A.N: This is a long one, I didn't want to leave it hanging, and I plan on Dean being in the next chapter -Jane misses him. If you're familiar with the legend of the Baykaak, forgive the changes I tossed in there. Not canon compliant and I own nothing but Jane.
When the Baykok Comes Calling
"I thought bears hibernated in the winter?"
"I thought we weren't far enough out for them."
Jane swallowed, really wishing that Smokey here would go back to bed because he looked cranky, and she might've peed herself. She was too cold and wet already to tell. "Sam…" She whispered, reaching back until she felt the gun being pressed into her hand. Running would be smart, but there was just no way were they going to be able to haul ass in this snow, it was too deep. Not to mention everything underneath the stuff, like logs and crap. "Think shooting will piss it off?"
"Probably…."
"Then why'd you give me the gun?" She hissed, slowly backing away, feeling him reaching out to steady her.
"Just in case."
Dean was going to kill him. Sam took a deep calming breath, willing his hands to stop shaking before reaching out to cut away Jane's coat. She was lying face down on the bed, out cold, and that was literal in every which way, which was probably for the most. He had a feeling pain was going to wake her up.
"Dean is really going to kill me." He muttered, once the coat was somewhat off of her, followed by her layers. Even before he had gotten to bare skin, the evidence of what had happened to her made him swallow hard. Blood, obviously, and the tatters of her shirts… she had been mauled, and he had been praying it wouldn't be bad.
He had all the necessary supplies right by him, and he took his time in cleaning her off, careful to avoid agitating anything just yet. He needed to assess the damage first. It wasn't anything she'd die from, he decided, studying the slash marks critically, but she would definitely have scars and be in pain for some time.
"If you pour whiskey on me, I'll kill you…"
Sam nearly dropped the needle he was threading, looking up to find her head was cocked to the side and her eyes open. "Jane… I could, give you Tylenol, or maybe knock you out?"
"How bad is it?"
"Well… it's not that deep, all those layers saved your ass. But… there's some… uh, flaps… that need sewn." He was guessing where nails had caught and dragged. "You'll need to stay on your stomach for a while, let it heal."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't tell Dean if I scream, okay?"
"I don't want to tell Dean anything. Bite the pillow Jane."
Knowing this was going to make the already searing pain in her back reach potential blackout levels again, Jane did as she was told.
Day four of their stay in the cabin was day three of Jane's confinement to the bed, and she was not enjoying it. Her back both hurt and itched, she tried once to roll onto her side and immediately regretted it, and going to the bathroom was embarrassing because every time she needed to go, Sam had to take her and then put her back to bed.
"I found something."
"I hope it's more liquor." They were out of whiskey. She was using it for… medicinal purposes.
"It's a book."
She turned her head, watching as he settled himself down on the chair he had positioned by the bed. "Where'd you find it?"
"On top of the shelf in the kitchen."
One she couldn't reach, explained a lot, because she had searched the kitchen area when they had been looking for clues. "Okay? Maybe one of the people who used the cabin left it behind."
"Just weird, it being up there." He flipped open the book. "It's folklore, legends, that kind of thing, Native American."
"So read to me."
Sam looked out the window, sighing at the sight of more snow coming down. In a day or two, they were going to have to leave. She probably needed to see an actual doctor, even though the wound looked… as healthy as it could, and they were beginning to run low on food. She was probably tired of eating stuff out of cans and he knew he was. Then there was the 'nothing out here' factor, besides bears. Their case had basically come to a standstill.
When he felt Jane tapping his knee, he cleared his throat and began to read.
Jane's head came flying up off the mattress, every sense in her alert. It wasn't often she woke up wide awake and on edge, but here she was. Frowning, she looked around the cabin, noting that the fire was burning down, which meant Sam was probably asleep.
"Can you hear it?"
Or not. Frowning, she turned the other way, craning to see him. When the tugging began, she gave it up and gingerly began pulling herself into a different position, trying to ignore the feeling of skin stretching stitches and the pain. "Hear what?"
