Hunter of The Shadows
Chapter 19
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"I never really thanked you for dropping it." Sam muttered tiredly.
The boys are back seated in fronted of the living room fire place, drinking in the warmth and light.
Dean considers his answer carefully.
"Yeah... well... never really sat right with me, trying to force you into it. I learned quickly that kind of pressure never works with you." He pauses then continues with just as much care as before. "You have any regrets about that dude? Apart from the obvious."
Though the boys share a sad, meaningful glance, Sam's holds considerably more heartache.
He glances away from Dean and stares into the fire.
"No, not really." Sam answers softly. "'Cos I got my family back."
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Here we go again...
"Say cheese guys!" Sam stepped back, trying to fit us all in the frame. The flash of the digital camera blinded everyone in the room, wolf and bear alike.
The tiny baby nestled in Josie's arms started squealing in protest, and a proud Gerald, sitting next to the bed, cooed softly, gently rubbing his thumb over a delicate pink cheek. His daughter squinted up at him, soft brown eyes taking in the broad smile on Gerald's face.
Tobius looked almost as exhausted as the werebears, but he was grinning from ear to ear regardless. He'd been up since the early hours when a petrified Gerald had called him, declaring his wife had gone into labour, and could he please, please, please come help!
Poor Gerald was often prone to panic until reason caught up with him, though in this case I could honestly say I didn't blame him. I remembered all too well how I'd felt just after turning Sam, his healing injuries causing him no end of pain.
I don't know why I was so surprised that Tobius knew what he was doing. He was calm, competent and so gentle with Josie and her soon-to-be-newborn, that Gerald was happy to just follow his instructions.
Sam and I helped as much as we could, providing clean towels, hot water, keeping everything clean, but the rest was up Momma and Poppa bear, and their personal midwife. The two of us were kindly, but firmly kicked out of the room when Josie's contractions became more painful and closer together. Sammy and I paced up and down, getting more agitated and worried with every blood curdling scream that echoed round the little cabin.
"AAAGGGGGHHHHHHHYYYYEEEEOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!"
Sam winced, and glanced at the closed door when poor Josie began sobbing heavily.
"Hey Dean?" he whispered nervously.
"Yeah!"
It sounded like Josie was taking a long, deep breath, getting ready for another earth shattering scream.
"REALLY glad I ain't a girl dude!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
I considered that for a long moment.
"Who says you ain't?"
"Geralddontyouevertouchmeagainyoubaaastaaaarrrrd!!!!"
"Ha! You're a real funny guy!" Sam snorted indignantly.
Some twenty hours later – jeeze! - baby girl Janaya-Maria made her way into the world.
I'm not sure how it happened, but somewhere along the way, the werebear family became important to us, slotting in with ease, and burrowing into our hearts. But the new addition to their household solidified the bond between our two families.
Sam was mesmerised by the tiny girl, and couldn't seem to tear his gaze away. His eyes were wide and filled with delight when the child gurgled happily, and blew bubbles from her rose-bud lips.
"Would you like to hold her Sam?" Josie enquired with a small smile, and I tried to stifle my laughter when the boy blushed with embarrassment, already shaking his head. "Oh come on! Janaya-Maria would love a cuddle with her Uncle Sam."
"I… I'm… uh… afraid I might drop her…" but the kid didn't get much of a choice when Gerald lifted the baby from his wife's arms, and placed her in Sam's.
He looked absolutely terrified for a few seconds, until he relaxed, obviously realising the child wasn't going to bite him. In fact, he was a natural, rocking the baby gently and humming softly when she began fussing.
"Guess we found ourselves a baby sitter for Friday nights!" Gerald grinned mischievously, and kissed the top of his wife's head. "We can hit the town babe, candlelit dinner, soft music, maybe some dancing."
Josie rolled her eyes in amusement.
"I'm sure Sam has better things to be doing at his young age, especially on Friday nights."
Sam glanced up at that, and smiled sweetly. "No. I don't mind looking after her when you guys need a break."
"I'll think about it." Josie grinned back. "But right now I can't bear to be apart from her for too long…" she made an anxious grabbing action with her hands, reaching out to her daughter, and Sam chuckled as he handed the baby over to her mother.
"Aw Sammy," I patted his shoulder. "You'll make an excellent mom one day."
He scowled at me for a second, before a sly grin slowly emerged.
"So if I'm Uncle Sam," he reasoned, and I just knew where the little shit was heading with this, "that must make you Great Uncle Dean, huh? How's that feel old man?!"
"Shuddup Sam!" I glared back at him.
Amongst the sniggering, Tobius, of course, was the one to take charge.
