Chapter 4
As it turned out, it took Bobby till almost sundown to get back to us. When he finally called, Dean had almost our entire arsenal spread out over both our beds and was wordlessly inspecting and cleaning every single weapon. He knew they didn't actually need cleaning - he'd done it only a couple of weeks ago while we were languishing at Bobby's - but he needed something to take his mind off the werewolf and the obvious Hellhound parallels.
I couldn't blame him, really, because when my Blackberry sprang to life I was sitting at the kitchen table keeping busy by researching obscure werewolf lore. I wasn't finding much, or even looking all that hard, but it kept my mind off Patrick Danville being eaten alive right in front of me.
Dean came to join me at the table as I pressed the speakerphone button. "Hi, Bobby. Did you find anything?" I asked, eyes on Dean. My brother looked back, a tired and troubled expression on his face that I'm sure was a mirror of my own.
"Well, there's good news and bad news."
Dean's ears pricked up at the mention of good news. "I could do with some good news. Hit me." he replied, wiping his hands on a towel as he sat down. Suddenly, all I could smell was gun oil.
"Good news: I know what it is. Boys, you're hunting a loup-garou." Bobby said, and neither Dean or I spoke for a few seconds while we thought that over. I raised my eyebrows at Dean, who shrugged and looked back at me with an expression that said he had no clue what Bobby was talking about either.
"What's a loup-garou?" I asked, finally. There was a satisfied snort of laughter from the other end of the phone, and I got the impression Bobby had been expecting us to say that.
"The amount of research I had to do to find out what that thing is, I deserve a Pulitzer!" There was mirth in his voice but it sounded more gravelly than usual, like he'd been up since I called last night. "And we're very grateful." Dean assured Bobby, rolling his eyes. "So, what is it?" he continued, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.
Bobby paused before he answered, and when he did his tone was more serious. "A loup-garou is basically an über-werewolf. They make regular werewolves look like puppies." He said the word with a French accent and a silent 'p', so it sounded like 'lu garu'.
"Yeah, Bobby, you don't have to tell us - we've seen this thing." I shivered.
"I don't think you boys quite grasp what you're dealing with here." Bobby said grimly. "The first real description we got of one is from France, round about the time Louis XVI lost his head, and they're more vicious than any other werewolf you've ever come across."
"So why haven't we heard of one before now if they're so terrible? Usually, the worse the monster the more stuff people write about it." Dean asked, picking at a loose thread on his towel.
"We don't have a lot of lore about them because loup-garou are rare. The condition isn't transmitted by a bite - they have to be cursed individually by a witch. It takes a powerful one to do it though, and even then they generally don't."
"Why?" I asked, furrowing my brow. This loup-garou lore wasn't exactly filling me with confidence.
"You know werewolves go after people they have grudges against, right? Well, werewolves are the loup-garou's baby cousins and that trait runs in the family. When they start wolfing out around the full moon, they tend to go straight for the witch that cursed them." He didn't need to tell us how that usually ended - we had a real good handle on that already.
"All right. So how rare is rare?" Dean leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He looked about as enthusiastic as I felt.
"Only half a dozen or so have been recorded, mostly in France and Europe. There was one in Quebec in the 1930s - hunters killed it pretty quick, so it only got a couple of dozen people, but it took most of them down with it. There's never been one in the United States before." Bobby answered matter-of-factly, and Dean and I exchanged a silent look. He was obviously thinking the same thing I was: Only a couple of dozen?
Bobby went on without waiting for a reply. "Loup-garou change on three nights every month - the two nights before the full moon and the night of - but they turn into actual, giant wolves and that sends all the other toothy critters running for the hills. Bears, mountain lions, real wolves, etcetera - all of them get the hell away as soon as a loup-garou arrives in the area."
Dean looked up at me, a thoughtful expression on his face. "The ME said there were no mountain lions or big carnivores around here that could've done that kind of damage." he pointed out, and I nodded. "Makes sense. Loup-garou moves in, all the other predators bail town." I know my first instinct was to get the hell out of the loup-garou's immediate vicinity, and obviously the local predators thought the same thing.
"So how do we kill it?" Dean asked, directing his question at my Blackberry. There was a short pause on Bobby's end.
"That'd be the bad news. I don't know."
"Oh, that's perfect." Dean groaned, managing to make it sound sarcastic.
"Dean, there's a lot of conjecture and myth, but no-one knows anything for sure." Bobby didn't sound the least bit amused by my brother's sarcasm. "Oh, I know something all right - silver bullets don't work." Dean grumbled, but Bobby ignored him.
"As far as I can tell, there's one guy that might be able to help - his daddy killed the loup-garou in Quebec. He was only a young boy at the time, but he's the best lead we've got. Thing is, he doesn't have a phone, so you're gonna have to go see him." Bobby's tone suggested we probably weren't going to like what he had to say next.
"Okay, I'll bite." Dean took a breath before he went on. "Where are we going?"
"He lives in a log cabin near Lac á Loup, about 120 miles northeast of Ottawa."
