CHAPTER 2: BAD MOON RISING.
A few months pass and Jean is now sitting at a small table in a café in Montage, Alabama. She takes a sip of her coffee and clicks on yet another website on her laptop. A news article from Ohio pops up and she quickly reads through it.
'Mmm. Four people were attacked by a supposed animal in the past two days. It could be a werewolf, maybe even two. Looks like I'm going Big Bad Wolf hunting in Mora, Ohio.'
She closes her laptop and focuses fully on the cheeseburger and coffee before her. She finishes both and places some money on the table. She gathers up her belongings and leaves the café.
She climbs into her Mustang and starts the car. 'Born to be Wild' by Stepphenwolf plays through the car's speakers and Jean subconsciously revs the engine. "All right!"
It's three in the morning of the next day, when Jean finally pulls into the parking lot of a cheap motel just outside of Mora. She pays for a room, takes the key, and takes what she needs from the trunk of her car. Once inside the room, she pulls her leather coat off and lets it drop to the floor. She then kicks off her combat boots and collapses on the bed. After having driven almost sixteen hours straight, she is exhausted and almost immediately falls asleep.
A loud ringing wakes Jean from her deep sleep and she reaches blindly for her phone on the bedside table. She picks it up, flips it open, and turns off the alarm that was set to go off at noon. She also notices that she has one new voicemail, but decides it can wait until later.
She yawns while rolling off the bed. A loud thud is heard followed closely by an "Ow!" Jean picks herself up off of the floor and makes her way to her leather coat. She picks it up and reaches inside the pocket. She pulls out a butterscotch hard candy before tossing the coat on the bed. She pops the piece of candy into her mouth before heading to the bathroom to shower.
After she gets out of the shower, she puts on her FBI getup which consists of: black slacks, a white button down shirt, and a black blazer. She then grabs her fake FBI credentials and leaves the motel room.
After talking to the victims' families, friends, and neighbors, Jean returns several hours later with a bag of groceries and a bottle of whiskey. She puts the food and the liquor away before changing out of her FBI outfit and into her regular hunting clothes.
It's just as she expected, the family members of each victim said the same thing: that the victim was practically a saint and didn't have any enemies. It wasn't until she spoke with the victims' friends and neighbors that she learned the truth. As it turns out, all of the victims had gotten into a heated argument with either Mr. or Mrs. Winston. She also discovered that earlier today a Thomas Sinclair got into an argument with John Winston.
Now that she has an idea of who the potential werewolf and next victim are she can begin to make a plan. First, she plans on sticking very close to Thomas Sinclair and if she's right about John Winston being a werewolf he should go after Sinclair. Next she needs to find out if Jane Winston is a werewolf as well which means Jean is going to have to track her down.
Jean pulls a duffel bag out from underneath the motel bed and sits it on top of the mattress. She unzips it and pulls out an empty .45 clip along with an ammo box full of silver bullets. She sits on the bed and begins to load bullets into the clip. Once she's done with her task, she takes the .45 from the small of her back where she keeps it safely tucked into the waistband of her jeans at all times. She removes the clip filled with regular bullets and replaces it with the clip of silver bullets. She then pulls out a silver knife from the duffel bag and attaches the sheath to her belt.
She looks at the clock and notices it's now nine at night. She grabs her coat, pulls it on over her green and black flannel, and takes out a Dum-Dum lollipop. She places the candy in her mouth then leaves the motel room yet again. She climbs into her Mustang and drives to Thomas Sinclair's residence. She parks across the street from his house and settles in to wait. The moon is bright and full which helps illuminate the well manicured lawns.
It is almost one in the morning when Jean finally spots a dark shadow stalking toward Sinclair's house. The shadow breaks one of the downstairs windows and slinks inside the house. Jean opens her car door then proceeds across the street and to the shattered remains of the window. Suddenly, her phone vibrates in her pocket, but she ignores it and climbs carefully through the window. She's about halfway up the stairs when a man screams and a feral growl sounds out. Jean runs up the rest of the stairs and into the master bedroom. She flips on the bedroom lights as she shouts, "Hey!" The werewolf Winston looks up and snarls before Jean shoots him twice in the heart. Winston falls backwards off of Sinclair as he drops dead. Jean walks over to Sinclair to check on him. "Are you okay? He didn't bite you, did he?"
Sinclair is thoroughly frightened, "N...no. No. Just scratches...Hey!" He calls out to her in alarm as she's starting to leave, "Where are you going?"
She stops and turns back to the terrified man, "Yeah, when you call this in to the police, you might want to leave out the whole fangs, claws, and eyes thing. He, uh, broke into your house and you shot him in self-defense." She reaches over and wipes down the light switch, "Also, I was never here, okie dokie?"
Not waiting for his response, she leaves the bedroom and makes her way to the front door. She uses the long sleeves of her green and black flannel shirt to unlock the door and open it.
She quickly makes her way to her car and drives away. She makes her way across town to the Winston house and parks the car across the street. For a few minutes, Jean just sits and watches the dark house until movement in an upstairs window catches her attention. She climbs out of her car and runs up to the Winston's front door. She takes out her lock-picking kit and unlocks the door.
Jean draws her pistol and makes her way through the house then up the stairs being as silent as possible. She stalks to the master bedroom where she can hear faint growls and snarls. She kicks the bedroom door open and when Jane Winston turns, snarling and fangs bared, Jean shoots her twice in the heart.
With the female werewolf dead, Jean allows herself to relax a little. She walks over to the body of Jane Winston. "Well, you're as dead as my love life. The only difference is my love life has a slight chance of reviving."
