Hunter of the Shadows
Title taken from a line in Metallica's 'The Thing That Should Not Be'
Chapter 12
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Dean's still wallowing in the bath, but the grin on his face is less smug, and more affectionate.
"Man, that kid sure is amazing. He'd taken on so much, and yet he came right on bouncing back. Guess I shouldn't a'been all that surprised though; Sammy's always been a star. And he's proved it time and again. Damn shame he can't prove it to himself..."
He suddenly cocks his head, listening intently, and a faint shuffling noise can just be made over the noise of water sloshing in the tub. Then it stops.
"Hey, Dean?" Sam calls out from the other side of the bathroom door. "You want some cocoa, dude?"
"I'll make some once I've finished my bath!" Dean calls back a little sternly. "Now get back in bed!"
"I'm perfectly capable..." Sam begins, in his own defence.
"Forget it!" Dean barks out. "I catch you putting any weight on that leg, and I WILL kick your ass!"
Sam can be heard shuffling awkwardly away from the door, muttering so softly the camera can't pick it up.
"I heard that!" Obviously, Dean's managed it ok. He glances into the camera with an eye roll and a soft smile. "Damn kid."
Flicking at a few bubbles and grinning when they hit the mirror above the sink, Dean's triumphant hiss of "Bullseye!" disturbs the steamy atmosphere, as he reaches over for a large fluffy towel.
"I'm starting to wrinkle. Excuse me ladies and gentlemen."
For once, he displays some modicum of modesty, and turns the camera around, treating the viewer to a bowl of an exciting variety of coloured soaps, one of which is shaped like a duck, and appears suspiciously well used.
Over the sound of Dean rubbing himself dry with the towel, he continues chatting away.
"Anyhow, Sam had a lot of readjusting to do after his first change..."
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Way back again...
Sam spent the next few weeks mostly in wolf form, just getting used to it. As his recovery from Gordon's sick torture progressed, he grew stronger and shot up a few inches, piling on the pounds as his appetite improved. But it was all muscle. He was still gangly, all legs and fur, but he could put on a turn of speed that even challenged the Impala, and his strength was just as impressive.
Sam admitted to me sometime later, shortly before his sixteenth birthday, that the change had completely freaked him out. But despite that, for the first time in his life, he felt whole. I knew what he meant; we were a proper family, a small pack with Tobius as alpha, Sam the young trainee, and me as bodyguard to them both. Not that Tobius needed a bodyguard, but that's how I proudly saw my role. And he'd even suggested that my place would be as alpha one day. I had no idea what that was all about. Didn't really want to know.
Sam bloomed under the steady influence of a father who cherished and loved him, a brother that unmercifully teased him, ruffled his hair and called him Sammy, and the solid, quiet presence of a grandfather who never allowed him to feel anything other than safe and respected.
I know how weird that sounds, father and brother. But although Sam acknowledged me as his father and sire, we would always be brothers. Sam is my best friend and I'm his, and we wouldn't just switch off nearly sixteen years of brotherhood at the mains. Wouldn't feel right even if we could.
Sam's training was due to begin in the spring, just after a heavy winter that had us holed up at a cabin in the mountains, all the better for Sam to adjust safely to life as a werewolf and to complete his recovery. I wasn't taking any chances, and besides, after all that happened with John and Gordon, I figured we could use the break.
Many a snowball fight took place, with Sam and I laughing loudly, dodging in and out of the conifers like a couple of crazies. But my favourite time would be first thing in the morning when Sam would change, bound outside excitedly and begin rolling over and over in the snow, emitting loud doggy growls of contentment. Then he would just roll onto his back, legs in the air, oversized, furry paws stretching languorously to the sky, not giving a damn about how undignified he looked. Made me laugh every time. He was definitely fully recovered.
