Secrets in Shadow: Chapter 6
Title: Secrets in Shadow
Author: Roselani24
Genre: adventure, drama, horror
Rating: PG-13
A/N: A big thank you to my fantastic beta ,laughtersmelody who read and re-read this story, offering endless encouragement and tips. You're awesome, girl! Also a big thank you to my artist, loki_scribe for the beautiful artwork!
Chapter 6
Thursday January 12, 1995
Peter woke with a start. Whaa-? Blinking sleepily, he glanced at his bedside clock. 3:04am. Two and a half hours before his alarm was set to go off. So why was he awake?
A loud barking noise came from the living room. Someone coughing? It took Peter’s sleepy brain a moment to remember that Dean was sleeping in the living room on the couch. Earlier the kid had been coughing and not breathing the best.
The sound repeated, lasting even longer then before. By the time it stopped, Peter had grabbed his robe and leaving his bedroom.
A miserable moan came from the mound of blankets on the couch. He turned on a lamp, giving his eyes time to adjust. Moments later he could better see the bump on the couch and the messy hair sticking out at one end.
“Hey, kid, you ok?” He walked around the end of the couch, brushing the blanket down from Dean’s face. His fingers brushed the kid’s forehead and Peter’s worry ratcheted up a notch. Dean definitely had a fever.
He dropped down, hands grasping the younger man’s shoulders. “Dean,” Peter called, shaking him gently. Green eyes sluggishly blinked open.
“Wha’ ou wan? Go ‘way,” Dean mumbled, coughing weakly. Poor kid was exhausted.
“You’ve been coughing pretty bad,” Peter said, sitting on the coffee table.
“’s no big deal,” Dean grunted, rolling over.
“Right,” Peter said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Pursing his lips, Peter headed over to the kitchen. If he was going to get any medicine in Dean’s system the kid needed to eat something. He searched the cupboards and managed to find one can of chicken noodle soup and a box of half-eaten crackers. Perfect.
Once the soup was heating over the stove, Peter headed to the bathroom. The strongest medicine he had was Tylenol and while that would work great on the fever, it wouldn’t do much for Dean’s cough. Peter considered his options. He was so out of his depth here. His bedside manner was, at best, horrible. Marianne had told him as much whenever she had been sick. He sighed and headed back into the living room to the kitchen. Stirring the soup, Peter glanced at the lump of blankets.
Judging by the rate the blankets were rising and falling, Dean’s breathing was getting worse. Should he take the kid to the hospital or was he just overreacting?
By the time the soup was sufficiently hot, Peter decided if the hunter got worse, he’d drag him to the E.R to get checked out.
Pouring the soup into a bowl, he thought about their plans for the coming day. Earlier, Dean had told him they needed to go to the library to dig around for someone with the initials I.S who died in on the Gettysburg battlefield long after the actual battle. Once they figured out who it was, they would locate the grave and ‘salt and burn’ the bones. Peter shuddered. Even thinking about digging up someone’s coffin and burning the bones or corpse made his stomach churn!
He still hadn’t asked how long Dean had been hunting the things that went bump in the night either. But the way Dean carried himself, the way he spoke, lent to the conclusion Dean had been doing it for a long time, almost certainly since he was a small child. Peter couldn’t decide if he was amazed or horrified by that thought. Probably a bit of both.
Peter sighed, forcing the thoughts away as he carried the soup over to the couch. It really wasn’t that much of a surprise when Dean stubbornly refused. Kid had already proven he was hardheaded. Finally, Peter threatened, “I’ll spoon feed it to you if I have to, but you are going to eat one way or another.”
The glare Dean sent him clearly said, "You wouldn’t dare!"
Peter matched him easily, raising an eyebrow. “Try me.”
With a groan and much complaining, Dean sat up and slowly started to eat the soup. Once Peter was satisfied that Dean was eating, he went back to the bathroom for the Tylenol. Hopefully, between the chicken noodle soup and the medicine the youth would feel better. He could hear the kid coughing again although not nearly as severe before, Peter noted with relief.
To his surprise, Dean was drinking the last of the broth when he came back. He gave Dean a stern look. Dean just shrugged, trying to look as innocent as possible. At least he was breathing easier and some color had returned to his cheeks.