No sooner were the words out when 'what' became obvious. Jane's first thought was to cover her ears at the shrill shriek that suddenly pierced the night. She ignored Sam's orders to get back in bed and carefully began the process of standing up, eventually shuffling over to join him at the window. "Anything out there?" She asked, ignoring her chattering teeth. She wasn't cold, not really, the room was still warm, but that shriek…
"I can't see anything but…"
"I can… sense something." She admitted after a moment. "Any ideas?"
"Wendigo comes to mind." He remembered his last encounter with a Wendigo, shuddering. "But nothing fits… they don't… well, there's usually nothing left of the victim besides maybe some blood stains."
"So we can rule out a- What's a Wendigo?"
"A human that warped its mind, body and soul by eating other people."
Jane swallowed hard.
Whatever it was, they could rule out Wendigo, Sam was fairly certain of that. A Wendigo probably wouldn't have alerted them to its presence and there were no claw marks, no nothing… just, nothing. And the stories of the hunters didn't add up, the mere fact that they had sort of survived for a bit after said no on the Wendigo theory.
"What the…" He crouched down, ignoring the air steaming before him as he exhaled. He had waited for daylight before coming out, not about to trapeze around at night in unfamiliar territory, in the winter, and with a pissed off, wounded bear roaming about.
"Sam?"
He ignored Jane, who –against his wishes- was up again, standing in the doorway with her nine's in hand, prepared to shoot. He removed his glove, picking up the strand of beads and what looked like they might be feathers, and slowly lifted them from the snow, using his other hand to catch what dropped when the leather strip they dangled from broke.
Then, to his left, he heard something creak, followed by a pop.
"Sam!"
He fell backwards as something flew by him, cutting through the air right where he had been, and at the same time, he heard Jane shoot. Whatever it was to his left, it had been hit and it wasn't happy with it because the shriek from last night was now right in his ear. "Jane!" It was both a worried cry and a 'don't shoot me' yell. She was shooting at something invisible.
She fired again.
He was hauling ass back to the cabin.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, Jane shut the door. She let out a scream when something hit it at a very high speed, followed immediately by something sharp piercing through the actual door. She stared at the object, it was just a tip, just a point, but she knew what it was. "Arrow head."
"What?" Sam was lying on the floor, panting. He wasn't out of shape, but running through snow was like three workouts combined into one.
"Arrow head. Are we being stalked by a fricking Indian?" She instinctively hunched down, her face paling as she felt stitches stretching and a burning pain where her closing wounds were being pulled taut. Not good. If they were being shot at with a bow and arrow, she wasn't providing her head as a target.
He shot her a 'are you serious' look. "Away from the door."
Nodding, she got down onto her hands and knees, biting her lower lip. The shrill screams were not letting up and they were actually sounding more and more pissed off.
He was going to have to risk standing, or doing a hunch, but he had to barricade the door and windows. He knew they weren't going to make it to the rental, which could have been buried under snow by this point, but they weren't going to last long in this cabin either if they didn't figure this out soon.
Jane crawled her butt behind the bed, gesturing at it. Sam nodded and an instant later, he was flipping the mattress and setting it against the window, followed by the wooden frame to keep it there. The activity knocked over his chair, and the book he had been reading. Jane stared at it blankly, finally reaching for it.
After reading what had caught her attention, she checked the cover. It wasn't a children's book, but he had been right, it was mythology, Native folklore, but from a 'scholarly' perspective. "Sam… this was left here?"
"Jane, I don't think now is the time for bedtime stories."
It had been left here. She had found an arrowhead. The scratches on the door. Maybe that hadn't been an animal. She went back to the story. "Sam, does Paguck ring a bell?"
"Pau'guk." It did actually, it was a myth that was similar to the Wendigo's in terms of starting out as human.
"This was Chippewa territory?"
"Jane, is there a point?"
"Baykaak?"
That made him stop and he could only stare at her, his mind struggling to recall facts from school. They had learned about Native Americans and as an assignment, had been assigned to pick some folklore and explain its significance, stuff like that. He hadn't finished the project since they had 'moved' shortly after it was assigned, but he had done research. Naturally, given that he came from a family of hunters, his research had led him down some dark paths. "Baykok." He echoed, saying it exactly as it sounded and was probably spelled in the English language. "It's familiar."