"I think it's time to let mother and child get some rest," he glanced at Gerald with a raised eyebrow. "You too, my friend. Sleep whilst you can."
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We didn't stay too much longer; just long enough for Josie to recover. The small family needed time to adjust to their new circumstances, without us hanging around twenty-four-seven.
And besides, Tobius had caught wind of a lunar-dependent in Palo Alto, California. This was to be Sammy's first encounter with such a beast, the classic movie-style werewolf that changed on the appearance of the full moon.
As I've mentioned before, these poor people are essentially innocent, and have no recollection of their actions whilst in wolf form. Nevertheless, we had to put them down.
Several wild dog attacks had been reported on Stanford University campus in the last few months, and the pattern followed the lunar cycle. Four students were found ripped to pieces, hearts torn out, and one attack had been so vicious, the victim's head was bitten clean off.
Sam volunteered to pose as a would-be student on a visit to the campus. It gave him the perfect opportunity to question students and professors alike, and I just went along as the protective 'older brother', making sure the campus was safe enough for my 'little brother'.
Tobius, posing as a journalist, continued his own line of investigations, checking out the morgue and talking to the cops.
Wandering around the campus was certainly an experience. You could almost taste the eau de geek in the air, with students pushing passed us, presumably on their way to class, and I almost roared with laughter when I spotted a walking, talking cliché.
Bow tie, neatly clipped beard, twinkling jovial eyes, and brightly coloured waistcoat wrapped round a girth wide enough to shame Santa Clause.
I peered sideways at the guy as he strode on by.
Yes! I knew it! Tweed jacket? Just had to have elbow patches. Bet he sounds like Brian Blessed; deep booming voice and all.
He was the very image of the kindly, absentminded, loud and flamboyant professor.
See that Sammy? That's one myth I don't mind seeing come to life!
But when he didn't answer, I glanced over at him.
His eyes were wide and darting round, taking in every sight and every person. There was a small, eager kind of half-smile on his face, and I could see he was itching to be a part of it all.
Taking a mental step back, it was obvious to me the kid belonged here, if only for a little while.
Sam could thrive in this environment.
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Reports state the first victim was found in an alley out back of the student bar. Sam pointed to our left. Daniel Crogan, straight A Philosophy student. He shook his head. What a waste.
Let's go check it out. I nodded, and gently pushed my way in front of the kid, deliberately ignoring his eye roll.
Sure, he was all grown up and a more than competent hunter, but that wouldn't stop me employing every trick in the book to keep him safe.
Even now.
The entrance to the alley was dark even in daylight, the red brickwork giving way to dim shapes and shadows, and the occasional scuffling indicated the frantic escape of small furry vermin, as they sensed our presence and panicked.
Yeah, they know a werewolf when they smell us.
Students, however, scurried on by, completely oblivious, chatting amiably, or in some cases, loudly, voices harried and stressed.
"Dude, can I borrow your notes? I totally fell asleep during that lecture..."
"You catch the game last night? Awesome..."
"I think Michael totally has the hots for me... you shoulda seen his face when I walked by him..."
"Carrie's such a little slut! Did you see her flirt with the professor? She's so trying to improve her grades!"
"She'll have to work harder than that! Dude's gayer than a picnic basket..."
Sam leaned casually against the exterior wall, hands tucked in jean pockets, one knee bent, foot pressed flat to the bricks, listening in on the buzzing conversations.
No one seemed all that worried about the important things. Ya know. Like some big hairy wolf running round ripping people's hearts out.
Higher education, huh?
I tilted my face to the sun and squinted, chuckling softly.
For all the world, we just looked like two guys passing the time of day, waiting for the bar to open. But on the inside, we were assessing, tracking, analysing.
There's a lot of blood, Dean, Sam glanced around, this one really went to town.
Uhuh. My nostrils flared. Smell that?
The kid paused to consider. Aftershave. He tilted his head the other way. Best guess? Old Spice. Should be easier to track.
Yep, I couldn't help grinning with pride.
Sam snuffled a little when he picked up on something else.
Cigarette smoke. Maybe the victim snuck out for a nicotine fix right before he was killed.
As I once pointed out, different species of werewolves have a unique scent. So do individual werewolves. Just as cell phone companies can track a digital signature, we can use a werewolf's scent in the same way. But lunar dependents are essentially just ordinary humans with some bad mojo on the side, an old demon wolf curse, and have no knowledge of their extra-curricular activities. The scent of a lunar dependent is still basically human, but earthy, and tinged with sulphur.
I'll take point. Stay close.
Once the flock of students moved on, I slid sideways into the shadows.