Dean blinked a couple of times. "We're gonna have to go and see him in Quebec?" he asked in disbelief, while I just smiled. That earned me a questioning look from Dean, who obviously didn't see anything amusing about this 800-mile detour.
"'Wolf Lake', Bobby? Really?" I asked, a little smile still on my lips. It took Dean a few seconds, but he rolled his eyes when he got the joke.
"Yeah, I know." Bobby sounded like he was enjoying the symmetry too. "Anyway, he lives out in real, honest-to-God wilderness. It's ain't quite the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from his front porch. His name's Alain Johns, and he's the son of Moses Johns - the one that actually put down the loup-garou in the 30s."
"Looks like we're going to Wolf Lake." I looked at Dean, who pursed his lips. I figured he was probably thinking about the fuel bill for this side-trip.
"One last thing - Sam, don't let your brother do too much of the talking. This guy's a cantankerous old coot, and Dean's exactly the type he's likely to take a dislike to. He doesn't get a lot of visitors, and he's been known to shoot ones he doesn't like." Bobby warned.
"We cope with you and Rufus. How bad can he be?" Dean asked, winking at me.
"This guy lacks our charming nature and pleasant disposition. Don't piss him off."
"Thanks, Bobby. We'll let you know what we find out." I hung up the phone before Dean could make another smartass comment, and sat back in my chair with a sigh.
"Well, Sammy, there's one good thing about having to go to Canada." Dean said, after a short silence. "And what's that?" I asked, wearily. I knew Dean's sudden cheeky, upbeat attitude was a coping strategy for the raw terror the loup-garou inspired in him, but I let it go. I wasn't about to antagonise him just before we started an 800-mile road trip. I may be crazy, but I'm not insane.
"Canadian bacon." Dean grinned. I rolled my eyes, but he went on smiling as he returned to the collection of weapons on the beds. The stainless steel Taurus sat ready on the nightstand, still loaded with (basically useless) silver rounds, right next to the salt gun. Even when we were cleaning our entire arsenal, there was always at least one gun kept close to hand and ready for action.
"So when are we going?" I asked, closing all the tabs in my browser. None of them had anything on loup-garou, so I was going to have to start the search from scratch again. "I'm thinking tomorrow morning. We're already paying for tonight, and I have to put all this stuff back together and back in the trunk. Plus, I'm sure there's some research you wanna do." Dean replied, picking up the revolver he'd been oiling. He didn't even have to look at the screen to know that's what I was doing.
"Dean, the only real lore on this thing comes from the late 18th century. There's probably not much to find." I warned him, but entered the search string anyway. "We're going to get heaps more from this guy in Quebec." I added, frowning at the results that came up. The actual lore results were interspersed with references to a Willy DeVille album inconveniently titled Loup Garou.
"No arguments here." Dean looked at me, an amused little smile on his face. "I can't believe you know when Louis the sixth died." he chuckled, looking back down at the revolver.
"It was Louis the sixteenth, Dean, and he was beheaded. In 1792."
"You're such a nerd."
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We left early the next morning and drove all day. I spent most of it going over all kinds of lore I'd found on loup-garou, but my lack of sleep finally caught up with me in the middle of the afternoon and the next thing I knew I was waking up in northern New York State - Alexandria, to be exact - and it was already dark.
I woke up with my head resting against the Impala's side window, as Dean got back in the driver's seat and shut his door. He grinned and tossed me something warm and soft in a paper bag. "Nice to see you're back among the living. You were out, dude - even Metallica didn't wake you." he folded back the paper on his own warm and soft something, and I finally woke up enough to realise we were parked in a service station.
I peeled back the rapidly-disintegrating paper from whatever Dean had given me, but wrinkled my nose when I got the package open. I figured it was supposed to be food, but it was doing a very poor imitation. I was starving, though, so I held my breath and bit into what the paper bag proclaimed to be a 'premium chicken burger'. You know, false advertising like that should be illegal.
By the time I'd choked down half the alleged chicken burger, Dean had finished his and thrown the bag into the backseat, along with the receipt for our latest tank of gas. "The fuel bill on this hunt is ridiculous, Sam. It should be tax-deductible or something." he told me, turning the key and bringing the Impala roaring back to life.
Even after the awful burger, that made me smile. "We don't pay taxes, Dean." I pointed out with a smile, and he looked at me witheringly. I understood what he meant, though - this hunt was taking us most of the way across the continental US and back again, and even he couldn't deny the Impala was thirsty.
"So do you have any idea how we're going to get into Canada?" I changed the subject as we rolled out of the service station. "I mean, we can't exactly go through a checkpoint - what if they wanna look in the trunk?" I went on, but Dean just smiled.
"Don't worry, Sammy, I've got a plan." he assured me. "I'm not going to risk border guards touching you, baby." he patted the Impala's dash with his right hand, and I sighed. Dean's plans could be questionable at the best of times, and he evidently noticed my lack of enthusiasm.
"Honestly, it's fine - we're going to be able to drive right in. You don't spend your life driving around the continental US without picking up a few tricks." Dean was obviously confident, and I didn't doubt he knew a sneaky back door across the border. I just hoped the US and Canadian border patrols didn't know about it too.