He filled a cup with water from the tap and turned back to his guest. Dean’s jaw had taken on a stubborn set as the innocent look melted away in favor of a defiant stare when he realized Peter intended to give him medicine. Coupled with his ruffled hair, he looked like a sick, petulant child. His lips twitched, but Peter dutifully kept from smiling in favor of being firm.
Peter held out the pills and glass expectantly. Dean glowered at him, a small pout emerging. It was getting increasingly hard not to laugh and ruffle the kid’s hair.
“Its just Tylenol. Now, take it.” Peter ordered, using a commanding tone.
The pout was in full effect by then and Peter was fighting not to laugh. Grudgingly, Dean snatched the two pills and popped them in his mouth, swallowing them dry. Peter shrugged, setting the glass on the coffee table.
He put his hands on his hips. “Show me you swallowed them.”
The slightest widening of Dean’s eyes told Peter he guessed right about the kid faking. He jerked his head, indicating he expected the kid to actually swallow. With a fierce scowl, Dean did, and then opened his mouth. Peter nodded, satisfied that the kid had swallowed the pills.
“Happy?” Dean snarled.
“Absolutely,” Peter deadpanned. “Now drink some water and go to sleep.”
He picked up the empty bowl and turned away before grinning at Dean’s indignant expression.
There was a slew of grumbling coming from behind him that only made him grin wider. By the time he was headed back bed, Dean was once again a lump of blankets on his couch. Only now instead of coughing, he was snoring. Loudly.
Shaking his head, Peter turned off the light and padded back to bed.
He was up again at 5:45am, showering and getting ready for his morning classes. As the coffee pot gurgled, he considered waking Dean. Nah, he’d let the kid sleep a little longer.
Instead, he occupied himself by getting a fresh towel and putting the Tylenol on the bathroom counter for Dean to use when he woke up. That done, he shuffled through the newspaper clippings Dean showed him the night before. It was hard to believe how much Peter’s world had changed in the last twelve hours. Everything seemed topsy-turvy and far more dangerous. And logic seemed to have been on the first bus out of town, which left him wondering how he was going to handle his new knowledge once this was over.
Coffee ready, Peter poured it into a mug and stirred in two packs of sugar.
His eyes inevitably drifted to the couch and Dean.
Peter had known since he was fourteen that he wanted to join law enforcement. While his family had not been poor, they had not been greatly wealthy. Both of his parents worked really hard and Peter had followed their example. To achieve his goal, he busted his butt in high school to get a full scholarship for advanced math for four years in college followed by two years in accounting. He grimaced. Accounting had been utterly boring and tedious work, but it had helped Peter hone his patience and attention to detail. It’s what made him a good detective. In the future, he hoped to be recruited by the FBI. Until then, he was content with working with NYPD. He wondered if Dean ever had that chance, to decide what he wanted to do with his life. Based on the little he knew about the young man, Peter suspected Dean had been raised knowing about hunting and the evil out there. Dean called it the ‘family business’. Did that mean the kid already believed it was a foregone conclusion he was going to always be a hunter? He didn’t get the impression that hunting was exactly a great career.
What were Peter’s choices now that he knew? A glance at the clock confirmed it was time to put those thoughts away. It was time to get into professor mode.
He left a note on the counter asking Dean to meet him at the Musselman Library around noon so they could dig around through the archives for information about the mysterious owner of the knife the death omen showed him. Until then, Peter could only hope the kid slept and took it easy. But he doubted it.
~*~
Absently, Peter handed out the reading assignment for the weekend and dismissed the class. Sinking back into his desk chair, he pinched the bridge of his nose. O’Brien had been sitting in the back again, a peculiar expression on his face. Truthfully though that was all he thought of it. His mind was busy elsewhere. With his students gone, however, and a few minutes to himself, Peter reflected back on the strange student. There was something off about Eric O’Brien and if he wasn’t worried about discovering the identity of a werewolf and a ghost, perhaps he would have looked into the young man’s background more.
But his next class was filing in. With a sigh, Peter straightened and prepared to do it all over again.