In wolf form he was losing that soft downy puppy fur to the harder, tougher coat of adulthood. According to Tobius, his colouring was unusual amongst our kind, made him stand out in a way that strangely embarrassed him. Sam's coat turned the colour of deep burnished gold, like an Irish Setter but darker. Combined with vivid glowing blue-green eyes, held over a long snout and framed by tall spiky ears... the effect was stunning.
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Tobius had taken off for a few weeks, and returned to us just before the big thaw, laden down with groceries and news.
News of Gordon.
We hadn't spoken about Gordon since Sam made his first change, not wanting to worry the kid too soon. Tobius hadn't been around much during the winter, and I assumed he was hunting while I stayed at home and kept an eye on the pup. Sam's recovery was steady and his strength was returning nicely and then some, but I just felt more comfortable keeping him close.
There'd been reports of a stray a couple of states over, snatching babies from their cribs, stealing them away into the night and leaving their bloodied remains in the churchyard. It was pretty gruesome, and Tobius was gone a long time hunting the bastard down, only to find it was all a taunt. The non-lunar was deliberately luring Tobius in for a very specific reason; the dead children being the grisly equivalent of a voice mail message come and get me.
Turned out the stray was under the direct employ of our dear old friend and professional sadist, Gordon. Which kinda surprised me; sick and twisted he might have been, but he was also a hunter, so to be working alongside a particularly murderous werewolf seemed strange, and that was when Tobius dropped the bombshell.
Apparently our initial suspicions about him weren't that far off base.
"He's a what?"
Tobius nodded, and Sam's eyes darted fearfully between the two of us. When Father spoke next he sounded perfectly calm and composed, but I wasn't fooled for a second.
"It seems that he fully turned about a month back." He pinched the bridge of his nose then muttered quietly "that's why he still smelled vaguely human when he kidnapped Sam. It was only his shocking strength and speed that clued me in. He'd been bitten but hadn't fed. I told you at the time I had my suspicions, knew something was different about him. Gordon was half way between human and vampire, the best of both worlds so to speak."
I thought about that for a second, remembering Sam's soft cries of pain as he lay in my arms, the sight of the blood, the smell...
My eyes pinched at the memory.
"I don't remember smelling anything other than silver and Sammy's blood," I reasoned finally. "But then, you're the one who got real up close and personal with the bastard."
"So… uh… what does that mean for us?" Sam sounded worried and he had every right to be.
Tobius raised his head.
"Big trouble. We can't smell him."
That was news to me.
Apparently, werewolves can't smell vamps, something to do with our range of smell, and their scent just sits above it.
But the best news?
Oh yeah, break out the godamn champagne for this one guys:
'Cos they...
... can smell us.
Oh yes.
Although our sense of smell is powerful, they have a much wider range.
That's right!
Ol'Nosferatu was probably out there sharpening his teeth and tying a godamn napkin round his neck, whilst we were sitting in our kitchen, trying to wrap our head round the idea that, as far as Gordon Walker was concerned, werewolves had literally just plummeted to the bottom of the supernatural food chain.
And all because of a long forgotten war.
Just freaking great!
I thumped the kitchen table angrily and abruptly got to my feet.
"Oh that's just perfect. So with our heightened sense of smell, sight, superior strength… we can't even see the bastard coming for us?"
"I don't get it." Sam spoke up, thankfully interrupting my tirade before I could really get started. He had greater confidence these days, felt allowed to express his opinions without interruption, as an equal. "How come this hasn't been a problem up 'til now? I mean, vamps are an ancient race same as us."
"There holds a very uneasy peace between the two," Father explained carefully. "We reached a truce some centuries ago to stop us tearing each other to pieces. Vamps and werewolves aren't exactly friends now, but not exactly enemies either; we just stay out of each other's way. And I'd personally never come across a 'half-breed' before, someone who's neither completely human nor vampire, so it makes sense they still smell human, but have almost the strength and speed of a vamp. And I have to say, it's definitely a new one with me. Usually, the newly bitten feed on human blood as soon as possible, but Gordon obviously had more will power than the rest."
Sam nodded slowly in understanding.