"So have you learned anything?" he nodded at the mess of papers on my lap, doing a little subject-changing of his own. There were even more papers stacked next to me, and still more spread across the back seat.
I stretched as I considered the question. The Impala really wasn't designed for sleeping, and I was incredibly stiff. "A few things, I think. I spent today trying to sort fact from fiction - three days ago I would've said most of it was ridiculous, but now I think we have to be a lot more open-minded." I said, sifting through the small pile of paper on the seat between Dean and I until I found my notebook. I flipped it open to somewhere around the middle, and flicked a couple of pages further till I found what I was looking for.
"So, the name 'loup-garou' is French, coined by the guy that described the one in the 18th century - you know, before it tore him to shreds." I started, and Dean arched an eyebrow at me. "The monk who wrote the account of the French loup-garou got eaten before he was done writing. Apparently his manuscript 'swam with his lifeblood'." I explained, and Dean wrinkled his nose. Neither of us had any trouble believing that.
"Anyway, the loup part means 'wolf', and garou comes from the Old French word garoul, which means 'werewolf'. Basically, 'loup-garou' literally means 'wolf-werewolf'." I continued, and Dean sighed. "A wolf among werewolves. Awesome." he flicked on the indicator and turned onto the almost-deserted highway, then immediately planted his foot on the accelerator. The engine roared and the Impala shot off down the road at some ridiculous speed, and when I looked over at Dean he had a satisfied little smile on his face. There are few things he enjoys more than opening up the throttle on a quiet road - it's really no wonder we're constantly stopping for fuel.
I shook my head and continued. "And I've got more good news. Apparently they're basically indestructible, even in their human form." I said, and that immediately got Dean's attention. "So even if we could find the guy before the next full moon, shooting him still wouldn't help?" he turned towards me to make sure I wasn't having him on, the little smile gone. He didn't lift off the accelerator, though.
"That's what the lore says." I shrugged. Unfortunately, I wasn't joking. "You know, Sam, I really don't like this thing." Dean said flatly, looking back out at the road. "You and me both." I agreed. As far as bad hunts went, this one was getting up there.
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True to his word, Dean did in fact know a sneaky back way into Canada. We crossed the border via a rickety old bridge just before 11pm, in the middle of nowhere and without a border guard in sight, then stopped for a surprisingly decent night's sleep at the first motel we saw. My bed wasn't bad, as motel beds go, but I could probably have slept just as deeply on the floor. My Impala-nap hadn't really done anything to recharge my batteries and it was heaven to have an actual pillow instead of a rolled-up jacket or the passenger-side window.
Dean and I were up early (again) the next morning, and we grabbed breakfast at a local diner before we got back on the road. The place was comfortable and homey, and most importantly, well-heated - there was three inches of snow on the ground outside, and if you stayed out in anything less than full winter gear the cold quickly seeped into your very bones. I found myself wishing for the relative warmth of Pennsylvania.
I had my customary short stack, with real Canadian maple syrup. God, that stuff's good; if they'd let me, I could have drained a glass of it. Dean didn't know what he was missing - predictably, most of his breakfast consisted of his beloved Canadian bacon. It's like catnip to my brother: he hardly stopped eating long enough to drink his coffee.
The bacon probably had something to do with the sunny mood he was in as we hit the road again and headed for Lac á Loup. It seemed that the further we got from Pennsylvania - and thus the loup-garou - the cheerier Dean got. The lack of dark circles under his eyes and the fact that they weren't bloodshot told me he'd finally had his first decent night's sleep since we came face-to-face with the loup-garou.
As we pulled out of the diner carpark, Dean put the Led Zeppelin IV cassette in, cranked up the volume, and was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as we headed out of town. I didn't want to spoil his good mood, so once again I kept my mouth shut about loup-garou and Hellhounds and started reading a book instead. I was barely one page into it when Dean started singing along - it didn't seem to bother him that the song was Black Dog.
We drove on to Ottawa, then continued north. About 100 miles northeast of Ottawa we hit the town of Sainte-Veronique, by which time the roads were pretty rough and the terrain could best be described as 'mountainous'. We passed through Sainte-Veronique just after 2:30pm, after that the journey got downright treacherous.
We found ourselves on a small, winding road disappearing into a snowy forest that looked like it had been transplanted direct from Transylvania. I played navigator, guiding Dean down various rabbit-tracks snaking through the trees that could barely even be called roads. I tried not to think about the fact that if it rained - or if the few inches of snow got any deeper - the Impala wasn't going to be able to cope. It wasn't like we could turn back, anyway - we had to see Alain Johns. A whole heap of lives (ours among them) literally depended on it.
Almost seven hours after we finished breakfast (and after having gone through most of Led Zeppelin's discography), the Impala rolled up unharmed in front of an ancient-looking log cabin on the shores of Lac á Loup, Quebec. The building stood in a clearing on the edge of the forest, facing the icy grey lake and with snow-dusted, tree-covered hills rolling away at its back. The cabin had a sharply-pitched gable roof from which a smoking brick chimney stuck out into the sky, and a porch ran across the front with a small garden bed between it and the compacted gravel driveway where we'd parked.
