Chapter 6: Fireballs
Mozzie and Bobby headed downstairs to use the computers in the radio room. Neal's focus, though, was on what they were supposed to do tonight. Judging by Peter's worried face, their camp leader had the same concerns.
"What do you advise?" Peter asked Dean. "Mount a vampire patrol? You've been talking about vampires gathering from across a wide region. Even if we had dozens of hunters available, how could we possibly defend the entire park?"
Neal eyed Travis. Could he kill vampires? Neal had brought him up to speed about the events in New Jersey—the only time he'd encountered vampires, but he didn't think Travis believed him. He'd never seen Travis use a sword. Should he give him lessons?
But on what? Machetes? Neal didn't qualify either. He was a fencer, not an executioner. According to Dean and Sam, the only way to kill a vampire was to behead them. Peter had described what happened when Dean killed the vampires in New Jersey. Could Neal have decapitated a vampire that despite his fangs looked human? What if it was a woman? One of the vampires in New Jersey had been an attractive woman.
Dean was right in his assessment. All Neal's fencing had been with a protective tip. He'd always been careful not to harm anyone with his blade. Now he might have to kill someone. His eyes moved to the fencing sabre propped in the corner of the bunk room. Use that to draw blood? Modern fencing swords didn't have sharp blades. Against a vampire they'd be useless.
He turned and saw Peter watching him. The unspoken question was written on his face.
"If the reports are true, the vampires will be focused on protecting the new arrivals," Dean said. "They'll want to hustle the pure-bloods to some secluded spot. Everyone who is inside their homes will be safe. That part of vampire lore is correct. Vampires can't enter your premises uninvited."
"The kids leave at nine o'clock. They'll be on a bus and should be fine," Sam said. "The same thing applies to the bonfire festival. A large group of people, a roaring blaze—those are hex signs for vamps. Dean, Bobby, and I will patrol the park entrances beginning at sunset. Once the kids have left, we'll meet you here."
"You're suggesting we hold a second observing session," Travis said.
"That's right," Dean confirmed. "We'll watch for shooting stars. See if any sparks a fire."
"I'm going to meet El at the midday festival," Peter said, carrying his plate to the kitchen. "It should be in full swing now. I'll catch some rest in the afternoon. You should do the same. It could be a long night."
Dean and Sam left for the festival at the same time as Peter. Neal planned to spend the afternoon painting. He wondered how El would react to the news. She'd insisted on being included, but would she feel the same way after hearing about pure-bloods?
Bobby's report must have made Peter want to alert the law enforcement agencies. But how could he? No one would believe him.
#
No supernatural threats marred the stargazing session that evening, but Neal breathed easier when the buses arrived to take the kids back to their camp. The adults had kept a careful watch for shooting stars and fireballs in the sky, but the only fire reported was the bonfire for the Litha festival.
The Winchesters and Bobby showed up as the buses were leaving. They helped stow the equipment. Satchmo helped fetch the antennae headbands that had been left scattered on the grass.
Neal questioned Sam about the midday festival while they picked up the mats.
"It reminded me of a new age event," he said. "Lots of singing and dancing. They recited poetry, lit candles, and prayed to their gods."
"Chloe told me Wiccans worship the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. Are there any others?"
"A few. Honestly, it was pretty harmless stuff. I talked with Elizabeth and Janet. They said that Gemma Blackthorne's talk about the origins of Wicca was quite enlightening. Many of the locals came to hear her. After the festival, Chloe introduced us to more of the sisters in her coven. Maia stopped by to say hi and a minute later Dean and Chloe took off." He shrugged. "Dean and Chloe seem determined to fix me up with Maia."
"She seems nice and she's certainly easy on the eyes."
"She does take my mind off vampires," Sam acknowledged with a grin. "We took a walk along Orchard Trail. It winds through the woods. Eventually you emerge at a vista where you can see the Delaware River."
Satchmo trotted up with another headband and dropped it at Neal's feet. Sam sat on a bench and called the Lab over. "Dean and I crisscross the States, but we don't generally take the time to enjoy the countryside. I did today. Maybe it was Maia being there. It's a little weird. I feel like I've known her for years even though we just met."
Neal turned to look at him, surprised. Sam talking about the beauty of the countryside? Maia was having more of an impact than he would have guessed. "Her sister mentioned Maia was studying the classics. You know Latin. You could read Latin love poetry together."
Neal expected Sam to blow him out of the water for that last remark, but instead he turned red. Had he read poetry with Maia? Would that qualify as a supernatural event?
"I asked her what she knew about the Moon Goddess and the Horned God. She thought the origins went back to the ancient Egyptians and the tales of Isis and Seth. That got us started talking about the Greek gods and classical myths. She's an expert in the field."
