Supernatural--Children of Anubis

by Tim Waggoner

  “Their house is their den,” Garth said, “and normally that’s exactly where they’d go at a time like this. But not now. They know that’s the first place you’d look for them. They’ll go someplace else.”

  Sam nodded toward Stuart’s body. “They’ll come back for him, though, won’t they?”

  “Eventually,” Garth said, “but not right away. Werewolves like the Crowders—Purebloods who tend more to the wild side of their nature—aren’t as sentimental as humans. They’ll put Stuart out of their minds for now and concentrate on getting revenge against us. They might consider Stuart a weak link, but he was still a member of their pack, and his death must be avenged. But we don’t have time to worry about that right now. We need to take care of Morgan and Joshua. If their family finds them in the Impala—a car with Winchester scent all over it…” He trailed off, but the implication was clear. Morgan and her brother would be killed.

  “And why are they in our car?” Sam asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” Dean said. “Garth, you want to go on ahead?”

  Garth nodded, took on his werewolf form, and dashed off into the woods. Within seconds, he’d merged with the darkness and was lost to sight.

  “You up for some more cardio?” Dean asked.

  Sam nodded, and the brothers started running after Garth.

  * * *

  Near Seattle, Washington. 1992

  The farther they drove from the hospital, the lighter Dean’s mood became, until he’d gone from stunned silence to exhilarated chatter.

  “Man, that was scary! But awesome too! Did you see those teeth? And the way she growled! I thought for sure we were dead meat, but I kept cool and fired anyway, and I got her. Did you see that, Sammy? I got her!”

  Sam didn’t understand his brother’s excitement. Even though it was all over, he was still scared. In a way, he was relieved too. The werewolf was far more terrifying than any movie monster could ever be. She’d been real. But they’d stopped her, and Sam now knew that monsters, no matter how frightening or powerful, could be defeated. You just needed to know their weakness.

  The brothers managed to get back to the motel without getting pulled over, which Sam considered to be something of a miracle. The same space where the pickup had been parked before was still empty, and Dean slid the truck into it. When he finished, the vehicle’s left tires were well over the line, but he hadn’t hit anything, so Sam considered that a win.

  It was close to two a.m., and both of them were tired to the bone. Dean’s earlier excitement at their victory over the werewolf had ebbed, and now he was quiet and subdued. As they walked toward their room, legs heavy as lead, Sam said, “I hope Bobby’s still asleep.”

  “Me too.”

  Bobby would be angry at them for going off on their own. And now that they were back safe and sound, Sam knew that Bobby would be right. What he and Dean had done was incredibly stupid, and they were lucky the werewolf hadn’t torn them to bloody ribbons and feasted on their hearts. But if they could get inside the room without waking Bobby, he wouldn’t find out as long as he and Dean kept their mouths shut. Sam knew he’d feel guilty not telling Bobby about tonight, but he’d rather live with that guilt than get yelled at. And if Dad found out what they’d done—

  No, better to keep it to themselves for the rest of their lives.

  When they reached the door to their room, Dean quietly took the key from his pocket and started to put it in the keyhole. But before he could turn it, the door flew open and Bobby—beads of sweat on his too-gray face—said, “Where in the hell have you two idjits been?”

  Dean stepped forward, putting himself between Sam and Bobby. “Don’t be mad at Sammy. It was all my idea. I made him come with me.”

  Sam appreciated his big brother standing up for him. But he didn’t think it was fair for him to accept all the blame. “I wanted to go,” Sam said. “I—”

  His words were cut off by an ear-piercing shriek that sounded half-human and half something else. Sam and Dean turned to see the werewolf they’d killed leap up out of the truck bed and onto the top of the cab. Her sweater was still dark with blood, but her wounds didn’t seem to have slowed her down. She snarled and fixed her feral-eyed gaze on them.

  Bobby didn’t hesitate. He pulled Sam and Dean into the room, slammed the door shut, and threw the deadbolt. He pulled them to the other side of the room. An instant later, they heard a heavy thud as the werewolf threw herself at the door. It shuddered, but the deadbolt held.