"Cheery looking place." Dean observed, switching off the engine and taking a look around through the windows. In what little anaemic sunlight made it through the cloud cover, the cabin had a tinge of wintry Gothic horror about it; like it might have been Dracula's groundskeeper's cottage or something. The place felt very isolated, and it was kind of unsettling - suddenly I didn't particularly feel like getting out of the nice, warm car.
I did, though, and as soon as I opened the door I was assaulted by that Arctic wind that had been the bane of our existence since we'd arrived in Pennsylvania. Only it was worse up here. I gritted my teeth and stepped out onto the icy gravel as Dean did the same, a similar expression of distaste on his face as he zipped up his jacket against the cold. I took another look around the pale, snowy landscape and it did nothing to lessen my vague sense of foreboding. The place was just creepy.
Some of the creepiness came from that fact that, apart from the forest, there wasn't much in the way of vegetation in the clearing around the cabin. Some hardy wild species from the surrounding woods had colonised the garden bed, but most of the space in it was taken up by an unidentifiable herb-like plant with long upright stems and green leaves that were shaped like miniature palm leaves. The stems had mostly died off and collapsed to ground level under the weight of the snow, but in the spring when the plant started growing again, they would be at least up to my waist. All in all, the place looked rather bare and inhospitable.
"Coming?" Dean was standing halfway between the car and the cabin now - I'd been too busy looking at the landscape to notice he'd started walking. I took a few jogging steps to catch up, and fell into step beside him as we walked towards the stairs leading up onto the porch. The steps were rough-hewn slabs of timber, and the handrails looked like unfinished branches that had been cut from a tree in the forest nearby.
"This place is creepy, huh?" Dean said, looking around the barren, snowy clearing with a little shudder. The disconcerting nature of the place hadn't escaped him. "Feels like a scene straight out of Dracula." I agreed, as we started up the steps. As we went up to the front door, I was surprised to see a silver knocker (in the shape of a wolf's head), and the edge of black devil's trap poking out from under the rough coir doormat. I looked over at Dean silently, eyebrows raised. Is this guy a hunter? Dean looked back with a little frown and shrugged a shoulder. I didn't think so...
He reached out and rapped three times on the door with the silver knocker, and we stood back and waited. And waited. I was starting to wonder if the guy was even home and Dean was reaching for the knocker again when we heard muffled footsteps on the other side of the door. No less than three locks clicked before the door swung open to reveal a stocky old man with a weathered face and longish silver hair pulled back into a ponytail. I took a sharp breath and my eyes widened as I saw the ancient-looking bolt action rifle grasped in his steady hands - it was pointed straight at my midsection.
"Hello, sir. Are you Alain Johns?" I asked in the most polite tone I could muster, trying not to stare at the rifle and keeping my hands where the old man could see them. Dean stood stock still beside me, hands also in plain view at his sides and well away from the pistol inside his jacket. Fortunately for me, it looked like he wasn't going to risk going for his gun and getting his little brother shot.
"Who's askin'?" the man peered at Dean and I suspiciously from behind his glasses with faded blue eyes, discreetly but intently watching our hands. The guy might have been old, but he was still razor sharp and I got the distinct impression that if we gave him a reason, he'd shoot us both dead faster than either of us could draw our concealed weapons. Bobby hadn't been kidding when he'd warned us not to piss this guy off, and it never ceases to amaze me how a day can go from relatively pleasant to life-threatening in the space of a couple of minutes.
"I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean. We're on a hunt down in Pennsylvania, and Bobby Singer told us you might have some information that could help." I told him, and the old man's eyes narrowed at the mention of Pennsylvania. He considered his reply for a painfully long minute before he spoke again - his accent wasn't as French as I expected. More like how you might expect John Wayne to sound after he'd lived among the French Canadians for a few years.
"Thought someone might come 'round asking questions. Come in." Mr. Johns lowered the gun, then turned away and walked back into the shadows of the cabin. Dean and I exchanged a look before we followed him inside and closed the door. Each of the three deadbolts locked behind us with a very solid click.
The cabin was on the small side, lit only by what weak sunlight made it through the small windows, and sparsely furnished with what looked like handmade pieces. The floor was bare boards and the bare log walls were dotted with photographs, many of them black and white - they looked like they'd been taken around the lake, and the people in them were wearing what I thought was Depression-era clothing.
We rounded a corner into what was apparently the living room, where we found the fireplace responsible for the smoking chimney. The whole place smelled of pipe tobacco and wood smoke, and throughout the cabin bunches of a dried herbaceous plant with dark blue-purple flowers, now faded to a dusty pale violet, hung from rafters and doorknobs on coarse brown twine. Alain sat heavily in a comfortable looking armchair, and Dean and I sat on the soft couch opposite.