It was a quarter after noon when Peter made his way down the halls to his office. He needed to call Sheriff Wayne, update him, and see if Lilly had gotten the case files before meeting up with Dean.
A familiar prickling of the hairs on his neck and Peter missed a step. Catching himself, he resumed walking normally albeit a bit faster. He walked into his office and shut the door behind him.
Turning around Peter barely suppressed a shout of surprise as the soldier-the Death Omen-appeared before him. Instinctively, his hands went into his pocket, fingers gathering up the small packet of salt Dean insisted he carry. Its eyes were as red as before, its body just as dirty and mangled. The face though… it looked almost worried?
Blue lips moved quickly, silently, then it vanished.
Trembling, Peter placed his hand on the desk for support. If he read the death omen’s lips correctly…the hunted had become the hunter. This was bad. Very, very bad.
It took several minutes before Peter felt sufficiently recovered enough to call down to the station.
“Hey Lilly, I was just wondering if you had those case files yet?”
The secretary hmphed. “What do these have to do with the case, Burke?”
Peter winced. Ouch, she was in a foul mood. Using his most placating tone, “A hunch, ma’am. I think the deaths may have something to do with the disappearances.”
Lilly sighed. “Fine. Well, I have everything and will fax it over to your office now. But you’d better be right about this, Detective! Do you have any idea what I went through to get you that file from Maryland?”
“Thanks, Lilly. You’re the best,” Peter replied, hanging up quickly. He couldn’t wait for the files to come through. Talking to Dean was more important. Grabbing his bag, Peter hurried out.
Dean was in the library, settled at a table in the back and surrounded by mounds of books and copies of public records. Without looking up, Dean pushed out the chair next to him with his foot.
“Hey, man,” Dean said, tired and a bit frustrated. At least he looked better than earlier. “I’ve looked through public records going all the way back to the early 1900s for anyone with the initials I.S. and no one matches our pissed off spirit’s MO.” He paused, craning his neck up. “Professor?”
“The soldier came back.”
Dean immediately sat up straight, alert. “What happened?”
“It was trying to talk to me,” Peter answered, running a hand through his hair. “I read its lips.”
Both eyebrows shot up. “What did it say?”
“It said, ‘You are being hunted.’ Then it just disappeared like before.”
Dean cursed darkly. “Crap! The vengeful spirit or the werewolf knows we’re on to it.”
“Yeah,” Peter sank down in a chair on the opposite side of the table. “Maybe both even. And we still don’t know who they are.”
He poked at a bound volume of newspapers. “Did you find anything at all?”
“Maybe.” Dean flipped open a volume to a marked page. He turned it around to face Peter. “Take a look at this. I think I have a lead on our vengeful spirit. March of last year, a kid from a tour group was killed. His throat was slit. The weapon was never found.”
Peter swallowed the sickness and grief as he read the newspaper headline: ‘8th Grade Student Murdered in Gettysburg National Military Park’. He quickly scanned the account, noting that Tony Gibbon was separated from the group for all of two minutes before he was killed. The boy’s best friend had been only five feet away, just around the bend when Tony’s throat was cut. A witness statement from the best friend indicated Tony had found something moments before he was attacked. Then he read the brief description of the killing blow.
“The way Tony died,” Peter paused, inhaling sharply. “The way he died sounds similar to the student who died in the Slaughter Pen fields in October.”
“That’s what I thought.” Dean said, ending with a rough cough. Clearing his throat, he continued. “So I checked out the rest of the headlines for that month. There were two more attacks in the next week. First, Sergeant Ian Harper was killed while guarding the crime scene three days later. The same night, the wife of another officer on duty, one Lindsey Turner was found raped and murdered. Presumably the husband, Private Mitchell Turner committed all three murders. He disappeared from his post and it looks like they never found him. Now, since the attacks all took place on the military park, the Army took over the investigation.”
“No chance of getting those records then.” Peter sighed. He tapped his finger on the newspaper page in front of him. “The reporter says this happened at the Devil’s Den. That’s just beyond the Slaughter Pen fields.”
“Exactly. So, I’m thinking that maybe it wasn’t the deaths of that professor or teacher that woke the death omen.”
“You're thinking it was Tony’s murder,” Peter murmured.