Sam continued to stroke Satchmo. He must have discovered what Neal already knew. Satchmo was excellent at providing comfort without asking difficult questions.
"There's something about Maia. She brings out a side I didn't know I had. Don't tell Dean, but when I heard her quote Catullus, it made me want to write poetry too. Crazy, huh?"
"Not necessarily. Have you ever written poetry?"
"A little," he admitted. "In grade school, I had a teacher who encouraged me and I wrote some when no one was around. I never let on to Dean or Dad. I figured they'd never let me live it down."
Maia was bringing out a thoughtful, lyrical side in Sam. It reminded Neal of when he'd been teased as a child for preferring art to football. "You and Maia share some common interests—your knowledge of Latin, your love of research."
He snorted. "I wouldn't call it love."
Neal shrugged. "You spend enough time glued to your laptop to qualify. You're not that different from a scholar researching ancient works. She may sense that and feel you can relate to her life."
"There's a rush I feel with her, an exhilaration . . ." He laughed it off. "I'm probably just horny."
"Do you have any plans to see her again?"
"I'm not sure. She and her sister will leave tomorrow evening. Depending on what happens tonight, we may already be gone."
"New Haven's not that far away."
"With my life, it's better not to get involved with anyone. How could I drag someone like her into my world?"
"I didn't want to share the harsher aspects of my job with my ex-girlfriend, but there was a part of me who longed to be in her world. I don't know if I ever gave us a fair chance."
Sam stared at him with surprise. "Dean and I face monsters daily. You investigate white-collar crimes, attend grad school. Nothing too dangerous about that."
Neal didn't attempt to dissuade him. No point in trying to explain about Keller, Azathoth, or Ydrus. Neal knew that much of the appeal of Fiona was a yearning for her world, but he also suspected that eventually he would have found it boring. They were right to split up although that realization wasn't much of a comfort. Sometimes he felt like he'd been evicted from Camelot.
Sam was continuing to muse about Maia. "It's not fair for me to entangle her into what I'm doing."
"You're using the same arguments I used with Peter when I tried to rationalize that Fiona wasn't right for me. For what it's worth, here's his response. You've got to be open about who you are unless all you're interested in is a one-night stand."
Maia probably represented that same safe world that Fiona did for him. He hoped Sam would have better luck. Sam the poet. Who would have thought?
They stood up and joined the others to scan the skies for shooting stars. Bobby was sprawled in a folding lounge chair and helped himself occasionally to the contents of a flask.
Travis and Mozzie came back outside with the latest bulletin from SETI. "NASA has been training the Hubble telescope on the pulsar-like objects," Travis said. "So far they haven't been able to obtain an image. Scientists are baffled. Nothing could move that fast. At that distance, we should be able to see something, but we only have the radio wave transmission."
"They're continuing to move straight toward us," Mozzie added. "Straight from the mouth of the dragon." He pointed up at the sky.
Travis passed around binoculars to everyone. He'd also set up an eight-inch telescope to use. While Travis readied the scope, Dean passed out machetes. Bobby had brought extras. Neal stood up and practiced a few swings. The balance wasn't bad. He noticed Peter eyeing him. They hadn't discussed it, but Neal felt he was ready.
Binoculars in hand, machetes beside them, they all settled down to watch and wait. With no vampires immediately raining down on their heads, they passed the time questioning Dean and Sam about the bonfire ceremony.
"The blaze was impressive," Dean admitted. "They probably had close to a hundred people present."
"A group of women played medieval folk music," Sam said. "Maia said they were members of the Pompadours coven."
"One song made me wonder," Dean added. "It was about bonfires at midnight. The Pompadours apparently have made it their theme song. It references the Pleiades, book of secrets, and magic, but it's all harmless stuff."
"Did you talk with El?" Peter asked.
Sam nodded. "She was with Janet. You don't have to worry about them. She and Janet were going straight back to the inn and would stay inside. Electra and Maia had joined them for the bonfire. Janet said she'd be with El in your room till you get back."
"Thanks," Peter said. "Cell phone reception in the park is problematic. When I tried to call her, I couldn't get a signal. I used the landline in the observatory to leave her a message."
"We've experienced the same issue," Dean said. "Sam and I used two-way radios to check with Bobby. Chloe planned to stay at the bonfire with the organizers. She said if anything suspicious happens, she'll drive over to let us know."
"I've alerted park security," Peter said. "I told them that we'd heard rumors of possible gang activity. The park is closed for the night unless you have a special permit. Rangers were at the bonfire. They know to contact us if anyone tries to come in but I also alerted them to not attempt to stop them."