"You're here about the thing in Pennsylvania?" he asked, regarding us sombrely. "That's right." I replied, and Alain sighed. "Tracked it from Maine, through Massachusetts and Connecticut?" he went on, and I nodded. Obviously, he knew exactly why we were here.
"So you know what it is yet?" the old man asked. "At first, we thought it was a werewolf - until we saw it on the last full moon. It's not like any werewolf we've ever seen before, and silver bullets to the heart didn't kill it. Bobby did some digging for us, and now we know it's a loup-garou." I told him, and Alain pressed his lips together.
"And he sent you here to talk to me because nobody else knows anything." he said, but his tone implied he already knew the answer. "He said your father killed a loup-garou in the 1930s?" I asked, and he nodded. "Thirty-four, 'twas." he replied, sagely, looking from me to Dean and back again. "Brought it down with a silver bullet to the heart." he went on, and Dean let out a snort of derision. As per Bobby's warning he hadn't said a word, but now he just couldn't help himself. "I tried that. I emptied a full clip of silver bullets into it, and it didn't even slow down!"
I discreetly stood on my brother's foot, trying to get him to shut up, which earned me a glare. "Let me finish, boy." Alain looked at Dean with narrowed eyes as he spoke, peering over the top of his glasses. Fortunately, he hadn't brought the rifle into the living room with him. "These monsters are only vulnerable when they've been exposed to wolfsbane - you have to poison it, then shoot it." he told Dean tersely. The word 'wolfsbane' set a little bell ringing in the back of my mind, but it took me a few seconds to work out why.
Suddenly, it dawned on me. "That's what all those bunches of flowers are, right?" I pointed at the bouquet hanging in the doorway, and Alain lost his sour expression as he focused back me. I saw Dean give me a look out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored him.
"Wolfsbane grows wild around the lake. I cut it in the summer and keep it all year." the old man replied. "Looks like we're going to need some." I said, and Alain nodded. "I've got plenty. You boys want the root - that's where the poison is."
"Okay, so we have to poison it and then shoot it. Now, how are we going to find it?" Dean asked, and Alain laughed. It was more of a cackle, really. "Oh, you won't need to find it." he told us, a grim little smile on his lips. "Why's that?" I asked, and he chuckled again. "It'll find you. You shot it, and it'll want payback." he explained, a sparkle in his eye, and Dean got that sceptical look on his face again. "How the hell do you know that?" he demanded, before I could remind him not to piss off our only source of information on the loup-garou. Sometimes, I think I should make him wait in the car.
Alain paused before he responded. "I know, 'cause it did the same thing in the 30s. Damn thing hunted down everyone that tried to kill it, and that's why they eventually took it down all the way out here. You see, the loup-garou started off just north of Ottawa in 1933." he said, all the humour gone from his voice. His expression became remote as he remembered.
"Ottawa's a hundred miles from here." Dean pointed out, furrowing his brow. "So it is. After the first full moon, when they realised what it was, my father and a group of others hunted it for the next two months. By the end of its third full moon, nine of the thirteen men in the posse were dead. Hunted down and killed in their houses." Alain continued, and I shivered. I knew a little something about lying awake in the dark, wondering if the monster was going to come through the window and tear you apart. Next to me, Dean shuddered as well.
"So, before the fourth full moon, the four that were left ran and tried to get their families away from the beast. We travelled for days through snow inches deep, but it found us here on the night of the fourth full moon. A friend of my father's took wolfsbane to kill himself when we realised it had found us, but he wasn't quite dead before it tore him up." Alain's voice was quieter now, and his eyes had that unfocused look people get when they're replaying memories in their head.
"That's how it took in the poison." I breathed, and Alain nodded. "Then my father shot it through the heart with a silver bullet, and it was dead before it hit the ground. They burned it where it fell." Alain had a haunted look in his face as he spoke, and it reminded me very much of the look Dean had the night we saw the loup-garou.
"Is that why place is called Wolf Lake?" Dean asked, an unreadable expression on his face. I knew there must be a helluva lot going on inside his head right then, but he was covering it well. After all, he'd had practice.
"My father named it. He built this cabin with his bare hands, and the surviving posse members built houses of their own nearby. This is the only one left." Alain looked wistfully out the window, and I understood why - the people in his black and white photos were evidently the other families that ran from the loup-garou.
After a short pause, Alain got up out of his chair. "I've got some wolfsbane root stored in the freezer." He went through a door on the other side of the room, and I saw a flash of kitchen cupboards before the door swung shut behind him. "Holy crap." Dean whistled under his breath, as soon as the old man was out of earshot. "We've gotta get this thing the next time it turns, Dean. If we don't, it'll get us first." I whispered back, and he frowned. "Incentive, I guess." he sighed, as Alain came back into the room with out wolfsbane root.
Our visit to Wolf Lake was the end of Dean's good mood. The Led Zeppelin cassette in the tape deck was replaced by Motörhead on the twilight drive back to Sainte-Veronique, and he barely said two words to me until we were sitting in our newly-rented motel room.
I was sitting at the kitchen table checking out the lore on wolfsbane when Dean came over to stand behind me. He held a zip-lock plastic bag containing the frozen root, and was absently turning it over and over in his hands. It looked kind of like a small turnip. "So what's so special about wolfsbane?" he asked, suddenly.