Sam nodded, took one final glance around, then followed suit.
Kegs, empty bottles and tattered yellow crime scene tape littered the alley, and the smell of stale beer and damp barely hid the pungent scent of blood. The cops had done a good job cleaning up the murder scene, but there's little you can hide from a werewolf.
It just felt weird, the gloom clinging to us like a second skin, the silence heavy and oppressive, separating us from the world outside the alley.
Sam crouched down, eyes narrowed and glowing eerily in the darkness. One hand ghosted over a tiny dark stain on the bar room wall, the other rested on his knee for balance.
Guess the cops missed it. But this ain't the victims blood. Sam's nostrils flared. It's the werewolf's.
Looks like the kid put up a fight, I replied, feeling a flutter of sadness.
A brilliant mind, full of potential, lost forever.
Sam was right.
It was a waste, a crying shame in fact. Pushing away raw emotion in favour of the hunt, my eyes swept the dark alley, searching for something, anything out of the ordinary.
A dull gleam from a nearby drain caught my attention, and, as I drew closer, I realised what it was.
Hey, Sammy. Come look at this.
Sam moved with silent grace to stand beside me, and peered down.
"Huh. Looks like a gold cufflink." His voice echoed strangely in the closeness of the alley. Sam bent down, wrenched off the grate, and pulled the piece of metal free of muck and grime, then held it to his nose for a long moment, eyes closed in concentration
This was something he excelled at, and often put me to shame.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, intently scanning the darkness ahead, and a low, involuntary shiver raced down my spine, when he whispered.
"There was someone else here."
One advantage we have over vamps, is our ability to use our combined senses to create a kind of reconstruction, or recording of events, seeing what was once there, provided they took place fairly recently. Piece by piece, smell by smell, it all starts to fit together like a badly made jigsaw puzzle. It's not perfect, and I certainly wouldn't describe the result as clear footage. It's mostly blurry shapes and shadows, but it gives a basic idea.
The aftershave wasn't from the werewolf or the victim. Sam wrinkled his nose and stared straight ahead.
I followed his gaze and nodded in agreement.
It was fuzzy, but definitely there.
A dark shape, partially in shadow, had stood by and watched the carnage. Around six feet tall, leaning against the wall by a water pipe.
Smoking a cigarette.
We knew what we were dealing with all right.
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Man, this is getting gruesome, Dean. Sam dug his hands deep into his jean pockets as we left the campus storeroom. That was the fourth crime scene and I don't feel any easier about this.
He was right.
I didn't either. We had only one more chance. Tonight was the last night of full moon, then we'd be screwed for another month.
Hey kiddo. It's not all bad ya know? I bumped my shoulder with his, trying to bring out a smile, but the kid was worried as hell. And I couldn't blame him.
Once we knew what we were looking for, it wasn't hard to spot the similarities between the murder scenes.
The scent of Old Spice, cigarette smoke, and the strange observer, hidden nearby.
So who was our tall, mysterious, cigarette smoking, cufflink wearing, shadow? And talk about voyeuristic. It had to be some kind of sicko that took pleasure in watching defenceless kids ripped to pieces by a monster.
But the clue was in the aftershave, the smoke and the cufflink.
All those scents, when combined, made for an effective shield, to hide the guy's true scent. But it was the cufflink that really gave the game away. As Sammy discovered, the jewellery held nothing except its' own intrinsic metallic smell.
So, in fact, Old Spice and smoke covered the lack of a scent.
And that clinched it.
We were dealing with a vampire.
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By the time we gleaned all we could from student gossip and rumours, the day was almost over.
And that small selfish part of me?
Well.
Let's just say I got the impression it was sulking. Sam's body language told me he was slowly changing his mind about college, but I didn't think he even knew it.
Or maybe I was wrong.
The conversation began with Sam huffing out a breath the minute the motel room door swung shut, followed by:
"Dude, I need to talk to you."
I turned to face him, noting the sorrow on his face, and the tense way he held himself.
"Ok."
Not wanting to get my hopes up, I kept my face neutral and sat down on one of the beds. "What's up, buddy?"
His fingers fiddled nervously with the zipper on his hoodie, and he bit his bottom lip red raw, before slowly lowering himself to the other bed.
"Uh... what did you think of the place?" Sam blushed with embarrassment, then stuttered onwards. "I-I mean, uh, the campus..."
As he stared at me helplessly, I realised he was waiting for me to let him off the hook. But I couldn't oblige him. This time, Sam needed to tell me what he wanted.
