bobby parked his car outside a house in a nice residential area. The woman was in the house, and her bedroom was on a ley line. That was fortunate for her, she would be saved from an early death by orgasm.
Lady felt like she couldn't stand it anymore as the vision drew nearer, "I think you need to go in," she said to Bobby.
"Got it," Bobby said, getting out of the car. "Stay here, no matter what," he ordered.
Lady let out a breath of relief as the vision stopped playing in her head. Bobby had taken her order and his action was going to prevent the woman from dying. Lady trembled with fatigue, but she stayed awake to see Bobby running out of the house five minutes later. He got in the car and punched the gas.
"What?" Lady asked, looking behind them.
"I sort of ran into a naked woman's bedroom, it didn't go over very well!" Bobby snapped at her. "And uh..."
Lady forgot about her fatigue and screeched, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T KILL IT!"
"I got away! The ugly bastard was quick!" Bobby shouted back.
Lady slammed her head back against her seat, "Oh fuck."
Bobby checked them into a local motel and Lady went to bed. The next day around noon Lady went back to the woman's home to check on her and get some information while Bobby researched the thing they now had to find the hard way.
The woman was about Lady's age with dark brown hair and rich blue eyes. She still looked shaken and it didn't appear she had gone to sleep. "Hello, Miss Richards, I'm here regarding the call to the police you made early this morning," Lady said gently. "May I come in?"
"Are you an officer?" the woman asked, already stepping aside so Lady could enter.
"Not exactly," Lady said. "Not at all, actually. I'm more like a private investigator…yeah, we'll go with that."
"I don't understand," the woman said.
Lady smiled as she watched the future with every thing she almost said and found something that looked promising, "Something weird happened, right? Not just a guy coming into your bedroom with a gun, something else."
Bobby looked up tiredly when Lady returned to the motel a few hours later. "Get anything?" he asked, closing a book he had been looking through without success.
"A bit," Lady said. "Sherry told me she was pretty buzzed and her ex-boyfriend showed up, tried to make-up with her. You showed up, stop him with his hand down her undies, and he jumped out her window. She called him, he said she was nuts because he had been with his new woman all night."
Bobby nodded, "You knew that. The incubus shows up as someone they want to see, flees if anyone else shows up. Runs pretty damn fast, too."
"I think I know this things flavor, though," Lady said. "Sherry's been pretty much abstinent for about two months since her boyfriend dumped her. Pretty, petite, mid-twenties, dark hair..."
Bobby groaned, "You think you are going to bait this thing? Lady, they only need to feed once a month, if that. And there are a lot of women that fit that description."
"What have you found?" she asked smugly.
"I actually did find a bit," Bobby said. "Past several months three different women have gone missing. No bodies found, so this thing is cleaning up after itself. Or it is just random women disappearing. Blonde and two brunettes, mid-twenties."
"Single?"
"One was married," Bobby said.
"She definitely wasn't getting laid then," Lady smirked.
"Best part, two of the women were last seen leaving the same place," Bobby said. "Little place called the Yellow Rose Nightclub. Couple of the other ones had visited it least once before."
Lady nodded, "Where I originally sensed the woman."
"Where are you going?" he asked as Lady reached for the door.
She flashed him a smile, "I got to get dressed up if I'm going out tonight."
February 3, 2007. El Paso, Texas
"You sure you are up for a job?" Dean asked, for the tenth time.
"Yes, Dean," Sam said. After they had gotten some rest and made sure their tracks were covered they had returned to El Paso to get to work on the hunt that had been interrupted by Sam's demonic possession. "Now four missing women, they all had the same place in common."
Dean nodded, "Crappy nightclub, yeah, I know. Let's check it out."
They gained access to the club before it opened, scanning the whole place for EMF and coming up empty handed. "You know what the next thing we have to do is," Sam said as they went to find a motel.
"We hang out in the parking lot and scope out suspicious lurkers," Dean said. "If this pattern stays the same someone is going to go missing again soon."
"We still have no clue what we're dealing with," Sam said flatly. "It might not even be something in our neighborhood."
"We need something to do," Dean said. "Come on, we've hung around towns for less."
"Okay," Sam said, not willing to press his brother too far so soon.
They got a motel, Dean paid in cash for two nights. With how things were going, being hunted by the FBI and possibly other hunters he wasn't going to risk using anything that could be traced. Even his stolen credit cards. It meant a crap load of work hustling pool and playing poker, but it eased his mind a bit.