  “Let me guess,” Bobby said. “You two geniuses went to the hospital to kill the werewolf, and you shot her with a silver bullet. You thought you’d hit her in the heart, but you missed, and when you left, she hopped in the back of the pickup and caught a ride back with you.”

  The werewolf slammed against the door once more, growling and snapping. The deadbolt still held, but there was a small shower of plaster dust as the deadbolt started to come loose from the wall. Sam knew the door wouldn’t withstand another impact.

  “You mean we had to shoot her in the heart?” Dean said.

  Bobby sighed. “Remind me to teach you boys what a double-tap is.”

  Dean still carried Bobby’s gun in his jacket pocket. Bobby calmly pulled it out, raised it with shaky hands, and aimed at the door.

  The werewolf threw herself against it for a third time, and it burst open. She raced into the room, mouth open wide in a scream, claws extended, ready to tear into them.

  Bobby fired one round. It struck the werewolf in the heart, and this time when she went down, she stayed down. He slumped, and Sam and Dean grabbed hold of him before he could fall to the floor.

  “I swear,” Bobby said, “you boys are going to be the death of me yet.”

  * * *

  Sam and Dean packed up their stuff quickly after that, and the three of them departed the room, leaving the werewolf— who now looked like an old human woman—where she lay. Dean offered to drive, but Bobby told him to shut up and get in the truck. When they were all squeezed into the front seat, Bobby started the pickup and, driving with his uninjured arm, maneuvered them out of the parking lot.

  They spent the remainder of the night in the pickup, parked at a twenty-four-hour burger joint. Dean wanted to go in and get some burgers, but Bobby told him to be quiet and get some sleep. In the morning, they drove to another town and got a room at a different motel. Bobby lay on one bed while Sam and Dean sat on the other, eating snacks and watching TV. The local news station carried a report about a woman—Juanita Schultz—who’d been found dead at a motel in a neighboring town with multiple wounds. The police had no idea why Ms. Schultz had been there, but she’d made the news earlier in the year when her husband Brent had gone in for bypass surgery and died on the operating table. She blamed the entire surgical team and threatened a lawsuit against the hospital. She stood outside the hospital’s main building every day, rain or shine, holding signs with slogans like Don’t Come Here if You Want to Live! And Hospital of Death!

  “That’s why she was prowling around the hospital as a werewolf,” Bobby said. “She was hunting the surgical team she blamed for her husband’s death.”

  Sam asked Bobby how Ms. Schultz had become a werewolf in the first place, but Bobby said they’d probably never know.

  He closed his eyes. Sam thought he had fallen asleep, but then he said, “You boys might be idjits, but you did good.” Several seconds later, he was snoring softly.

  Sam and Dean exchanged grins. Dean started flipping through the channels, looking for something good. He stopped when he landed on a movie: a vampire in a dark suit and cape was moving quickly up the stone steps of a castle, a hungry look in his eyes.

  “Sorry,” Dean said. “I’ll keep looking.”

  “Don’t,” Sam said. “This is okay.”

  Dean looked at him a moment. “You sure?”

  Sam nodded and settled back to watch. “Yeah. Real life is way more scary than this stuff.”

  TWENTY-SIX
>
  Present Day

  Greg was relieved when he and Nathan reached Happyland. He didn’t think he could stand the smell of formaldehyde much longer. Nathan entered the park through a side gate and pulled the station wagon up to the Monsours’ temporary home. Greg got out as fast as he could and opened all the vehicle’s doors. Then he and Nathan ordered the neteru to exit the station wagon and lined them up downwind from the building. The next step would be to determine the best locations in the park for the neteru to stand guard. For that, they would have to consult with the rest of the family.

  Greg was impatient. He wanted to sneak off and meet Morgan before his family found out she was here. Maybe he could find a different place in the park for her to hide, somewhere far enough from his family that they wouldn’t pick up her scent.