"The root is poisonous - like, seriously poisonous. There's a neurotoxin in it that can kill you almost instantly. It slows your heart rate, drops your blood pressure, paralyses your respiratory muscles - nasty stuff. The ancient Romans used it to carry out death sentences on criminals." I replied, and looked over my shoulder at Dean. That tense, strained look was back, and I was betting it would be joined by red eyes with dark circles tomorrow morning.
"Why does it work on loup-garou?"
"No clue." I replied honestly, after a short pause.
"So all we have is this guy's say-so?" The tension was showing in Dean's voice now.
"His father did kill the last one, Dean." I reminded him delicately, and I heard him heave a sigh.
"Well I'm gonna feel a helluva lot better going up against this thing with a freaking plant once we get some confirmation."
I had to admit, that'd make me feel a helluva lot better too. What happened to Patrick Danville at the metaphorical hands of this beast still sent shivers down my spine, and I wanted to be damn sure the wolfsbane was going to work before we squared off with the loup-garou again. And there was only one place I knew we could get confirmation on the lore.
"Guess we should call Bobby and let him know." I pulled out my Blackberry and dialled Bobby's number. I put it on speaker, and he answered on the third ring.
"So how'd it go?" he asked, not even bothering to say hello.
"Well, he didn't shoot us, despite Dean's best efforts. And we got something." I replied, as Dean sat in the chair next to mine and put the root on the table. "Silver bullets by themselves won't kill it. We have to poison it with wolfsbane, then shoot it in the heart." I continued, and there was a pause on the other end of the line while Bobby thought that over.
"Wolfsbane, huh?" he mused, and paused again. "You know, that actually makes sense."
"It does?" Dean and I asked simultaneously, looking at each other with identical expressions of confusion.
"Well, I've been doing a little more research, and I found a record of the actual curse." I heard shuffling paper as he looked through what I imagined were small skyscrapers of books and papers on his desk. A good half a minute later he evidently found what he was looking for.
"Wolfsbane is one of the ingredients in the spell the witch uses to curse whatever poor bastard pissed them off. They use it in the part that creates the thing's supernatural shield against all the stuff that would kill a normal werewolf - makes sense it can bring the shield back down, too."
Dean raised his eyebrows at me. What do you think? I shrugged in reply. That theory made about as much sense as anything else on this case. "Okay. We can go with that." he told Bobby, after a short pause.
"Right. So, how do we get the poison into the loup-garou?" I posed the question I'd been pondering since Alain told us about the wolfsbane.
"I'm sure I can come up with something." Bobby sounded like he already had the beginnings of a plan. Good thing, too, because I was fresh out of ideas - and judging from the relieved look on Dean's face, so was he.
"Looks like we're coming to see you again." Dean sighed, sitting back in his chair.
"Hey, it's going to take you a few days to get here - get a cooler and some ice and keep the wolfsbane root cold, okay? And don't dawdle - the fresher it is the better."
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Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Four days later
Dean and I were both having a bad day when we finally got back to Bobby's. We were pretty crabby after basically driving from one side of the continent to the other, sleeping in the car the whole way in an effort to get the root to Bobby as fast as possible. The Impala had hardly stopped moving since we left Sainte-Veronique.
It wasn't just the endless driving and sleeping in the Impala, though. On our way back through Ohio, I'd finally bitten the bullet and pointed out to Dean the obvious similarities between the loup-garou and a Hellhound. And yeah, it went about as well as you're imagining it did.
Remember when I said I expected Dean to start losing sleep again after we saw Alain at Lac á Loup? Well, I was right. From what I could tell, he was back to getting two or three hours a night, and he looked like death warmed over - bloodshot eyes with ever-deepening dark circles beneath them, which stood out against his pallid skin.
When he did sleep he had nightmares, and usually woke up screaming if I didn't wake him before it got that far. So, in an effort to sleep as little as possible, Dean had been popping caffeine pills like Tic-Tacs. He was dog-tired and his temper had a hair trigger, and after two days of walking on eggshells I couldn't take it any more. It didn't help that I was down to the last of my clean clothes, which included my white/black pair of odd socks.
We were about 80 miles into Ohio when Dean made the latest in a line of risky moves and blew past a sedan doing the speed limit on the I-90. In my mirror, I could see the startled expression on the driver's face as the Impala roared past him at close to 100 miles an hour.
"You've gotta slow down, Dean - you're going to get us killed!" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself, and I saw his jaw muscles working as he ground his teeth. "I know what I'm doing, Sam." he growled, and glared back out at the road.
"No, you don't." I said, after a short pause to consider whether I really wanted to poke this particular bear. Dean looked over at me again, daring me to continue. His glassy, red-rimmed eyes convinced me I had to.
"I know why you're not sleeping, Dean." I told him, and he let out a snort of derision. "Oh you do, do you?" The corner of his mouth twitched in a mocking little smile. "I noticed the similarities between this loup-garou and a Hellhound too. It's hard not to." I went on, and Dean didn't reply. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles went white and he bit his bottom lip as he stared intently out at the road. I was definitely on the right track.