That night the Impala was parked outside the Yellow Rose Nightclub, even across the street they could hear the steady pulse of bass from dance tracks playing. They watched people gaining entrance, exiting, people loitering in the parking lot, the shadows. They watched anything and everything they could without stepping into the club. While watching out the front window of the car they didn't see a dark figure stepping up behind their car and they both jumped and reached for their pistols when the back door behind Dean opened and someone got in their car.
"Jesus! Bobby, you scared the hell out of us," Sam gasped and laughed. "What are you doing here?"
"I bet I'm doing the same thing as you two," Bobby said. "Actually a bit relieved to see you two here, I wouldn't mind some extra back-up. From what I've figured out with this things pattern it's going to snatch up another woman any day."
"So there is a job here," Dean said, sounding relieved. "You know what we're dealing with here?"
Bobby's eyes widened, "I think you should follow me back to my motel."
Bobby got out of their car and they watched until they saw his car pull out. Bobby sent Lady a text to end her night early and meet him back at the motel.
Dean and Sam sat on the available chairs as Bobby sat on the edge of his bed. "You know what we're dealing with here?" Dean asked.
"What do you know so far?" Bobby asked.
"We've looked back far enough to find four women have gone missing," Sam said. "There are a few others that don't quite fit the description, but if it might be closer to eight in the past year."
Bobby nodded, that was more than he'd been able to find out earlier in the day. "Not bad. I'd like to see your notes."
"Sure," Sam nodded. "But can you tell us what we're looking for?"
"I'm trying to track an incubus," Bobby admitted bitterly.
Dean nodded, immediately impressed. Tracking down those suckers was near impossible. It was hard as hell to figure out what kind of prey they were looking for, and they only came if their prey was alone. Killing the suckers was easy. Finding it was the hard part. "How close are you to it?"
Bobby shook his head, "I hope we're pretty far from it."
There was a knock on the door only an instant before it swung open. Lady walked in, her eyes already bright and a large smile on her face as she saw the Winchesters. She was dressed in a short skirt, high heels and a skimpy top. She immediately wrapped her arms around Sam to give him a hug, "Hey, big guy! Oh! I've missed you!"
Dean looked at Bobby with wide eyes as Lady let Sam go and wrapped her arms around his middle for a hug that he had a hard time returning. "You are using Lady as bait?"
"It was her idea," Bobby said, glaring at her.
"Well if someone had killed the incubus when I knew where it was, we wouldn't need to use anyone as bait now, would we?" she asked cheerily.
Bobby let out a breath as Lady crossed the room to look into the bathroom mirror, running her fingers through her hair and checking her make-up. "I found the boys scoping out the nightclub. They're looking into the same thing."
"How'd you guys figure it out?" she asked.
Sam shrugged, "We were investigating it before, well…before I got possessed. We came back down to finish."
"How did you get into this?" Dean asked.
Bobby pointed at Lady, "Lady had a vision. We kept it from feeding last night, but now we have no way to track it."
"We have me," Lady said brightly.
Bobby turned to Dean, "Maybe you can tell her she's insane."
"You are insane," Dean said flatly. "You have no idea how nasty these things are. There is a tone of lore on them, different versions, they are dangerous. This isn't a witch-hunt, Lady."
Lady rolled her eyes, "You can't beat your chest and say 'you can't do this.' Well, you could, but it'll be about as effective as Bobby doing it and only slightly more amusing. You'd have a better chance of asking Sam to talk sense into me."
Bobby and Dean both looked to Sam, "Get her to stop this. There are other ways to track this thing than her putting her ass on the line," Bobby said.
Sam made an uncertain face. "You are not okay with this," Dean snapped at his brother.
"We've gotten help from less reliable people," Sam said. "I don't like it, but…she understands it. And she has three of us watching out for her."
"And Sam, so reasonable, thank you," Lady said as she sat on one of his legs and put an arm around his shoulders. She looked at Bobby with wide eyes, "Everything is going to be fine. I can see this thing coming, you are next door and you'll hear if I get in trouble and I'll know I'm in trouble before trouble happens. It is perfect, Bobby. Please…don't worry so much."
Bobby shook his head, "Yeah, guess we'll have to hope so.
Dean rubbed his forehead, "Well, since we're here, how would you like some extra back-up?"
"I'd like it," Bobby admitted.