  Greg expected the others to come out and greet him and Nathan once they returned, but no one emerged from the building. Greg had a sudden bad feeling. What if the werewolves had attacked while he and Nathan had been gone? The rest of their family might be dead, and the werewolves could be lurking close by, ready to attack him and Nathan any instant.

  He told himself not to be foolish. If his family had been wounded he’d smell their blood. He’d also detect the werewolves’ scents, and while the scents of the father and sons who’d confronted them earlier that day still lingered in the area, there was nothing fresh. So—

  Wait. There was a fresh werewolf scent. Two of them, in fact, and he recognized them.

  The door to the office building opened and Marta, Efren, Muriel, Kayla, and Erin emerged. They were all in jakkal form, and Morgan—in human form—walked between them, carrying her baby brother.

  “We had visitors while you were gone,” Marta said. The way she said visitors, like it was something you’d find floating in a sewer, told Greg what she thought of Morgan and her brother showing up here.

  Morgan looked at the crimson-eyed neteru with a combination of wonder and disgust. She gave Greg an uncertain smile. He wanted to go to her, to reassure her that everything would be all right, but he knew he couldn’t. He didn’t want to give his family any excuse to show hostility toward Morgan and her brother. And if his family knew how strongly he felt about Morgan, they might hurt her just to teach him a lesson about getting too friendly with an iwiw.

  Nathan scowled and changed into jakkal form.

  “What is she doing here?” he demanded. He turned to Greg. “She’s the one whose stink you had all over you earlier.”

  “I don’t know why she’s here,” Greg said truthfully. Yes, she’d texted him that she was ‘on her way,’ but he didn’t know the reason she’d come here. Then he surprised himself by adding, “Don’t talk about her like that. She hasn’t done anything to hurt us.”

  Nathan’s eyes widened in shock. Greg figured he couldn’t have surprised his grandfather more if he’d suddenly sprouted a second head.

  His sisters snickered.

  “Greggy has a girlfriend,” Erin said in a sing-song voice.

  Kayla sneered. “I can’t say much for his taste in women.”

  Muriel glared at Greg. “He is your Elder! You must show respect!”

  “I do respect Grandfather,” Greg said, amazed at how calm he felt. He’d never gone against his family before, but now that he was, he found he wasn’t afraid. “As I respect you, Grandmother, and the rest of the family.” He gave Kayla and Erin a quick glance. “Even my sisters. But just because Morgan is a werewolf is no reason to treat her poorly.”

  “Her father—” Efren began.

  “She isn’t her father,” Greg said. “Just as I am not you.”

  Efren drew back, almost as if Greg had struck him. Marta began growling.

  “We don’t have to fight, Mother,” Greg said. “But if it comes to that, I now have two neteru under my command.”

  Now it was Marta’s turn to look as if he’d hit her.

  Greg smiled at Morgan. “I got your texts. Sorry I didn’t get here before you.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Your family’s not happy Joshua and I came, but they haven’t mistreated us.” There was something in her voice that seemed to imply she might’ve added Not yet.

  “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “Despite the circumstances.”

  She smiled. “Yes,” she agreed.

  The rest of Greg’s family started talking amongst themselves. They sounded worried, but also excited. They were looking forward to fighting.

  Greg continued speaking to Morgan. “You must have known that my family would not welcome you. And if your family finds out you are here…”

  “Like I said, my family is coming soon. They mean to kill you all.”

  “This news comes as no surprise to us,” Nathan said. “We expect you—”

  Greg thought Nathan was going to say you iwiw, but he glanced sideways at Greg before continuing.

  “—you werewolves not to honor your promises.”

  “There’s too much animal in you,” Muriel said. “Your lust to kill overrides everything else.”

  Morgan lowered her gaze, as if she were ashamed. “That may be true for the rest of my family, but it’s not true for me. Or for Joshua.”

  Her little brother had been asleep all this time, but now he opened his eyes at the sound of his name, yawned, and stretched. He looked at the jakkals surrounding him, but he didn’t seem afraid, just puzzled. The jakkals’ bestial features didn’t bother him. Since he belongs to a family of werewolves, why would they? Greg thought.

