It was dark when they returned, Valerie barely able to see the brothers despite how close they were to her. The only thing that was clear to see, were the cop cars and torches of the cops that were still there.
"I guess the cops don't want more kids screwing around in there," Sam commented as he watched the scene unfolding.
"Typically they try to stop people from dying," the blonde answered lightly, though there was something almost mocking in her voice. Sam immediately understood the strange mix of ADD and fear that was playing up, but it didn't stop him from rolling his eyes.
"We still gotta get in there," Dean voiced his own thoughts, his eyes scanning for any possibilities of getting inside. It looked relatively well guarded.
"Bait," the female offered after a few moments of silence. "Considering I'm bait for the thing inside, I suggest you two figuring out who's coming with me and who's gonna be cop bait."
"Ow," a foreign voice hissed. It Dean's attention, and Valerie's once she saw Dean's reaction to something. Her head twisted, a grin forming on her face as she took in the sight of the people there.
"I don't believe it," Dean murmured.
"I'm all too happy about it, they're perfect scapegoats," Valerie offered, a smirk playing on her features as Sam had twisted to see what his brother and friend were on about. Dean nodded, standing up slightly so he wasn't as close to the ground.
"Who are you gonna call?" he yelled out gruffly, and by the reaction of the cops, it had worked all too well. They immediately took off in pursuit of the two 'paranormal investigators', and as soon as they had gotten away, the trio had launched themselves from their position to get back into the house, closing the door behind them.
Getting out of the house would be a problem that they could worry about later. The brothers had grabbed guns, throwing one to the daughter of Ares. She caught it calmly, her eyes scanning to catch sight of anything moving. Her current philosophy was along the lines of 'shoot first, ask questions later'. Somehow she knew it would probably bite her in the ass if she wasn't a bit more selective. A part of her was just hoping that this thing would be so obviously not human that it didn't really matter.
They'd gone down to the basement quickly, looking around for any evidence of the murders that had supposedly happened there. It just seemed to have pickled jars, and really, Valerie was quite bored.
That was until a sound of rattling caught her attention. Following the example of the boys, she followed Sam, holding the gun out in front of her. She swallowed thickly, waiting for one of the boys to open it as her finger rested on the trigger.
A rat ran out, causing Dean to cringe back.
"Man I hate rats," he muttered, the look of disgust obvious. It was so anti-climatic that it forced a weak chuckle out of Valerie's throat.
"Would you rather it was a ghost?" Sam asked dryly.
"Yes," Dean answered. Valerie shook her head in amusement, turning around to head back to checking out the basement so that she could get out of there. A moment later she froze as she took in the creature raising an axe.
Raising the gun she fired immediately.
That definitely caught the attention of both of the brothers. They turned, watching as the shadow like thing recoiled, Valerie shooting another round. The two brothers also attempted to shoot it themselves a few times before it finally dissolved into a black mist with red eyes.
"What the hell kind of spirit is immune to rock salt?" Sam yelled at the two people he was currently working with. Valerie moved forwards, her eyes scanning the room for movement. This was what she was born for. She had been born to fight. Whether it was with a sword, or whether it was shooting monsters. Secretly she was kind of hoping for Ares' blessing right now because that'd make destroying this thing a hell of a lot easier.
All of them began moving for the stairs quickly, Valerie hadn't even realised it had reformed until another shot echoed out. She realised that it had gone after Sam in that moment, quickly turning and firing another shot at it to try to distract it's advance on Sam. Mentally she was wondering where the hell Dean had ended up.
Sam was managing, despite the direct attack. This time it looked more human… at least humanoid. But that was probably even more terrifying that when it had disappeared into that black mist. That seemed less threatening.
Especially because it couldn't swing an axe in that form.
The trio had stumbled out of the house, landing literally in a heap as they'd all fallen in the desperate attempt to get out. Still Valerie had rolled to her feat with ease, ignoring the brother's progress as she bolted for the line of trees. Sam had overtaken her a few moments later, and she knew that Dean was also on his way.