"So, since there hasn't been a battle between the races in years, centuries, not being able to smell their scent has never really been an issue until now. Yeah I get it." He leaned back in his seat looking thoughtful, and I could practically hear that genius brain of his ticking over like a well-oiled machine. "But if Gordon comes after us like he threatened, won't that start a war?"
And I have to say I was impressed.
Sammy didn't sound like Sammy.
He sounded like a Captain, assessing the truth.
Tobius shook his head.
"No. Vamps are pretty much like werewolves; so long as their nest isn't the one being attacked, they don't care. The truce is an unwritten agreement. Small skirmishes will be dealt with solely by the individuals involved, and not by dragging the rest of the population into battle. So any altercation with Gordon will be ignored by other werewolf packs and vampire nests."
In other words, no one would be coming to help us. We were on our own.
But the upside?
Gordon would also be…. ah.
And that's when it hit me that there was no upside. He'd hired one of our kind to help draw us out into the open. I could immediately see why Tobius held non-lunar strays in such contempt; not only were they cold blooded murderers, they were the worst for stabbing their own kind in the back.
"That sounds pretty selfish," Sam murmured sadly, referring back to the truce.
"Not really, Sam. It actually makes a lot of sense." Tobius continued kindly. "A sort of 'you look after your corner of the world, and I'll take care of mine' approach. It also means that no one else has to get hurt."
"I guess." But Sam was still frowning.
Realising his grandson wasn't convinced, Tobius smiled.
"Believe me, it is better this way. You don't want to know about the carnage from before the truce, the number of human losses, because the poor souls were caught in the cross-fire between two very powerful races. I know it's not perfect, but it works."
I was still reeling from the shock.
"Given how much he hates werewolves and anything else supernatural, I'd have thought vamps would be top of his shit list." I shook my head. "I'm just surprised he didn't take his own life once he was bitten."
"He fully intended to once John Winchester's death was avenged, and, of course, he'd used Sam to trap and kill a few more werewolves." Tobius looked distinctly unsettled at that. "But when he couldn't track us," deep green eyes met mine, glowing with fear and anger. "He changed his mind, and went through with his first feed."
Apparently, Gordon had appeared in the churchyard shortly after the body of the last victim had shown up, calmly shot his werewolf companion in the heart with silver, then spent some considerable time obliging Tobius with a lengthy explanation.
The typical arch enemy. A regular Bond villain.
Gordon had been caught up in a vampire nest and only just managed to escape, but not unscathed. He'd taken a set of fangs direct to the jugular and after a devastating struggle for freedom Gordon struck out with his machete and got lucky. Very lucky as it happened. Stumbling around in shock and with massive blood loss, a kind soul had picked him up on the side of the road and taken him for a frantic patch job at the local ER. He'd known what he would become and as soon as he found the strength, Gordon headed off to the nearest bar. Blind drunk and beyond the help of Dutch courage, he'd cried into his whisky shots all night, praying to the God of Alcohol Poisoning to finish him off permanently. And that was the night he met up with an equally drunk John Winchester.
I was starting to see where this was going.
John's death hadn't been too long after that and it gave Gordon Walker a reason to live. As soon as he heard about John's disappearance, Gordon had tracked him to his last known location, the grotty motel where we found Sam, and examined the area. Tobius had done a good job of cleaning the place up but Gordon used his supercharged sense of smell, some considerable powers of deductive reasoning (after all, no one could ever accuse of him of being stupid), put two and two together and came up with the right answer.
After his plan to use Sam's new werewolf status to trap us failed spectacularly, Gordon knew we wouldn't allow him another opportunity to grab Sam, and formulated plan B.
"Whoa, hold on a second," this was a question that had been squatting in the back of mind for some time now, and it needed an answer. "Why did you let him go in the first place?" Was that a hint of anger in my voice? "Back then, when I was carrying Sammy to the car, you had every chance to take him out. Why didn't you? After everything he did to Sam, and you let the bastard walk!"