Dean nodded. “I also think Tony found something that belonged to our vengeful spirit and his touch is what woke it up.”
“How does that work?” Confused didn’t begin to cover how out-of-his-depth, Peter was feeling anymore.
“See, usually digging up the body of a spirit, then salting and burning it is enough to banish ‘em. But if a spirit is tied to a specific object like a knife for example, that means that object has to be salted and burned too or its not going anywhere.”
“The knife the soldier showed me,” Peter leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “That’s what Tony found at Devil’s Den.”
“Yep.”
“But, if it is the same ghost, why is it kidnapping the girls?”
Dean crossed his arms, thoughtful. “Maybe because that’s what it did before it died? Unfinished business?”
“So, even before this guy was dead, he was kidnapping girls? What is he, Bundy the Ghost?”
“No. But he may have been a serial killer like him.”
Peter stomach did a drop twist. O’Brien’s words echoed in his mind again: Look at the disappearances recently and the murder earlier last month! Just like the Lost Creek Cutter. And according to O’Brien, the Lost Creek Cutter was a serial killer. Should he say something? O’Brien had told him they were just stories told to him by his grandfather. Considering he thought ghosts and werewolves were just figments of the imagination twenty-four hours ago that wasn’t saying much.
Dean coughed again, heavier then before, drawing Peter’s attention. The youth swiped his nose on his sleeve, then again, this time with a tissue. Peter couldn’t shake the tendril of fear that it may be worse. He remembered Dean’s condition this morning. Silently, he prayed the kid wouldn’t get any sicker.
Oblivious to Peter’s thoughts, Dean flipped open another volume and pushed it toward him.
“And check this out. I think I know the first time the Sergeant Ghost appeared. Amanda Randall. Twenty-two year old journalist visiting Gettysburg for the reenactment of the battle on July first through the Fourth of July celebration was found dead in the Slaughter Pen Fields on July seventh.” Dean pointed to a picture of a lovely green-eyed brunette in the paper. “She was here with her best friend, Laura Weaver. I gave her a call and she told me something very interesting: the night Amanda went missing, they saw a Civil War soldier. He appeared in their room and then just disappeared. Everyone assumed it was just an actor from the reenactment and he was the likely killer. But the police never found him.”
Peter caught on quickly. “The death omen. Do you think the other victims saw the soldier too?”
“Already confirmed it,” Dean answered with a smug grin.
Peter gaped at him. “When?”
“This morning while you were ‘teaching’,” Dean said, shrugging with feigned casualness. “Just followed a hunch.”
The detective couldn’t decide whether he wanted to smack the kid upside the head or his own forehead. “And just how, did you go about learning this?”
He wasn’t fooled for a minute by the innocent, ‘who me? I didn’t do anything’ expression.
“Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Dean grinned broadly, completely unrepentant. He closed the newspaper volumes, stacking them up. A quiet snort escaped him. "So, we've got a vengeful spirit, a death omen, and a werewolf. Man, and I thought my last case was messed up."
That was not very reassuring. And he trusted this kid’s lead? Yeah, he’d taken leave of all his senses that was certain. Peter sighed. “What next?”
“Now, we check out Devil’s Den and see if we can find that knife.”
“I need to go back to my office first. Lilly faxed over those files.”
Dean nodded. “Good. Meet you in the south parking lot.”
Fifteen minutes later Peter was crossly climbing into the passenger seat of Dean’s Impala.
“Taking this boat out there in the snow is a bad idea.” He grumbled, shuffling through the new reports.
“Don’t listen to him, baby. He has not idea what you can do.”
Peter stared at the younger man as he patted the dash, practically crooning to it. He was not unfamiliar with the bond that could be forged between man and his car, but this struck him as odd. It seemed more reminiscent of a captain speaking to his war ship or a knight to his steed. A warrior’s affection.
The large car rumbled as Dean drove them off campus.
“So, what have we got?”
Peter perused the pages Lilly sent. “Well, the report on Tommy Seiver, the victim found in November, basically says the same thing the newspaper article did. Seiver was last seen September seventeenth at a college party, got real drunk and acted like a jerk. He was reported missing September twenty-third after he failed to turn up for work two days. Fits the lunar cycle. The other two may be more helpful, though.” Peter paused, when Dean was overtaken by a coughing fit. Peter glanced up, unable to hide his concern. The younger man merely waved his hand for the detective to continue.