She slowly once she hit the foliage, lightly panting. She twisted just as Dean had hit the tree line.
"Can we just go back to the motel?" she asked softly, tilting her head to the side.
"I second that," he muttered gruffly, pissed off by the events that they had just gone through, storming off in the direction of the Impala.
Valerie struggled to keep up with the two men, practically running to keep up with their fast walking pace. She was grateful when they finally reached the Impala, quickly taking the seat behind Dean like she often did.
Within minutes she had fallen asleep.
"The last demigod," a voice echoed around her. Everything was black, too dark to even make out a silhouette. Perhaps that was a good thing, Valerie thought to herself, trying to pinpoint the voice. It was coming from every direction though. The most frustrating of all was that it was so familiar.
"Don't you recognise me?" it asked again. It was male, and her mind jumped to the gods. Only they would have to power to go into her dreams. But which god, that was the question. There were hundreds of possibilities, thousands even with all the minor gods and free titans.
"I'm sorry my lord," she whispered, blue eyes still searching.
"That won't do," the voice answered. Immediately the room transformed around her, a completely golden interior. Instruments and books were also all over the room, in a way that seemed to be an organised mess. There was only one god that would have a room that looked like this.
"Lord Apollo," she said, looking around to try to find the god in question. He had been right behind her the whole time. Like in her own world, he looked like a model. Curly blonde hair, an athletic body with a great tan. The oldest she would've guessed him if she did't know who he was would be 19.
"Lord makes me feel old, just call me Apollo," he answered, a bit more relaxed than he had seemed to be before. He was still more strung up than she'd ever seen him before though. Normally he was so relaxed it was barely believable that he was a god who had lived through so much, been in wars and capable of torturing those who spoke against him. This was the serious side of the god. A side that truly terrified her, even though he wasn't currently a threat.
"Uh… yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Lo- Apollo," she corrected herself, quickly stumbling over all of her words.
"I didn't believe Hestia," he murmured, his blue eyes glancing over her. An amused look crossing his face. He moved closer to her, almost intimately close as he leaned in towards her neck. Her entire body tensed, the demigod struggling not to move a muscle. At that moment she heard the large amount of air he breathed in. A small tremor ran through her, fear as to why he was smelling her. This was creepier than any of her past experiences with greek gods. "No legacy of mine that is sired by another god has looked like me before… if it wasn't for your smell, I'd mistake you for one of mine. But you definitely smell like Ares."
Valerie's mind was blank. Something about this was abnormal. It put her on edge, something beyond the cells of her body that always screamed 'danger' when she was around a god or powerful demigod. This took it to a new level.
This Apollo seemed a lot less civilised than the one she knew.
"From another world," the god mused, as he took a few steps back. "There's much you have to learn, and much that we hope you will do."
The demigod had a vague understanding. There were quests in her world, threats that had been halted by the demigods there. Here… no one had been around for the last decades. With the possibility of Kronos rising here, as well as Gaea's awakening.
Valerie was screwed.
The god in front of her chuckled, something that seemed a lot darker than the cheerful, and in some ways slightly pathetic, version that she was accustomed to. This one actually seemed like he was millennia's old.
"I don't think that I could actually do that, by myself… quests normally take three-"
"Things here won't play out the way they did in your world," the god interrupted knowingly. "When the time is right, you will know what to do. Make me proud."
"But don't I need a pro-"
Valerie's body jolted upright.
"Phecy," she finished dejectedly, the picture of the god still in her mind. Both of the Winchester's were awake, she knew that. Both of them had glanced over the moment she shot up.
There was no way she was going to explain this to them. Considering they were already suspicious about her being a demigod, it was practically impossible that telling them she had just had an encounter with one of the Olympians would go down well.
"Did you learn anything about the thing you couldn't kill?" she asked harshly, narrowing her eyes at the two men in an attempt to move them into action and stop them asking any questions.
"Not like you did any better than us last night, sweetheart," Dean returned, just as much sass in him as Sam just gave her his 'bitch face'.