"Yeah, cool place." I nodded, pretending complete ignorance, and I could feel his frustration mounting. "For Geeksville, that is." I added with a wry grin that made Sam roll his eyes. But at least the atmosphere had brightened a little.
More lip biting.
Sam ducked his head.
"C'mon kid," I told him softly. "Out with it."
"I..." He gulped a little, then raised worried eyes to meet mine. "I w-was wondering wh-what you thought of me coming here to study law?"
Colour me stupid, but I really didn't understand what he was so afraid of. Perhaps he thought I might have changed my mind. Fact was, the idea of being apart from Sam, for any length of time, scared the living crap out of me, and yeah, I'd miss him like hell.
But this was Sam's future.
The future he once so desperately wanted, and, if the look on his face when we explored Stanford was anything to go by, he still did. I understood he was torn, but I couldn't not let him go.
Loved him too damn much for that.
So I did the only thing I could.
Leaning forward, and brushing soft strands of hair out of the kid's eyes, I grinned.
"I think you're gonna look great in one of those tweed jackets geekboy."
Sam chuckled and shook his head, looking relieved.
"Tweed? Really don't think so Dean."
"Why not? Uh c'mon Sammy." I waggled my eyebrows and nodded at the image conjured up in my head. "It's a great disguise. Sam Winchester, Law Student Extraordinaire by day. Werewolf Hero by night. Oh man! Just think of all those chicks, just itching to scratch behind your ears after you save 'em from the big nasties tonight!"
Sam was giving me a pitying look, one that was becoming all too common these days.
"Even if they accept me, I won't be starting 'til the next intake, Dean," Sam's mouth twitched in amusement. "So the chances are, anyone I save tonight would've advanced a year, or graduated by then. And in any case, we work as a team, right?"
I punched his arm lightly.
'Course. But I'll let you take all the credit for this one." Another waggle of the eyebrows. "My boy's gotta get that cherry popped someday, might as well be here!"
My grin widened when he blushed furiously.
"Dean! Really not comfortable talking about... that!"
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So, Tobius leaned against the wall by his bed, one ear listening at the door just in case. We're all agreed then? Vampire?
Or, more to the point, a vampire-werewolf tag team.
Sam shook his head, looking more than a little confused. You're saying that a vampire somehow tamed a lunar dependent, just to use it as a hunting dog?
It's been known. Tobius answered, ominously.
We were back in the motel room, not far from the campus gates. The very moment the motel room door slammed shut behind Sire, the family pow wow began, with Tobius accounting for his day at the morgue and conversations with the local police. He pretty much confirmed everything we'd figured out, and that wasn't a comforting thought.
The victims injuries displayed the usual werewolf kill tactic, Sire explained, then raised an eyebrow for effect. Except for one thing.
He held out the palm of his hand, and dropped something onto Sam's bed.
That was left behind in the third victim's body. Tobius watched as his grandson picked up the vampire tooth, and held it up. Seems our friend was sloppy more than once this cycle.
He nodded towards the cufflink, yellow gold winking at us in the dim light cast from the nightstand.
I'm assuming this vamp employed some kind of powerful, temporary charm to gain control during full moon. Sam pondered.
And it made a kind of sense.
The werewolf made the kill, and the vampire reaped the benefits without getting caught by human hunters. It also kept him off Lenore's radar; the passive nests would never know, their nostrils over powered by the scent of werewolf.
That raised a worrying point.
Why was he getting sloppy?
It seemed almost deliberate; surely losing a cufflink at the scene of a crime would cause a panic. Why wouldn't he go back and retrieve it?
Unless it was left for a reason.
An invitation, perhaps.
This had Gordon Walker stamped all over it.
I shook my head at that. It just didn't feel right.
For a start, Gordon wasn't a smoker, and he didn't strike me as the type to start just because he was immortal, even to cover his tracks. And in any case, if he'd escaped his prison down in Florida, Lenore would have been in contact by now to warn us.
This guy wanted to get caught.
I realised Tobius and Sam were watching me closely.
I got nothing guys. I shrugged, and grinned. Maybe that's all it is; a sloppy vamp, who's gotten too lazy to hunt for his own food.
Sam and Tobius both snorted, and I just felt relieved to lighten things up. It was getting way too intense for my liking.
This whole hunt was feeling too far off base somehow, and I got the distinct impression even Tobius was finding this all a little spooky.
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Author's notes:
(The idea of werewolves being able to 'reconstruct' events using their combined senses was loosely borrowed from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Anyone want to hazzard a guess which book?)
So a new hunt, a new challenge... and the start of trouble for Sam.
Let the creepies commence!
Cheers guys.
Kind regards,
ST xxx