“Professor Sean Taylor was apparently suspected of fraternizing with his female students before his death.” Peter tapped his fingers rhythmically on his thigh. “The Board and the police had been investigating him since last spring when someone filed an anonymous complaint. According to this, the police believed that Taylor was attacked first and the girl, Sydney Moore second. But why kill Moore?”
“She was willingly sleeping with her professor,” Dean suggested. “That might have been enough.”
Peter was surprised. “Do you think that’s why the werewolf killed her?”
“I don’t think the werewolf did kill her. According to the medical examiner’s report, her throat was cut first. A werewolf wouldn’t do that. Taylor, however, is the poster child of a werewolf attack.”
“This was the first time the vengeful spirit and the werewolf attacked together,” Peter said, amazement coloring his voice.
“It makes sense, man. It’s the first double attack since the attack at the farm.” Dean eased the car to a stop as the light flashed red. “And there was a survivor.”
That grabbed Peter’s attention “A survivor?”
“Yep. The newspaper article said there was one survivor from that attack remember? Whoever it is, is most likely our werewolf.”
“How do you figure?” Peter demanded, struggling to catch up.
The light turned green and Dean smoothly drove them across the intersection and onto the interstate road that led to Big and Little Roundtops and the Devil’s Den. “Because the werewolf attacks here in Gettysburg didn’t start until a month after the incident,” Dean explained. “Siever was its first victim in September.”
“How do you know the survivor’s the werewolf? I mean, it could be someone else who wasn’t found by the police!”
Dean turned a hard glare on him. “Finish reading the report, Sherlock.”
Silence fell as Peter did just that. It was only broken by the occasional cough from the young hunter at the wheel. When Peter finished, a sick feeling bubbled in his stomach.
“Monica Philips. Was accused of killing her boyfriend in June of last year, was cleared, and left her hometown. According to this, she bought a bus ticket from New Jersey for California. She had to change buses here in Gettysburg. She arrived on Saturday, August twentieth and was supposed to be on the Greyhound bus bound for Springfield, Illinois Monday morning. She never made it.”
“The full moon was August twenty-first.”
Peter licked his lips. “She was stabbed in the heart with a silver letter opener left behind by the original owners of the farmhouse.”
“Talk about dumb luck.” Dean snorted.
“So, Philips was the werewolf? The original one.”
“Looks that way.” Dean eased the car to the left, straight into the park.
Exhaling slowly, Peter reviewed the information in his head. “According to the police notes, the survivor was badly torn up and even bitten on the back of the neck.”
Dean nodded grimly. “Yep, she turned him. Do we have a name?”
Peter flipped through the pages, searching. He froze, breath catching in his throat.
“Hey man, you okay?”
His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. It couldn’t be. No, it couldn’t be. That was impossible!
“Peter!”
Peter dragged his eyes up from the page to meet Dean’s concerned and confused gaze. He blinked, surprised to realize the car was no longer moving. The younger man had turned to face him, a hand gripping his shoulder, anchoring him. A subconscious action, Peter thought distantly. But a welcome one.
“Jenkins,” he croaked. “Nancy Jenkins. She lives on the first floor of the tenant house. She’s a professor. Photography.”
He watched mutely as Dean absorbed this. Dean squared his jaw, eyes sharpening in understanding. Then he nodded crisply.
“All right. We’ll take a look around Devil’s Den and then head back.”
Dean didn’t say it, but Peter could hear the unspoken implication. They would go back to town and stop Jenkins from hurting anyone else for good. The Impala rumbled and growled as Dean guided it back onto the road. It was probably just Peter’s imagination, but he thought the car sounded sad too, like it knew how he felt.
Blankly, he stared out the window at the white covered landscape slipping by. The poem from the original “Wolf Man” film played over and over in an endless loop in his mind. “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the Autumn moon is bright.” Even a woman, his brain supplied, may become a wolf. It couldn’t be Nancy! She was too kind and too passionate to be a…to be a monster!