"We're hunting something that reminds you of the demonic pit-bull that dragged you to Hell, Dean. Nobody expects you to be okay with that." I said, but still got nothing. I shifted in my seat to face him. "You can't keep going like this. Just talk to me."
"You can't understand." Dean said, voice dangerously quiet, eyes still fixed on the road and knuckles still white as he gripped the wheel like his life depended on it. And at this speed, it did.
"So tell me." I replied, and Dean's lips pressed together into a thin line. "I can't, all right?" he snapped, taking his eyes off the road to throw me a look that would melt steel. Had I been able to, I might've taken an involuntary step back. "Talking won't make me forget being torn to shreds, so for the love of God, shut up about it!" He set his jaw and stared back out at the road in front of us. I stayed quiet after that, and Dean didn't say another word to me until we were halfway across Indiana.
So now you can probably understand why, when we eventually pulled up in front of Bobby's house the following evening, Dean and I were having an impressive yelling match. This particular argument was about how to administer the wolfsbane to the loup-garou, and we were so involved in it that we didn't notice Bobby come out onto the porch. He didn't say anything; he just leaned against a wooden post with his arms folded and watched the show.
"Are we gonna hide the root in a piece of cheese and try and fool the loup-garou into eating it?" Dean demanded sarcastically, getting out and almost slamming the driver's side door. He stalked back to the trunk and yanked it open, then started throwing our bags out onto the driveway.
"If you put it in your hand and hold it out in front of the thing, I'm sure that'll have the same effect!" I shot back, and earned myself a glare from Dean as I slammed my own door. He hated people slamming his baby's doors, and that was exactly why I did it.
"You gonna wait for a written invitation to shoot next time as well? Maybe wait until it gets close enough to lick your friggin' cheek?" Dean slammed the lid of the trunk, staring daggers at me across the Impala's roof.
"You were doing enough shooting for the both of us, Dean. Sounded like panic fire to me." The words came out harsher than I intended, and he narrowed his eyes. He didn't reply, he just glared - I actually wondered for a second if he was going to come around the car and take a swing at me. I would've deserved it, too - I already felt terrible about using Dean's Hellhound-inspired fear against him like that.
Our little stand-off was interrupted by Bobby's voice floating down from the porch. "You boys done now? 'Cause I actually know how we're gonna do it."
That got our attention. Dean and I looked up at the porch, but Bobby had already turned his back on us and gone inside. We grabbed our bags and followed wordlessly, anger still simmering.
When we got into the house, we found Bobby in the kitchen. On the table he'd set out a knife and chopping board, a glass jar with a screw cap, an old whiskey bottle half-full of an anonymous clear liquid, and a box of latex gloves. He stood next to it, arms still folded, regarding Dean and I with an unreadable expression and I suddenly felt like a kid that had been called to the principal's office. I noticed Dean shift uneasily next to me, evidently feeling exactly the same way.
"So are you done with your little domestic, then?" Bobby asked evenly, looking from me to Dean. "Sorry, Bobby - it's been a long week." I said apologetically, by way of explanation. "Uh huh." he frowned slightly as his eyes settled on Dean. "Christ, boy, you look like death warmed up." Bobby immediately noticed the dark circles under Dean's bloodshot eyes and the general pallor of his skin.
Dean sighed, evidently sick of being told he looked like hell, but didn't bite Bobby's head off like he'd done to me in Ohio. I think maybe he was too tired. "You said you knew how we were going to poison the loup-garou?" He avoided looking directly at me or Bobby as he immediately changed the subject. I pressed my lips together and stared at the roof, willing myself to keep my mouth shut and not revive the whole Hellhound argument.
"I got a plan, yeah." Bobby said slowly, studying Dean and I as he spoke. He was obviously dying to know what the hell was going on that would put us at each other's throats like this, but he refrained from asking the question. "We're going to make aconitine darts."
Dean and I had simultaneous, if very different, reactions to that statement. "We're going to what?" Dean asked, looking at Bobby like he was speaking Greek, at the exact same time I exclaimed "That's genius!" Dean looked at me, then at Bobby, and the expression on his face suggested he thought we were both out of our minds.
"Aconitine is the technical name for the poison in the wolfsbane root." I told Dean, then looked at the stuff laid out on the kitchen table and up to Bobby. "We're going to make an aconitine solution, right?" I continued, and he nodded. "Yep. We put the root in a jar full of solvent that dissolves out the aconitine, we load up some tranquiliser darts with the mixture, shoot the loup-garou with those, then hit it with the silver bullets." he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Oh, well, when you say it like that...!" Dean rolled his eyes. He obviously disagreed. "Bobby, this thing could kill us before we get a shot off with one gun, and you want us to use two?"
"Better give it half a minute to work, too."
"Well that's even better." Dean glared at Bobby, who looked back mildly.