  “She’s lying,” Kayla said. “It’s some kind of trick. She’s come here to spy on us.”

  “Or maybe when the attack begins, she’ll turn on us,” Erin added.

  “You give my family too much credit,” Morgan said. “Werewolves are simple creatures. The kind of scheming you’re talking about isn’t something they do. Their entire battle strategy consists of two maneuvers: attack and retreat.”

  “We’re supposed to believe you’ve come to warn us out of the goodness of your heart?” Marta asked.

  “I came in hope of preventing more senseless killing,” Morgan said. She glanced at Greg, and smiled, then turned her attention back to Marta.

  “I didn’t have to come here. There’s a werewolf pack in Wisconsin that lives peacefully and only feeds on animal hearts. I could’ve gone there and taken Joshua with me. But I couldn’t just leave and let my family attack without trying to warn you.”

  Efren snorted. “Werewolves living peacefully? It sounds like a fairy tale.”

  “It’s true!” Morgan insisted. “I met a werewolf named Garth who belongs to that pack. He tried to convince my family to join, but they wouldn’t listen. They took him and his two friends prisoner. When my family is done with them, they’ll come here next.”

  “Which is why we should stop arguing and get ready,” Greg said.

  His family looked to one another, uncertain. Then his grandfather’s features became human once more, and a moment later the rest of his family shed their jakkal forms as well.

  Nathan put a hand on Greg’s shoulder. “You speak sense, boy.” Nathan raised his voice to address everyone. “One last vote. Do we still wish to stand and fight, or do we flee, as our people have always done when confronted with danger?”

  The family answered with one word.

  “Fight!”

  Nathan nodded. He then looked at Morgan. “Will you fight alongside us, girl—against your own people?”

  She looked shocked, as if the idea of helping the jakkals battle her family had never occurred to her. Then her expression became determined.

  “If I’d wanted to run, I would’ve gone with Garth and his friends. I will fight.”

  Part of Greg wished that she’d said no. He wanted her to stay out of the battle and hole up somewhere safe until it was all over, one way or another. But a larger part of him admired her for her choice. If their roles had been reversed, he didn’t know if he could be as brave.

  Muriel spoke
then. “If you’re truly here to help us, Morgan, there’s only one way you can convince us.”

  “I’ll do anything,” Morgan said.

  “Give us your brother,” Muriel said.

  Morgan looked shocked, and Greg knew how she felt. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. But before either Morgan or Greg could say anything, Muriel went on.

  “He shall not be harmed—I pledge my life on it. We shall care for him as if he were one of our own. But if you betray us…”

  Greg stepped toward his grandmother, ready to protest, but Morgan put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

  “Will Joshua be safe?” she asked him.

  Greg didn’t like this situation, but he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  She looked at him a moment and then nodded. She turned to Muriel. “I agree.”

  “Thank you, child,” Muriel said. “Kayla, would you take the baby?”

  Kayla didn’t look happy about it, but she went to Morgan and held out her hands. Morgan gave her brother a kiss on the forehead. “Try to be good,” she said, and then handed him over to Kayla. Joshua looked up at Kayla with wide eyes, but he didn’t fuss, and Kayla—despite her initial reluctance— held him gently.

  “Let us finish our preparations,” Nathan said. “And pray to Anubis that the dawn will see us triumphant.”

  As pep talks went, it was short and sweet. But Greg feared his grandfather was being far too optimistic. There would be blood, pain, and death before the morning came. That was guaranteed. The only question was who would live and who would die. And Greg knew that question would be answered all too soon.

  * * *

  Garth was waiting for the Winchesters when they reached the Impala. He leaned back against the car, arms folded, scowling. There was no sign of Morgan or her baby brother.

  “Where’s the girl and the rugrat?” Dean asked. “Didn’t they make it?”

  “Their scents are here,” Garth said. “They didn’t stay long, though.”

  “Did her family get them?” Sam asked.

  “Negatory. Morgan and Joshua were the only ones here.”

  “She ran that way.” Garth hooked a thumb northward. “Toward town.”