2
Isaac Campbell stood on deck, heedless of the December wind slapping at his skin like an icy whip. He didn't even have a coat to protect his narrow frame, though most of the passengers and the crew who accompanied them were huddled in their warmest woolen gear. All wore black out of respect for the dead, and they had assembled on the deck to hear the words of the preacher, even though there could be no burial right now. That would have to wait until they found a place to land, and the ground thawed enough to be able to dig a hole.
Isaac watched the funeral with dry eyes, his face an impassible mask, heart similarly unmoved. Another corpse, another hunt. And the 'Saints' as they called themselves, would not allow him to burn the body. No, they insisted on waiting for a proper burial, and in a few years would reap the consequences of leaving a spirit to roam and fester until its power grew strong enough to kill more of their number.
If the company survived the winter. They were roaming the coast now, looking for a place to land and build their new colony. Food stores were running low and the ground would not thaw for planting for another four months at least.
Isaac had no pity for men and women who didn't have enough sense to keep themselves safe from the known dangers of hunger and thirst. Yet he would bleed for them before this was over, so that they did not wind up one someone-or something-else's dinner table. Such was the life of a Hunter.
Isaac turned away from the somber scene, slipping out of the crowd and down through the trapdoor that led below decks without being noticed. Not that the passengers usually paid much attention to what the crew did. Even though Isaac knew nothing about sailing, he slept with the crew, ate with the crew, and was paid with the crew. The crew know what his job here was, even if the passengers didn't. With the rise of science and 'rational' thinking in Europe, many people had forgotten about the existence of spirits, monsters, and magic. Hunters found it harder and harder to get paid for their work, although most kept doing the job anyway.
The crew of the ship were a different story. Among those who traveled on the ocean, superstition remained strong. The captain had even offered to pay Isaac to travel with them and protect their ship, and Isaac was not one to turn down a paying gig. A few of the crew glanced his way as he moved toward the trapdoor that led from the deck to the cabins below, but none said a word. They knew better than to interfere in the work he was doing.
Below decks was a cramped, smelly place where too many people had been cooped up together for too long. A few lucky passengers had enough money for private cabins above, but most of them stayed here. Right now, only the sick were still in the cabin. The rest had gone above for the funeral.
All but one. Isaac had seen her creeping away from the crowd a few moments ago, but she was not here in the main cabin. With a frown, Isaac stepped back and moved on to the storage areas. The space was tightly packed, filled with the tools and the food that the passengers would need to build their colony.
It was also not empty. Isaac could hear the faint sound of crying, and he followed it easily to find the girl huddled with her knees to her chest, face buried in her arms, weeping. Hannah Chilton. She was seventeen, traveling with her grandfather, and had been the last person to speak with the dead man before he died.
She was a sweet girl and well-liked, like Bianca in the Taming of the Shrew. But Isaac knew from experience that evil could lurk behind a sweet mask.
"Hannah." She gasped and looked up, startled, at the sound of her name.
"Mr. Campbell, sir!" Hannah scrambled to her feet. "I'm sorry. I know we're not really supposed to be in here. I just—I needed a place to be alone."
Her eyes were red, and her tears seemed genuine. So, perhaps she was not the killer here. Either way, she likely had valuable information.
"This is where they found Edmond's body," Isaac said, his tone stern.
Hannah's expression became closed and guarded. Now she looked more like a Lady Macbeth, haunted by a terrible secret that she could not wash off. "Yes, yes I suppose it is."
Isaac placed his hands on his hips. "Do you know what Edmond was doing in here?"
Hannah's eyes flicked sideways, as if searching for an answer in the shadows. "I don't—I think he was looking for a hammer to fix his mother's bed."
A lie. Isaac stepped closer and gestured across the room. "The tools are over there. Edmond was found there." Isaac pointed to the floor not far from them, between a rocking chair and a heavy wooden chest. "None of these items belong to him."
Hannah bit her lip, and her wide eyes begged him to stop the questions. "Please, sir, I don't—I can't-"
Something round and cold was pressed into Isaac's back, and a woman's voice said, "What are you doing here?"
Isaac recognized the shape of a gun, and raised his hands carefully. "Hannah and I were just having a conversation."
"Were you? Hannah? Would you like me to leave you alone with this crewman?"
Isaac winced. What did this woman think was happening here? Hannah shook her head. "No, ma'am!" She scurried away, leaving Isaac alone with the woman and her gun. He could not see her, she remained carefully behind him, but she must be one of the few wealthy enough to have a private cabin if she had the money to purchase a gun.
"Let's go." The gun pressed deeper into his side, and Isaac moved forward, following directions without complaint. There was no chance yet to duck away from the gun, but he was sure it would come soon enough.
He could handle one woman, even if she was the witch he hunter. They traveled back up to the deck, which was empty now, and the woman directed him to open the door of one of the private cabin built under the poop deck. He turned the knob carefully and his hopes of escape dropped when he saw two large men waiting there. Three against one would not be so easy.
Then the woman drew in a sharp breath, and suddenly the gun had moved, now pointed at the men, dressed in strange clothes, who crouched over a bowl that looked suspiciously like a spell, as if they had been caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.