Lady stifled a yawn and crossed the room to open a pizza box. She grabbed a cold piece of pizza and jumped to sit on the bed next to Bobby, bouncing both of them. For a while she let the men compare notes and tactics, Dean finally warming up to the idea of using Lady as bait compared to letting someone else die. Lady painted her finger and toenails and gave any insight she had when the opportunity struck but was mostly quiet.
"I look up incubus or succubus and I get a bunch of porn sites," Sam sighed as he closed his laptop.
Lady smirked, "Well, sex is popular. Even when dealing with magic. Especially when dealing with magic, actually. You would not believe how many rituals can be spiced up by a little nookie."
"Can you keep the Dr. Ruth down, please?" Bobby asked.
"Sorry, Bobby," Lady said.
"Some versions of the incubus have it as showing up in dreams or nightmares," Sam said. "Are we..."
"I had the vision, the woman wasn't being attacked by a dream," Lady said.
"Be nice if it was," Bobby muttered. "I probably wouldn't have to worry about you then."
Lady thought about it and shrugged, "But we're lucky we have something to stick a knife into."
"What do you mean you wouldn't have to worry about her?" Sam asked, confused.
"Oh, uh..." Bobby looked at Lady.
"I can't dream," Lady said. "Haven't since I got the mark on my wrist. Haven't started back up since it got taken away, either."
Dean and Sam looked at each other and at her, "Seriously?" Dean asked.
She shrugged, "Yeah. Just another weird thing in my brain. Probably for the best, to be honest."
Dean nodded, he had enough nightmares to agree with that. The garnet charm she had given him seemed to help when he remembered to take it out of his car, but he still had some weird dreams.
"So where is Freddie?" Sam asked when the details were worked out.
Lady scowled, "The idiot tried to eat a porcupine and so help me if you laugh I will stab you," Lady glared at Dean. She frowned, "I had to leave him at the vet."
"Sorry. I know you don't like being without him," Sam said.
"Smells better without him," Dean smirked, and Lady didn't return it. "How'd you get that dog anyway?"
Lady looked down as she checked her fingernails, "I rescued him from being turned into a monster. He was supposed to be turned into a familiar, a black dog. He was just a puppy then."
Dean frowned now. He understood it, she had rescued Freddie like she had been rescued in a way. But at the same time, "Is that even safe?"
Lady met his eyes, "It probably wasn't safe for Bobby to keep a black witch alive, either, but that turned out okay."
Dean looked away, he understood it more, now. Freddie was meant to be something evil, a black dog. Lady had been working towards becoming a black witch. But both of them had beat the odds against them and survived, even thrived. "Sorry."
"I think it's about time for me to be alone. Goodnight," she said.
"You are so smooth," Sam said once Lady had left.
"Eat me," Dean snapped. "Okay, we'll hang out until Lady is in the clear."
The night dragged on, the men playing cards as they listened through the thin wall that separated Lady and Bobby's rooms. There wasn't a sound, not a peep, the whole time.
Sam sighed and rubbed his tired eyes as he began to count the minutes until dawn, "She hasn't even got up to go to the bathroom."
"Maybe one of us should take a look inside," Dean suggested.
"If there was someone in there with her, we'd hear it," Sam said.
"You don't know that."
Sam glared at his brother, "Yeah, actually, I do."
Dean was confused for a moment, and then understanding crossed his face and he chuckled. "It's not me over there, not the same thing." His laughter died quickly at the disapproving glare from Bobby, quickly making him remember that Lady had been with Bobby for several years as a friend and maybe even like a daughter to the old man. "Sorry," he muttered and looked away from Bobby.
"Maybe this place isn't secluded enough," Sam suggested. "We aren't exactly sure where the other women went missing from."
"This is what we have to work with," Dean said. "It's just as likely that this thing found someone else."
A/N - Just want to say a big thank you to Anonymous. I love reading your reviews! I'm tickled that you are catching a lot of things that I wasn't sure were coming out, so I'm glad the emotions and things I wanted to hint at but not be too obvious about at the same time are coming through in the writing. And I, too, enjoy screwed up characters. And as much as I loooove the Winchesters, one of the reasons I love them is because they take a beating, go to hell and back, and just don't stop. So, staying true to the story so far and the SPN canon, I assure you that yes, their pain and suffering will continue. But I plan to give them as many rewards for what they do as possible. And a quick note, we see 'domesticated' Dean in S6, and see that he is a rather sweet guy. And Dean has always seemed like the rather playful sort, and I enjoy writing him in that mood.