Oh yeah, that was more than just a hint. Try an avalanche of built up fury, that I hadn't realised was even there.
"My son, your grandson, was nearly killed by that fucker!" It was only Sam's small flinch that kept me from losing my cool completely. "So tell me, Tobius! Why did ya let him go?"
Tobius shrugged sadly, and shook his head.
"I honestly thought he would give me the correct release spell for Sam's collar. It wasn't until I got back to you both that I started to wonder about it. But I'd promised Gordon he could go free, and I always keep my word." He glanced at me apologetically, but something burned deep in his eyes. Something important. "It's a matter of honour. But rest assured I won't be making that mistake with him again."
I know what you're thinking: that's a pretty lame excuse.
But trust me it ain't.
Honour is sacred amongst our kind. It's a code we live, breathe, and regretfully, in some cases, die for. And in an eight hundred year old werewolf, it's really gonna carry some weight.
So I understood. Seriously I did.
As much as it pissed me off, that noble gentlemen thing Father had going, ya couldn't help but respect a guy with such old fashioned values.
It's a part of us.
And, whether or not you like to admit it, it's also a part of you.
And remember guys, in the end, it was Gordon who'd gone back on his word.
"What happened at the graveyard?" Sam's sympathetic voice cut through my musings, neatly changing the subject.
Gordon's plan B also failed.
After our last run in with Gordon we'd gone into hiding so quickly he hadn't been able to track us. Even after taking his first feed and becoming a full vampire, purely to improve his senses and strength for the hunt of a lifetime, there was still no sign of us. We'd taken up residence in the mountains shortly before the winter blizzard set in, covering our tracks. He knew there was only one way to smoke us out.
Gordon had expected to see all three of us on the stray hunt. He rightly surmised that Sam could easily have undergone his first change, especially as so much time had passed since he abducted the kid. So with no young werewolf to keep alive as bate, Gordon had intended this to be his last hunt.
The master plan was to cause confusion and disruption, enough to separate us. Then he could take us down, one by one. As plans went, it was simple, effective, and there's an outside chance it might have worked.
Three werewolves with one stone, as it were. Kinda like an exclusive 'all you can eat' buffet, complete with silver service.
So I can only imagine the frustration and anger the vamp must have felt, when only one werewolf showed up for dinner. Needless to say, I wasn't sympathetic.
"We had a bit of a scuffle," Tobius continued with his usual understatement, and even Sam rolled his eyes. "He slashed me with a silver blade, and I was forced to retreat before things got ugly."
I could tell from the sympathetic look he gave Sam it was the silver blade.
"I holed up at the hotel to recover before heading back to you boys. Figured that way, I could keep him off your scent for a little while longer." Tobius got to his feet and squeezed my shoulder. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner, but I had to pick up a few more items along the way."
I looked at him curiously. "Like what exactly?"
Tobius reached over to the backpack sitting on the floor by his chair, pulled out a plastic zip bag full of some dried leaves and threw it on the table.
"Burning this will help cover our scent; Gordon won't be able to track us."
"No one would want to track us!" Sam had picked up the bag and taken a good sniff, nose scrunching up in distaste. "This stuff stinks!"
Leaning over him and taking a more careful sniff I had to agree.
"Oh man that's gross!"
Tobius grinned.
"Well, as you kids would say, suck it up, 'cos I'm also going to extract the oil from fresh samples and wash our clothes in it."
Sam and I exchanged a horrified glance.
"Good job I don't go to school anymore," Sam remarked with a soft sigh.
My concerns were a little more serious.
"I am never having sex again!" I whispered fearfully.
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After further light discussion and some lazing about, we changed and headed out for a moonlight hunt. We needed to take our minds off the Gordon Sicko Walker situation before it drove us insane.
That's our way. Give us some time out, and we'll come back later to think it through properly.