Familiar turned out to be a 'yep' once she began reciting the lore. Baykok, or Baykaak, had been a hunter, who had died in the winter, alone, cold and starving. He had cursed his tribe, the spirits, everything, feeling both betrayed and denied glory, dying in such a fashion. Sheer willpower had kept his life force within his body, but not alive. He had become undead. Thin, skeletal, and he was still a hunter, though his prey was now humans.
It made sense. The victims had all been hunters, and they had all come out here, away from the modern world. The Baykok wouldn't venture near civilization, he remained in his territory, the forest, and a hunter would appeal to him, especially those who hunted large game. Like bears… or defended themselves and proved themselves to be warriors of a type.
What didn't hold true with the lore was the stitching they had found. Lore said Baykok used a special kind of thread, that left no marks and sealed the wound it left behind after taking the liver. Lore also said Baykok appeared to only one person, and by appear, that meant "could be heard."
But it was handed down information and no one had ever proven that the Baykok existed, not everything was going to be accurate.
In this case, Sam was hoping the part about it being 'unable to die' was one of those things.
"Wake up."
Sam groaned, batting away the hands that were shaking him.
"Sammy, up."
He heard Jane, she sounded scared, and reluctantly his eyes opened. He had fallen asleep, obviously, and by the looks of it, it was nearing dark. He pulled away from the wall, reaching back to rub his stiff neck. "What's going on?"
"It's circling."
"How do you know?"
She cocked an eyebrow at him, frowning. "I can feel it."
Sam considered her, wondering just how much she had learned under Pam, but now was not the time to be asking questions. "Ideas?"
"Beat it and burn it, that's all we can do. Or try to make it out of here."
Considering he had already had to apply fresh bandages to her back because she had opened her stitches, that didn't seem viable, not if they needed to run. "We're going to have to fight."
"The book says to bludgeon it Sam, splinter the body and then burn it. It's not a guarantee that it'll keep it down though."
"Well, unless you got another idea…" He wasn't surprised when she shook her head. "Now… I need a mace."
"Sure, I'll just pull one out of my ass." She said sarcastically.
Sam actually smiled, finding that amusing. "That'd be a helluva party trick."
Everything was quiet. It was the slow creak of the door opening that broke the silence, followed by more creaking, and popping. Like the sound bones made when a person settled, or stretched, and it was consistent, as if something was settling, and then stretching, repeatedly, like walking. Or in this case, stalking.
But there was nothing visible in the doorway, nothing visible in the now dark cabin, the embers in the fireplace too low to cast any light.
Sam stood in one corner of the room, Jane in the opposite, nearest the door. In his bag, he had packed a tire iron, mainly because it was iron and iron was essential in this line of work. Tonight, he didn't care about the iron factor, he cared that it was heavy. Jane was gripping the poker from the fireplace, prepared to swing when he gave the signal. He had no idea if she was relying on her sense of hearing, or just her extra sense, but he hoped she could pull off a repeat of earlier. He wasn't looking to get hit with anything.
Everything went quiet, which meant Sam was screwed and he felt everything in him tensing.
A second later he heard it, the sound of an arrow being notched and what Jane had said earlier flickered through his mind. The Baykok used a special poison, one that would immobilize its target and put it in a pseudo sleep. He'd be helpless.
He was surprised to realize that Jane was moving, the poker ready for a swing and when Jane did swing, she hit something. Sam jumped at the opportunity and lunged forward, aiming for where she had. Even though he couldn't see it, he felt the tire iron connect with something solid. Bones, especially ones as old as these should have been, should have been brittle, should have given easily. All he heard was grinding, the sound of his hit, and a very enraged scream.
"Club, it uses a club!" Jane cautioned.
"How do you-" Sam cursed when he was bashed against his forearm, almost dropping his weapon as pain blossomed. That had almost been a bone breaking hit, and he knew the next one would shatter his arm. "Jane, I can't see it!"