She turns to leave and that's when something pounces on her, knocking her off of her feet and sending her gun flying across the room. A little girl of about eight years of age climbs on top of Jean and, with extraordinary strength, pins her down to the floor. The little werewolf girl bares her fangs and Jean states, "You have got to be kidding me!"
Jean reaches down for the silver knife at her waist, but hesitates to draw it; after all this is an eight year old girl, werewolf or not.
'I can't...I just can't do it.'
As the little werewolf girl lowers her head to rip Jean's throat out, a sudden rush of anger flows into the older woman and her eyes glow crimson orange. In one swift motion Jean draws the silver knife and plunges it into the werewolf girl's chest. As the knife pierces the girl's heart, she lets out a horrible howl of pain. The girl goes limp and Jean rolls the body off of herself and pulls her knife out of the body. Jean looks down at the poor girl's body with a distressed look on her face and speaks out loud, "Yeah. I'm going to be having nightmares about this for months." She quickly picks up her gun and leaves the house.
Jean drives back to her motel and once she enters the room, she removes her coat and throws it over one of the kitchen chairs. Then she immediately heads over to the refrigerator and pulls out the bottle of whiskey. She pours herself a generous portion of the liquor and drinks it in one go. She shudders as the alcohol makes it's way down her throat and to her stomach. She pours another tall glass of the booze before taking it and flopping down on the bed.
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone to check it for the first time today. She calls her voicemail and listens as the machine tells her she has two unheard messages; both of which are from Sam. As she listens to the first message she can hear the fear and sorrow in her younger brother's voice. "Hey Jean. It's Sam. Listen...Dean and I were hunting a raw head here in Catseye, Iowa and something went wrong. Dean...he...he ended up accidentally electrocuting himself." Sam's voice breaks and he has to take a minute or two to gather himself. "The doctors said that it caused a massive heart attack and Dean's heart is severely damaged. That the...the only thing they can do is try to keep him comfortable. They...gave him a couple of weeks, maybe a month, Jean. I'm going to do whatever it takes to save Dean."
Jean sits there in stunned silence for a couple of minutes, letting the second message play but not hearing it. She finally gulps down the whiskey in her hand. She stands up and pours herself more whiskey. She downs two more glasses full of the alcohol before stumbling back to the bed to replay the second message. "Hi, Jean. I'm calling to let you know that I'm taking Dean to see a faith healer in Nebraska. According to dad's friend, Joshua, he's the real deal. Uh, I hope you're okay. You've always called me back before. Well, call me back as soon as possible."
She starts to dial Sam's number but exhaustion and the alcohol have other plans for her and she passes out instead.
It is six o'clock in the evening before Jean wakes up again. She rushes to the bathroom to throw up. Luckily, she didn't eat anything last night so it's mostly dry heaving. After she's done, she finds her phone and dials Sam's number.
After the second ring, Sam picks up, "Jean! I was beginning to worry."
"How's Dean, Sam?"
"He's fine now. We went to the doctor after Roy Le Grange healed him and she said there's no indication that there was anything ever wrong with Dean's heart."
Jean sits down on the bed and lets out a sigh of relief. "Sam, is Dean there with you?"
"Yes."
"Okay, put me on speaker, would ya Sammy?"
"Um, okay...hold on." There's a loud thump and some shuffling noises before Sam says, "There. You're on speaker, sis."
Jean clears her throat, "Hey, Dean."
There is a heavy silence on the other end of the phone, which is broken by a tense "Hey," from Dean.
"Okay, my first question is: was there anybody nearby who died at the same time that Dean was healed?"
A tense silence falls over the other end of the line before Sam replies, "Yeah. A Marshall Hall died at 4:17 of heart failure."
Jean takes a deep breath through her nose, "Dean...when you were being healed did you see something? Maybe an old man in a tailored black suit?"
"Yeah...Jean, do you know what we're dealing with?"
"Shit. Yes, you guys are dealing with a reaper under the control of a binding spell."
"What makes you think that? Have you gone up against a reaper before?" Sam asks.
"How do we stop it?" Dean questions.
" First, a reaper is the only creature I've ever heard of that has the power to take the life of one person and give it to another. The only reason a reaper will do so is because it has been trapped by black magic and forced to do so. Second, no. I haven't fought a reaper before, but after six years of reading through Bobby's books I know quite a bit about them. Third, some legends say one can kill a reaper using its own scythe, but let's not try that anytime soon, shall we? So let's go with breaking the binding spell. Find out who's controlling the reaper and destroy the altar and the Coptic cross. Then get the hell out of the way cause that reaper is going to be pissed...not Incredible Hulk pissed but close."
Dean laughs and Sam lets out a small chuckle, "Thanks, Jean."
"No problem-o, little bro."
Dean's next question takes Jean by surprise, "So how have you been, Jeanie? Why didn't you call Sammy back sooner? Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm not hurt...at least not physically. Let's just say; it's really hard to determine which of us is having the worst week. You: who got zapped by a Pikachu gun. Or me: who had to kill a pack of werewolves...including their freshly turned eight year old daughter."
She hears Sam take a sharp intake of breath and Dean sighs before replying, "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Jeanie."
"Needless to say that afterwards I came back to my motel room and went on a bender. Speaking of last night though...I need to get the hell out of Dodge. Call me if you guys need anything. And Dean? I'm really glad you're alive. And no more trying to play Ash Ketchum, okay?"
As she's flipping her phone shut, she hears Dean say "Hey, that could be our new family motto...Gotta kill 'em all."
Jean chuckles then swiftly gathers her scattered belongings before hightailing it out of the motel. She tosses her bags into the trunk of her Mustang then gets into the driver's seat. The engine purrs to life and Jean speeds away from Mora, Ohio.