Besides, there was kind of a plus: we knew for certain our vamp's objectives were a little less complicated now. Instead of killing Tobius and me, then keeping Sam prisoner until Gordon bit his own tongue one too many times (Oh c'mon! That has to happen. I mean, all those teeth!), he now wanted all three of us dead.
Yeah. That was definitely a plus. If you squint hard enough, stand on your head, and maybe put on some rose tinted glasses. You'll see what I'm sayin'.
There was a herd of deer a few miles off and Tobius was hankering for some fresh venison. Sam always came with us, loving the freedom and the sense of contentment that only came from running with the pack. But he never took part in the kill.
Don't get me wrong, he was damn good at the tracking, stalking, the final attack, but he shied away from the rest. Sam's soft heart never allowed him to take that final step, and when Tobius called him on it, I wondered if sparks were about to fly.
Sam flattened his ears and ducked his head submissively when his grandfather stood in front of him, quietly demanding an explanation.
I just can't. I'm sorry, but when our cooler and cupboards are stocked with perfectly good food, I can't just kill an innocent animal. Soft eyes glowed brightly in the moonlight as he pawed nervously at the ground. I know that's stupid. I'm a werewolf; we're not supposed to feel things like that.
No child. Tobius was full of surprises. You're wrong. If that's the way you feel then I admire you for standing up and sticking to your guns. That takes guts. And it's what sets us apart from the strays.
Sam nearly stumbled back over his own tail in shock. But… but…
He was obviously still conditioned to the John Winchester way of life.
Tobius nudged him with his snout, briefly licking Sam's right ear. Only one thing that worries me Sam. If you had to… if you had no other choice… could you?
I watched my boy think that through carefully. Dean's life might one day depend on me. If he was injured and couldn't fend for himself… If I had no choice, then yes.
I stayed silent; a quiet observer of the exchange between pup and grandpa, but my heart was soaring higher than the moon that night.
That gives you some idea of how Tobius dealt with Sam pretty much most of the time. He was the complete opposite to John, patient, kind and always listened carefully to Sam's side of things. He never got between us, which was why we hardly ever argued as a family, at least not in that shouting, yelling and storming off kind of way. We had heated debates and discussions, and almost always managed to reach some kind of compromise.
But don't let that mislead you. Yeah, Sammy's a great kid and all but he's no angel, and several times I had to discipline the boy:
Dean do I really have to clean the floor…?
Hey, quit bitchin'! Just get on with it, and may be next time you'll remember to wipe off your paws before leaving muddy prints all over the damn place!
Yeah, but dude! With my tongue? Ewww!
I've seen you cheerfully roll in deer crap, so don't give me that!
Yeah, that was a bit cruel, but hey! Gave me some amusement, and he never did it again.
But...
"Sammy?" I bellowed out from the bedroom. "Where the hell's my walkman?"
"Uh…"
"If you've been playing George Michael again…" I growled furiously.
"Uh… sorry Dean. It… kinda… broke?"
The pup ran like hell when he saw me coming, and wisely disappeared for several hours.
I was lounging by the fire, almost asleep, when a wet nose pressed hesitantly against my ear, snuffling softly. Not saying a word, and without opening my eyes, I just put out my arm and instantly a warm, furry body was wriggling underneath and curling up against me.
Sorry 'bout your walkman Dean. It was an accident. I'll get you a new one I promise.
Just go to sleep Sammy. But I couldn't stop grinning.
That became the standard Sammy Apology whenever he got in trouble. And I forgave him every time.
Wouldn't you?
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Author's notes:
Sorry this is a little later than expected, but my laptop's been playing up. Might need to take it in for repair. Bloody updates!
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and that Werewolf Sammy continues to satisfy!
Special thanks, and lots of Puppy Sam snuggles goes out to Jen Burch; she kept me going when I was about ready to blow a fuse. This was a particularly difficult chapter, and along with the helpful input from Phx and Sendinthclowns, its been around the world more times than Richard Branson.
Cheers again everyone.
Kind regards,
ST xxx