A Chupacabra, or 'goat-sucker', was supposed to be the size of a bear, with spines from neck to tail base. It sucked the blood from livestock and cattle and, most recently, a few wandering students. It was dangerous. Deadly. And, in Jack's opinion, it was one of the ugliest things that he had ever seen.

That didn't lessen the danger that it posed, however. Not at all.

Not once it had attacked.

James swore and cursed and screamed. Jack hadn't even heard half of those words before, but he was far more focused on Sam, on preventing him from bleeding out.

"It's dead, right?" Jack checked.

James swore again. "It better be!" He snapped. He snatched up his rifle from where he had dropped it after the creature jumped Sam. "Keep watch over him," he ordered, and rose to his feet, aiming the gun and cautiously peering around the forest for the creature.

He whistled and taunted the Chupacabra, but there was no movement from it.

Sam, however, did move.

"J – Jack?" Sam slurred.

"Sam? Are you alright? What can I do? How can I help?"

"Hurt," Sam whimpered.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're hurt. The Chupacabra."

Sam shook his head with a whine. "You?"

Jack almost laughed. "We're fine. You're the one who got hurt, not us." He flinched as James' gun went off and there was a loud screech and a thump.

"Thing's dead!" James announced, rushing back to them. "You alive, Sam?"

Sam coughed in response.

"Get the car," Jack ordered. "We need to get him back to Jess."

"Not a hospital?" James wondered. "We haven't done anything wrong yet. And if we leave that thing here then there's nothing to tie us to it."

"No," said Jack and Sam together.

"No hospital," Sam coughed.

Jack nodded in agreement. "It's too dangerous. What if they report it? They'll find out about you guys' pasts."

James frowned. "I'll be right back," he promised. "Keep him alive, Ice Cube. I'll go get the car and call Jess."

"What do I do?" Jack wondered.

James shrugged. "Keep him cool."

~An Unlikely Friendship~

Jack hovered anxiously in the doorway. James glared, but Jack ignored him.

Blood stained Sam and Jessica's once cream coloured sheets. The horrifying crimson red was covering the front and shoulder of James' flannel shirt from where he had carried Sam on his shoulder. Jack's own clothes were also coated, but, whatever magic sustained them was already ensuring that it faded away. Jack just hoped that it was an omen.

Sam was covered in blood, but that wasn't nearly as terrifying as the countless wounds spread out on his chest. A couple of his wounds even still had the Chupacabra's quills lodged deep inside.

"Will he be alright?" Jack asked, his fear and worry obvious.

"I don't know," Jessica replied, helplessly.

Sam had lost consciousness while James and Jack had rushed home with him. Not being able to ask him what she could do had left Jess rattled. They were each other's rock.

"I don't have any equipment. Are you sure we can't just call an ambulance?" She asked, biting her lip. Monster induced injuries were always difficult to deal with. And hospitals were not always an option. Jessica was practically a fully trained doctor at this point if she counted all her 'field work'.

"Of course I'm sure!" James snapped, irritably. But the worry plain on his face made it hard for Jess to be offended.

"Where can we get equipment?" Jack wondered looking at Sam before paling drastically and turning to Jessica.

James shrugged. "I could check a pharmacy," he offered.

"No," Jess sighed. "You'd need to raid an ambulance..." She trailed off. "No. No. You are not going to raid an ambulance!" She ordered at James' plotting look.

"He'll die otherwise," James insisted. He pulled a flask of holy water out of his pocket and tossed it to Jessica. "Keep cleaning out the wounds with this. If they stop smoking and sizzling, try stitch them up. Keep him alive." He fixed Jess with a glare when she looked like she would argue. "I'm saving your boyfriend's life. C'mon Jack." James stalked out of Jessica's bedroom.

Jack looked torn between wanting to help Sam and not wanting to ignore Jess.

"Go, Jack," Jess sighed heavily. "He's right. It's not right, but… Go."

Jack nodded and took another moment to stare at his best friend. He had known Sam for years, but he hadn't seen him look so… bad before. Whatever it took, he would save him.

Jess knelt down beside Sam and turned the flask over in her hands. It was only after staring at it that she noticed her hands shaking. "Oh God," she whispered. "Please Sam, don't die," she begged, reaching over and grasping one of his pale, limp hands. She kissed him lightly on his forehead and then started pouring the holy water over the wounds.

Every broken whimper that Sam made, even unconscious, stabbed her in the heart.

~An Unlikely Friendship~

Jack stood stiffly beside the ambulance, invisible, as the EMTs rushed towards the abandoned building that an anonymous call had come from asking for assistance.

Jack would be the first to admit that he wasn't necessarily a 'good' spirit and was likely first on the naughty list each year, but he felt incredibly uncomfortable stealing from an ambulance.

"Sam will die otherwise!" He hissed to himself.

You don't know that, he tried to convince himself.

"Yeah, I do," he sighed.

Jack quietly clambered up through the open doors and began rooting around for anything that might be useful. "Jess probably should have been the one to come," he muttered, staring blankly at the equipment.

"Grab that transfusion kit," James muttered.

"James!" Jack hissed at the hunter's sudden reappearance, spooked. His expression almost comical. Except no one was laughing.

James growled at the spirit for wasting time. "Grab. That. Transfusion. Kit."

~An Unlikely Friendship~

Jessica was on her knees, praying to every god there was when James and Jack returned. "Thank god!" She cried, grabbing the bag of stolen medical equipment. The hunter and the spirit were shoved outside the room, so Jessica could focus.

Jack returned to his position of hovering just outside the door. In part to remain close to Sam and in part because he was still wary of James.

"I'm not going to kill an accomplice, Spirit, so you can calm down," James assured him, quietly.

Jack slumped at the reminder of their crime. "We did a bad thing. Like a really bad thing."

James nodded. "Yeah," he muttered sympathetically.

"Like in almost three hundred years I've never done something so…." He trailed off. "We stooped pretty low."

James snorted. "That's a bit of an understatement. But remember, you can always go lower."