“It’s not her fault, you know.” The quiet words drew Peter back to the car. Dean continued. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“Is there anything-“
“No,” Dean cut him off abruptly. “There’s no cure, Peter. Now she isn’t to blame, but if we don’t stop her, she’s going to keep right on killing people.”
Peter wanted to scream to the heavens, he wanted to punch and kick and just destroy something, anything. His eyes burned at the unfairness. Nancy Jenkins was a good person! How could she be a werewolf? And here he was talking about ending her life like it was nothing.
“You can’t be certain its her,” he said, angry. Desperate.
“Actually, I can. There’s a test that’ll prove whether or not she’s a werewolf.” Dean was infuriatingly calm, his word precise and cool. And Peter hated it.
“And if she passes?” Peter demanded, hands closing into fists.
“Then we let her go and figure out who else it could be.”
“That’s it? Just let her go? No apology or explanation?” He slammed his hand down on the dashboard.
Dean abruptly hit the brakes and Peter had to quickly brace himself as the car skidded on the ice. Turning to him, Dean snarled. “Don’t you dare hit my car again.”
“Its just a car!” Peter roared back, unable to control his indignation. “How can you care what happens to a car when you’re talking about killing another person, a human being, as if it’s nothing!”
“Just what do you think this job is, Detective?” Dean snapped back, temper rising too. “You think I want to shoot some nice college professor? You think I want to do that?”
Peter’s eyes grew wide, taken aback by surge of fury.
“You think I want to be out here in the middle of the winter, digging around for some stupid knife too? I don’t! Well guess what, that’s the job. Its sucks, believe me, I get it. But if we’re going to end this and have any chance of saving Chloe Roark’s life, we have to do this. That’s the job.”
Peter’s anger faded away, helplessness and guilt replacing it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Dean turned away, inhaling deeply. “Forget it.”
He climbed out and slammed the driver’s door, causing Peter to flinch. Reluctantly he followed suit, walking around to join Dean at the trunk. Dean closed the trunk, slinging an army duffel over his shoulder. Without a word he handed Peter a sawed of shotgun.
“It shoots rock salt,” Dean explained tersely. “So if you see the spirit, don’t hesitate to shoot it. You probably won’t get another chance.”
Peter accepted it with a curt nod.
They exchanged no more words as they approached the rocks that made up the Devil’s Den. They split up, searching the perimeter for signs and met up before they walked up into the rocks.
“So, your dad was out here earlier checking out the area,” Peter casually said, keeping his eyes on the white covered rocks and boulders that made the Devil’s Den. He had to say something. The silence was driving him crazy. “Did he know the ghost was tied to this place?”
Dean grunted. Peter glanced over at his companion, startled to see the young man’s face tightly drawn. “Probably.”
“You don’t know?” Why would Dean’s father keep him in the dark? It made no sense, especially considering the danger!
“Dad operates on a ‘need to know’ basis, and apparently he decided I didn’t need to know.”
The clipped reply told Peter all he needed to know. Dean did not care for the military ‘need to know’ approach his father took, but at the same time the kid respected him too much to say anything. He wondered if the older hunter knew how lucky he was to have someone so loyal to him as his back up.
Before Peter could say anything more, Dean was moving toward a sheltered area of the rocks.
“Professor, what does that look like to you?”
Peering over Dean’s shoulder, Peter was startled to see a large paw print in the snow.
“Wolf tracks.” He traced the tracks further up into the rocks. Maybe it was the cold getting to him, but he suddenly had a really bad feeling.
“The werewolf’s out here too,” Dean growled. “Time to go.”
“Wha-why? We need to find the knife!” Preferably while it was still daylight. Under no circumstances did Peter want to be out here after nightfall.
“If I wasn’t out here with a rookie it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Peter scowled. He may be a rookie when it came to things that went bump in the night, but he was hardly helpless! He had two years of intense combat training at the academy plus the moves he’d learned while walking the beat in New York. The way Peter figured it, he may not be quite as skilled as Dean, but he was perfectly capable, thank you.
“As it is, not only is the spirit out here, but so is the werewolf. Taking those two things on at the same time is just crazy, dude. We’ll both wind up dead.”