Hm. This hunt just got a bit more complicated.
o0o
Wrong century. Wrong location. Wrong wardrobe.
Sam shifted in his cotton cowboy shirt and resisted the urge to pull the Sheriff's star off his chest. It wouldn't do to make sudden movements. Not while staring into the business end of a very primitive pistol. The gun would not be accurate even at a close range. Unfortunately, in the cramped space of the tiny cabin, they were at very, very close range. So close, it didn't matter how old the gun was, it would not miss.
I didn't get the spell wrong! It didn't matter that he and his brother were in danger of being shot, this was still the first thought on Sam's mind.
Sam held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, while the woman with the gun looked him and his brother up and down. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a frown at the sight of their golden sheriff stars. Then her gaze traveled down to the half-completed spell laid out on the floor in font of the closet door, and her eyebrows climbed to her hairline.
"Spell craft?"
"No! Not spell craft! Of course not spell craft! Why would you say a thing like that?" Dean said in his least convincing tone.
The man gestured to Sam and Dean as if their presence somehow settled an argument. "I told you I am hunting a witch!"
Sam looked down at the half-finished spell, then at his brother.
Puritans like to burn people at the stake if they use witchcraft. Dean gave his brother a meaningful stare.
No, the Puritans on the Mayflower weren't known to have burned anyone at the stake. That happened later, in Salem. Of course, it still probably wasn't a great idea to talk about witches in front of Pilgrims.
No, not Pilgrims. Sam took in their clothing again. The man was dressed in simple, worn clothing that looked like it belonged to a member of the ship's crew. The woman's dress was a dark blue and embroidered with colors and patterns that no Puritan would ever wear.
"There is no witch on board!" The woman's attention and the end of her gun were pointed back at the man she had escorted into the cabin.
"Two people have died."
"Yes, drained of blood with fang marks on their necks. It is a vampire."
These two were definitely not Puritans.
"Sounds like a vampire to me," Dean said, even though no one was paying any attention to him.
Your ancestors were chopping heads off vampires on the Mayflower. So their grandfather, Samuel Campbell had once said.
The man shook his head, stubbornly sticking to his point despite the gun pointed at his liver. "A witch's illusion to throw us off the scent. I tracked a witch to this ship before it left port, and the captain allowed me a berth with the crew so that I could finish the job."
"Five months at sea, and you haven't found anything yet?" The woman did not sound impressed. "That's because there is no witch!"
"A vampire must feed every month. If this were the work of a vampire, we would have seen more dead long before today."
Sam couldn't help but nod in agreement. "He has a point."
Both strangers turned to stare at him.
"Which is why I am hunting a witch," the man said.
"Hannah Chilton is no witch!" the woman snapped. She didn't seem upset at the mention of witchcraft, only that the blame had been laid on the wrong person. Sam cocked his head, trying to get a better view of the pendant the woman wore as a necklace. Was that the Aquarian Star, symbol of the Men of Letters?
"She was the last person to speak with Edmond before he died," the Hunter said.
"That doesn't make her a witch!" the Woman of Letters protested.
"That means she may have important information. I was asking a few questions."
"Your questioning techniques need some work! She was white as a sheet."
"That is because she saw something that terrified her! She was on the verge of telling me something important before you interrupted!"
"Well how was I supposed to know you were a Hunter? I saw a crewman threatening a teenage girl below decks!"
"You might have stopped to listen before making assumptions and butting in!"
"If I stopped to join your conversation, I couldn't have gotten the drop on you!"
The Hunter grimaced at the reminder that all of this had started with his capture. "Shall we agree that we can now say Hannah Chilton is not a witch? We've found the witches."
"Whoa!" Dean threw his hands in the air. "We're not witches! I know this kinda—maybe—looks a little bit like witchcraft, but-"
"They're not witches."
Dean pointed to the woman triumphantly. "That's right!"
"How so?" The Hunter crossed his arms, no longer seeming concerned about being shot. "They have a witch's tools. They have a witch's herbs. They wear strange clothing. We have been on this ship for five months and I know the face of every man, woman, and child aboard, yet I have never seen them before. How can you say they are not witches?"
The Woman of Letters nodded to the half-prepared spell. "Witchcraft is dark magic, it draws power from death and demons and evil forces. There are no bones, no blood, no bits of dead things or demonic symbols. This spell is not evil." She leaned closer, sniffing. "It has something to do with travel, and birth."
"With talk like that, one might begin to think you are a witch." The Hunter's tone was half-playful, half-suspicious.
The gun was once again firmly pointed at his midsection. "Well, I am not, and even though I can swim I'd rather not face a witch's trial so you'll just have to take my word for it."
"Yes, ma'am." There was a growing respect in the Hunter's eye. "My name is Isaac Campbell. What is your name?"
"Winchester. Anne Winchester."
Isaac Campbell tipped his hat in greeting. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Winchester. If these men are not witches, then who are they?"
The Hunter and the Woman of Letters turned to look at Sam and Dean with an identical question in their faces.
"I'm Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean. I think we're your great-great-great—lots of greats—grand kids," Sam said.
Dean dropped his hands and heaved an annoyed sigh, as if Sam was entirely missing the point. "Yeah, that's obvious, but what does that have to do with the Colt?"