All things considered, the night's stakeout was one of the most entertaining Neal had ever been on. They lay on mats or loungers, keeping an eye on the heavens and on the constellation of Draco in particular. Travis and Peter took turns manning the telescope. After Travis enlightened them about pulsars, Bobby and Dean told them about other vampire jobs they'd had.
Mozzie expounded on his alien slime theory. Surprisingly Bobby took it quite seriously. Emboldened by a fellow believer, Mozzie soon switched from extraterrestrials to Hitler clones. Neal thought he'd be laughed out of the park for that, but again he was proved wrong. Dean and Sam seemed to view paranormal encounters with Nazis a real possibility.
About two hours into the watch, Travis lifted his head from the telescope eyepiece to shout, "Guys, I see something! A meteor shower is coming from the head of the dragon." Everyone rushed over to view it through the telescope. The time was 11:35. No one was able to observe the shower with binoculars but when Neal looked through the telescope, he could see faint streaks like the meteor trails he'd seen online. Travis raced into the observatory to report the event to SETI, ordering them to take careful notes while he was gone—an unnecessary reminder.
By 11:45 they could see the meteors in their binoculars. They were almost directly overhead. Neal felt his heart race. He didn't know what he expected to happen. Fireballs? Vampires dropping out of the sky with flaming parachutes?
Dean was in full warrior mode, repeating all his warnings about vampires. Bobby and Sam tried to contact other hunters with only partial success. Their calls were constantly dropping.
Everyone was looking up at the sky. "They're coming," Mozzie murmured, an awe-struck expression on his face.
Soon binoculars were no longer needed. The meteors had transformed into bright balls of fire and began to form tails.
"I count thirteen," Peter called out.
Travis came back outside. "SETI's aware and has alerted NORAD. Planes have left the regional base in Florida and are en route."
"They'll never make it in time," Peter warned. "Look at the lengths of those tails. They'll burn up in earth's atmosphere."
"It's an incredible sight," Sam said. "But how can these fireballs have anything to do with vampires?"
"I don't know about vampires, but there's no known meteor shower at this time of year coming from Draco," Travis said. "It could be a rogue meteor that has previously escaped detection and has now broken into fragments, but that doesn't equate with the emissions we were receiving from a deep space object. It's simply not possible to explain by any known law of physics that the two phenomena have a connection."
"Yes, there is," Mozzie retorted. "Extraterrestrials from outer space. The only question is if they're friendly or hostile?"
Although Mozzie was convinced that space aliens were coming, everyone else was more concerned about pure-blood vampires. As they continued to watch the fireballs, Mozzie regaled them with the plots of two of his favorite alien vampire movies—Lifeforce and Teenage Space Vampires.
The fireballs were heading straight for them, growing larger and larger . . .
Till they blinked out. Literally.
The fireballs looked like they were going to descend right upon their heads and then simply disappeared. Neal looked at the others, baffled. "What just happened?"
Travis appeared equally confused. "They were so close . . . To disintegrate in the atmosphere that quickly doesn't seem possible."
Peter checked his watch. "It's just after midnight. That part of the legend corresponds to what we observed."
"No fireballs crashing to earth means no vampire fires to put out," Dean noted. "We should consider ourselves lucky." He twirled his machete then set it down. "What do you think, Bobby?"
"I don't like it," he grumbled. "The time's right. Was this location a decoy? Did the vamp mislead us and the meeting site was actually somewhere else? I'm going inside to use the landline. Maybe other hunters saw something."
Travis continued to scan the sky with his telescope for a few minutes then he went inside to report to SETI. Peter pulled Sam and Dean aside. Neal overheard them discuss patrolling the park by car.
Mozzie stood with his back to the others, gazing at the meadow. Neal went over to join him. "See any vampires?"
"No, but the fireflies are even more numerous than last night." He pointed to the edge of the woods.
Mozzie was right. Neal had never seen so many. It made him want to paint them—luminous points of light against the backdrop of the dark forest.
"The meteors may have been spaceships after all," Mozzie mused. "When they landed, the aliens transformed themselves into fireflies."
Neal turned to stare at him. Was he serious? "Don't you think that's a bit of a stretch?" he asked, trying to put a tactful spin on it.
"Not any more bizarre than meteors turning into vampires. Those fireflies need to be checked out. This could be first contact."
"Are you two coming?" Peter called out.
Neal shook his head. "I'll stay with Mozzie. He wants to commune with the fireflies."
Dean dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "Figures."
"Don't wander off too far," Peter warned.
"We're just going to the edge of the woods," Neal said. "I'll take Satchmo." The fact he picked up a machete wasn't lost on Peter, who eyed him worriedly.
"I'll stay with them," Sam offered.