"I was hoping for a vision," Val countered. It wasn't true, but it was something that could've happened. It was also preferable over being stuck in your mind with a god. That comment had also morphed the looks of annoyance on the brother's faces into questioning looks. Swinging her legs over the side of her bed to sit and look at the brothers she just shrugged. "It happens sometimes… most demigods do get vague visions of the future or things going on."
Being a legacy of Apollo just increased the likelihood.
And also the quality of the visions she experienced.
Another thing that she wouldn't explain to the brothers for a while. There was still a lack of trust in the relationship that they had, but Valerie wasn't going to be the one to let her walls down first. It was a lesson that stuck with her since she was a teenager.
"But we did figure something out, and Dean thinks he know's where it started, so get ready we're leaving soon," Sam told her.
"Care to fill me in?" the girl asked, stretching her arms up as she stood. Tilting her head to the side she heard three soft cracks on one side, none on the other. It bothered her slightly, the tense feeling in half her neck. There wasn't much she could do about it though aside from waiting a while.
"Someone added a new post on the Hellhound site. It said Mordechai was really a satanist who chopped up his victims with an axe before slitting his own wrists," Sam summarised, his own eyes focussed on packing up his stuff. "Dean also remembered where he saw that one symbol, it's on an album cover… he thinks it started with that guy at the album store."
"And that's where we're going now?"
"After breakfast," Dean confirmed. Valerie nodded, pulling a new pair of jeans and a comfortable shirt and jumper out of her own duffel bag, walking into the bathroom to pull on her own clothes with more privacy. "We're going to take the stuff out already, alright?" Dean called after her.
"Sure thing," she called back, sliding her pants off quickly in an attempt to get dressed quickly. Looking into the mirror, she tried to force a smile, tried to think of other things. It didn't come easily. Sighing, she pulled the blonde curls into a messy bun, making sure to mess it up more to make it look intentional.
There was no time to really focus on her appearance. At least not during a hunt. At least not in this world.
Even in her own, she hadn't had a reason to look pretty in a long time.
Shaking her head at the memory of the last date she went on, she grabbed the clothes she'd worn overnight and walked back into the main room. Both of the brothers were already out, so she quickly stuffed the things into a plastic bag in the duffel bag she carried, and walked out. Sam and Dean were just coming back to the Impala, probably after checking out.
Throwing her duffel bag into the back, she took her own seat behind Dean once again.
"I don't really get it though… How is it that the changing of the legend is changing the monster though? Like… if we start a rumour that demigods are allergic to salt isn't going to give me a salt allergy," Valerie questioned as the boys also got into the Impala, hoping they had an answer for her.
"That's what we're hoping to find out," Dean answered, immediately driving off.
A/N:
So admittedly I thought I posted this a while ago, but all my stories went on a temporary hiatus so that wouldn't have changed much with posting. Anyways here's the next chapter and I hope some of you are still around! Next chapter will definitely finish off this episode!
ArgntumAlphaLupus: Thanks for leaving a comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the story so far and I hope that you liked this too!
EmmaSEWW: I know you have a different name now, but that'll wait for the next chapter I post! Hope you enjoyed this as well, and I don't have a clue. I always thought that math should've been more focussed on day to day life maths that's necessary. I still don't know how to report my taxes, but I know how to figure out the third side of a right angled triangle! Totally useful...
The Best Guest: I think you jinxed me! I think I completely destroyed past update times, bright side, the next chapter will definitely be up before next week!
PrincessMagic: Thank you for returning! *sends virtual cookie* glad that you're enjoying this story and thanks for taking the time to review!
2NE1ANGEL: Thank you very much! The exams did go well, so thank you for wishing me luck! Sorry I took so long to update but I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway!
Suz Singer: Thanks for your review and also the criticisms you had! I'll try to go back and update those at some point and also try to implement some of the things you mentioned!
GhostWriter1864: Thank you very much for your lovely review, I'm so happy that you're enjoying the story!
Guest: Definitely continuing it, I just took forever! I'm sorry about that!