Honestly, I kind of agreed with Dean - his argument wasn't an unreasonable one. Each extra second the loup-garou was alive would exponentially increase our chances of dying a violent, bloody death. I decided not to fan the flames, though. "How long does it take to brew?" I asked, and Bobby shrugged a shoulder. "The longer we leave it the stronger it gets."
"Well, we've got just under three weeks till the next full moon. While it's brewing, we should work out how the hell we're going to do this without getting ourselves torn to ribbons." I said, and Dean looked incredulously from me to Bobby. He obviously still thought we were insane. "Well, while you guys play chemist, I'm going to take a shower." He'd evidently decided not to make an argument out of it though, and headed upstairs to wash up.
Bobby watched him go, and waited till he was out of earshot before he spoke. "What's with your brother?" he asked, as we sat down at the table. There's a can of worms if ever there was one.
"He won't talk about it, but I know what's going on. The wolf reminds Dean of the Hellhound that came for him when his deal was due." I told him, and Bobby quirked an eyebrow. "You think?"
"Definitely. Calling this thing a 'demonic pit-bull' wouldn't be an exaggeration." I sat back in my chair with a sigh. "But honestly, even the Hellhound didn't do damage like this loup-garou. At least Dean didn't get eaten alive." The absurdity of what I was saying struck me even as the words were coming out of my mouth. On this hunt, the best case scenario involved simply avoiding getting eaten alive. Sometimes, I think I need to find another job.
"He still has nightmares about being a Hellhound's chew toy, and that night in Williamsport he came face-to-face with something that could easily do the same thing. It shook him up, but he got better on the drive to Quebec - the further we got from Pennsylvania, the cheerier he got. He only came crashing back down after we talked to Alain Johns, and he's been this way ever since." I finished, and Bobby was silent for half a minute as he thought that over. Then he asked the $64,000 question. "Is he gonna be able to face it when the next full moon rolls around?"
I didn't hesitate before I answered. "This is Dean, Bobby. He can do it." I was sure of that - no matter how much the Hellhound-lookalike terrified him, Dean would do what needed to be done. Good thing, too, because chances were our lives depended on it.
"Well, all right then." Bobby sighed. He might have had reservations, but he was going to take my word for it. "Guess I'd better get started. Where's this wolfsbane of yours?"
I fished the mostly-frozen root out of the pocket of my bag, and handed it to him. "You've done this before, then?" I picked up the whiskey bottle and started to uncap it, curious about the contents. "You don't wanna do that." Bobby told me, sharply. I stopped just before the lid came off in my hand and looked up at him quizzically.
"That's chloroform." he explained, and I immediately screwed the cap back on and set the bottle back on the table at arm's length. I could smell the sweet scent of the vapours that had escaped the bottle when I loosened the lid. "You should really label that." I told him, and Bobby shrugged. "Never had idjits nosing around it before." he replied pointedly, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He paused for a second, then added a second pair over the top of the first before he even touched the zip-lock bag.
I watched as he tipped the root out onto the glass chopping board and, with some difficulty, started to cut it into rough slices about 5mm thick. "So why chloroform?" I asked, flinching as a chunk of half-frozen wolfsbane root shot halfway across the table towards me. Bobby picked it up with a double-gloved hand and dropped it into the coffee jar before he replied.
"The poison in the root is an alkaloid, and those are most soluble in chloroform." he replied, jaw clenched as he drove the knife down and carved off another slice. "Isn't alcohol the traditional solvent of choice when hunters are making poison solutions?" I asked, and Bobby added a few more slices to the coffee jar.
"Chloroform's heaps better at dissolving out the aconitine. You wanna use a less efficient solvent, be my guest - there's some moonshine in the kitchen. At least 100 proof." he offered, eyes focused intently on the wolfsbane root in front of him as he cut another slice. As much as I didn't want to accidentally knock myself out with the chloroform, I wanted to get eaten alive even less.
"I think I'd like this solution to be as strong as we can make it." I conceded, after a short pause. "Thought you might." Bobby replied, slicing up the last of the root. He put the slices into the bottom of the coffee jar and then we held our breath as he mostly filled it with chloroform before quickly replacing the lid on both containers. He tightened the lid on the coffee jar and turned it over in his hands a few times, and the wolfsbane slices floated lazily around in the chloroform before settling back on the bottom of the jar.
"So, a couple of weeks from now, we'll have a jar of loup-garou poison." I mused, watching Bobby put the jar on a bookcase away from the fireplace and direct sunlight. "You said something about a tranquiliser gun?" I asked, and Bobby produced what looked like an overgrown air rifle from somewhere in the library. He plonked it down on the table in front of me, and I just looked at it.
I'd never used a tranquiliser gun before - Dad hadn't been big on weapons that fired non-lethal projectiles - and Bobby noticed my wary expression. "Do I have to teach you two how to use this?" he asked, and I frowned. "Well, that depends." I said. "On?" He raised his eyebrows. "Whether you want us to live." I replied simply, and he chuckled. "When your brother gets back down here I'll show the both of you. It's not hard." Bobby told me, and poured us both a cup of coffee while we waited for my brother to grace us with his presence.