Dean shrugged at Peter. "Looks like it's you and me on vamp duty again. Sam and I have walkie-talkies that Bobby brought. They're nothing fancy but they work. Since we didn't see any of the meteors crash and there's no fire, I doubt we'll find anything. I'm calling this anistemi a dud, and that's a good thing."
Mozzie was already heading down the path leading through the meadow to the trees. Neal and Sam darted forward to catch up with him.
"Hey, Mozzie," Sam called out. "How will you know if aliens are residing within fireflies? Will you try to catch any?"
The suggestion caused Mozzie to stop horrified in his tracks. "Incarcerate them in a Mason jar? Do you want to start an interstellar war? No, we'll try to communicate with them—identifying ourselves, and extending the hand of friendship."
"How do you plan to shake the hand of a firefly?" Neal asked, but Mozzie ignored his eminently reasonable question.
"He's pulling our leg, right?" Sam muttered to Neal.
"I don't think so. The fireflies are unusually numerous. If they start to fly in battle formation, I'm heading back." Both he and Sam were keeping a firm grip on their machetes. They used red LED astronomy flashlights to preserve their night vision.
As they approached the edge of the woods, Neal's vampire sensors cranked up to full alert status. Out in the open, they could spot vampires. But in the woods? If one was lurking behind a tree, it could be on them before they'd have a chance to react. Sam said vampires didn't usually attack a group of people. But these weren't normal vampires. No one knew if pure-bloods could be killed like the homegrown variety?
Mozzie didn't appear scared. Instead, he was striding forward with a smile of anticipation at first contact with the alien fireflies. Was he practicing extraterrestrial Esperanto in his head?
Sam's gaze flitted from tree to tree. Plainly he wasn't thinking about fireflies.
"Watch out for snakes," Neal cautioned. "Peter said that the rangers have posted rattlesnake sightings in this section of the park."
Sam swallowed. "I'll handle the vampires. You're on snake patrol."
"Deal. We'll leave E.T to Mozzie."
They were now close to the woods. The fireflies were thick in front of the trees. Mozzie jogged ahead, leaving the path to approach the insects. He wouldn't be able to see any snakes in the grass. For that matter how was Neal supposed to know if snakes were around? This was a lousy idea. As soon as Mozzie had his moment with the bugs, Neal would insist they return to the observatory.
Mozzie bent over a patch of fireflies. Was he trying to communicate with them? Suddenly he stiffened, a look of amazement on his face. Neal gripped his machete even tighter. "What is it?"
"Vampire?" Sam asked in an urgent whisper.
Mozzie shook his head slowly. "Unclear. I just caught a glimpse. It was large and heavyset. Maybe six feet tall. Could a firefly have grown that tall? This is not at all what I expected."
"Sounds like a vamp," Sam said. "When he saw there were three of us, he took off."
Neal peered into the woods but didn't see anything. They cautiously moved toward the trees. Neal heard a low rumble and the next thing he knew, Mozzie was running faster than he'd dreamed possible.
"Flee for the hills!" he yelled.
#
"It was the largest bear I'd ever seen in my life," Sam acknowledged. "So much for space aliens."
They'd convened in the classroom. Peter and Dean had returned from their patrol with no vampires to report.
"It reared up on its hind legs, intending to carry me off as its dinner," Mozzie said, looking inordinately pleased to be considered bear fodder.
Peter nodded at Neal. "That makes two encounters for you now."
"That surely qualifies me for a bear merit badge. What's next? Wolves?"
"There's no evidence of meteor showers causing radio transmissions such as we detected," said Travis. "We suspect the two incidents are unrelated."
Bobby entered the classroom. "I just got off the phone with a hunter in Rockaway Township. That's about thirty minutes from here. He found a victim of a vampire attack. Looks like the park may have been a misdirect."
Dean and Sam left with Bobby to investigate. Mozzie and Travis returned to the radio room. Peter headed back to the inn.
It had been a false alarm. The next day they could all relax and enjoy the last day with the kids. Janet, El, and Chloe planned to spend the morning hiking in the park. Neal went to bed still smiling over that bear. And Peter hadn't teased him once about any bear tendencies of his own. Not a bad ending.
Notes: Not so fast, Neal. You're not in the clear yet. Neal's first encounter with a bear was in The Dreamer (Caffrey Conversation series). In canon, Dean and Sam will encounter Nazis in Season 8 of Supernatural. The crystal ball is murky about whether any Nazis will pop up in this series, but Mozzie remains vigilant.
It's not a totally insane idea that Sam wrote poetry as a kid. In "After School Special" (Season 4, Episode 13) he has a flashback of a school experience when he was 12 and a teacher praised the excellence of his writing. The teacher advised Sam to decide for himself what he wanted to do with his life instead of letting his family dictate it for him. Sam eventually chose the family business but continues to have doubts.