Technically, she couldn't either, but damned if she couldn't feel it. The space it took up, it was like everything was gone from that spot, but the Baykok. It's presence, this close to her, was driving her psychic crap nuts and she sent a silent thank you to Pamela's spirit for teaching her to mediate and focus on opening and using her ability. It would probably never be anything major, this would likely be its extent, but this was damn useful.
Until that spot seemed to shift and the mass that wasn't there moved. She raised her poker in time to catch the club before it hit her, her arms trembling in exertion as she struggled to keep the thing from pressing in on her. "Sam!"
Sam was there, using his uninjured arm to wield his weapon, hitting it, causing it to continuously shriek in that ear piercing, shrill voice while it kept bringing the club down.
"Sam!" Her arms were turning to jelly, barely able to counter its attacks it was now moving so fast.
Something broke, it was a disgusting sound, a dry sound, but disgusting and she looked down to see an arm, or the skeleton of an arm. It was clutching an arrow, the arrowhead covered in something wet.
Sam seen it too and was encouraged. It could become visible, one piece at a time and he began whaling on it.
The Baykok turned to Sam, who was obviously the threat, and Jane took the reprieve, shaking her arms out and was grateful for the adrenaline, it was masking the majority of the pain she was currently feeling. She also used the moment to size up the space and where Sam's hits were landing, finally gearing up for a swing, like she was playing baseball.
Sam didn't have time to duck when a skull suddenly came flying at him, red glowing eyes appearing out of nowhere startling him enough that he dropped the tire iron to catch the skull. He stared at it, his own eyes wide, taking in the decayed headdress, beads, what may have once been feathers, and rotting leather.
When the jaw moved and it kept on screaming, he threw the thing against a wall as hard as he could, and to his utter amazement, it shattered.
They were going to beat this thing.
"When we're done here, I say we leave Michigan."
"You need a doctor."
"We can see one in Indiana, I'm pretty sure if word gets out we started this fire, we're going to jail."
She had a point, and Sam knew telling people the truth about why they had set the cabin on fire wasn't going to fly. They had needed to burn the bones, which meant they needed a good, strong and very, very hot flame. Hence the inferno in front of them. So long as there was no snow, or icy rain, anytime soon, he figured the Baykok wasn't coming back anytime soon. He finished with her back and then helped her into her shirts, eventually shrugging off the blankets they had been wrapped in. obviously, they couldn't be too close to the fire, but even from this distance, they could feel the heat. Snow was melting around the area, he could see the forest floor. "All things considered, this isn't as bad as it could be, but you're going to have some serious scarring. You split the skin where it was beginning to scab and heal, and your stitches."
"Scars are sexy as hell." She snorted, easing her arms into her jacket, which he had repaired for her, watching as he came around to zip it up. "I'm not going to tell him, Sam."
Sam, who had hunched over to help her, straightened up slowly, staring down at her thoughtfully. "Why not?"
"Because… I owe you. But… that doesn't mean I won't be riding your ass." She added, knowing she was pushing her luck with Dean, especially if he ever found out. "It's wrong, you know, what you're doing. Even if… if Ruby is trying to help," Which Jane had a very hard time believing, demons were not known for being helpful, not without a price. "It's still wrong."
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, turning to stare at the fire.
"And one day, what if it's not enough? What if it becomes something more than a little here, a little there? Power corrupts Sam, and you have some serious mojo." She wasn't trying to be mean, or berate him, she had seen Dean tear him up one side and down the next, that wasn't how she approached things, it didn't work.
"Well…" He said finally, nudging her gently with his elbow. "I guess you better stick around little sister, keep me in line."
"Winchester," Jane was laughing, despite the fact that this was serious, feeling pleased with his 'little sister'. She and Sam had a rocky, iffy relationship, mostly good but there was some serious dark moments in there too. "Keeping you on the straight and narrow wasn't in the job description when I decided to stay with your brother. But… I'm going to try. You might not see where this could lead, but others do, and we worry about you. Even if some of us are shit are saying it properly."
He didn't say a word.
"Besides, that's why I bought a new cast iron skillet, to keep both my boys toeing the line. I'll just have to reach higher to get your head."
Sam winced at that, he didn't doubt that she'd do it.