He really was starting to hate Dean’s logic. It made it almost impossible to argue. Almost.
“Its still daylight. Don’t the monsters normally come out at night?”
“Give the guy a merit badge,” Dean snapped, his patience obviously gone. “There’s nothing about this case that makes it normal, Professor. Got it? Nothing! Now let’s go.”
Peter really wanted to argue but he bit his tongue and nodded. After the fight in the car it seemed like a good idea to heed the hunter’s word.
The walk back to the car seemed much longer than leaving it. Dean had just passed through the last of the boulders, walking into the open parking lot when the hair on the back of Peter’s neck prickled. He stopped, glancing around. A shiver of fear raced down his spine. This definitely wasn’t the presence of the death omen.
Dean must have sensed it too because whirled around, gun held ready.
Peter saw his green eyes go wide, mouth opening in a yell. “Peter!”
Everything went black.
Back
Next
Author: Roselani24
Genre: adventure, drama, horror
Rating: PG-13
A/N: A big thank you to my fantastic beta ,laughtersmelody who read and re-read this story, offering endless encouragement and tips. You're awesome, girl! Also a big thank you to my artist, loki_scribe for the beautiful artwork!
Chapter 6
Thursday January 12, 1995
Peter woke with a start. Whaa-? Blinking sleepily, he glanced at his bedside clock. 3:04am. Two and a half hours before his alarm was set to go off. So why was he awake?
A loud barking noise came from the living room. Someone coughing? It took Peter’s sleepy brain a moment to remember that Dean was sleeping in the living room on the couch. Earlier the kid had been coughing and not breathing the best.
The sound repeated, lasting even longer then before. By the time it stopped, Peter had grabbed his robe and leaving his bedroom.
A miserable moan came from the mound of blankets on the couch. He turned on a lamp, giving his eyes time to adjust. Moments later he could better see the bump on the couch and the messy hair sticking out at one end.
“Hey, kid, you ok?” He walked around the end of the couch, brushing the blanket down from Dean’s face. His fingers brushed the kid’s forehead and Peter’s worry ratcheted up a notch. Dean definitely had a fever.
He dropped down, hands grasping the younger man’s shoulders. “Dean,” Peter called, shaking him gently. Green eyes sluggishly blinked open.
“Wha’ ou wan? Go ‘way,” Dean mumbled, coughing weakly. Poor kid was exhausted.
“You’ve been coughing pretty bad,” Peter said, sitting on the coffee table.
“’s no big deal,” Dean grunted, rolling over.
“Right,” Peter said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Pursing his lips, Peter headed over to the kitchen. If he was going to get any medicine in Dean’s system the kid needed to eat something. He searched the cupboards and managed to find one can of chicken noodle soup and a box of half-eaten crackers. Perfect.
Once the soup was heating over the stove, Peter headed to the bathroom. The strongest medicine he had was Tylenol and while that would work great on the fever, it wouldn’t do much for Dean’s cough. Peter considered his options. He was so out of his depth here. His bedside manner was, at best, horrible. Marianne had told him as much whenever she had been sick. He sighed and headed back into the living room to the kitchen. Stirring the soup, Peter glanced at the lump of blankets.
Judging by the rate the blankets were rising and falling, Dean’s breathing was getting worse. Should he take the kid to the hospital or was he just overreacting?
By the time the soup was sufficiently hot, Peter decided if the hunter got worse, he’d drag him to the E.R to get checked out.
Pouring the soup into a bowl, he thought about their plans for the coming day. Earlier, Dean had told him they needed to go to the library to dig around for someone with the initials I.S who died in on the Gettysburg battlefield long after the actual battle. Once they figured out who it was, they would locate the grave and ‘salt and burn’ the bones. Peter shuddered. Even thinking about digging up someone’s coffin and burning the bones or corpse made his stomach churn!
He still hadn’t asked how long Dean had been hunting the things that went bump in the night either. But the way Dean carried himself, the way he spoke, lent to the conclusion Dean had been doing it for a long time, almost certainly since he was a small child. Peter couldn’t decide if he was amazed or horrified by that thought. Probably a bit of both.
Peter sighed, forcing the thoughts away as he carried the soup over to the couch. It really wasn’t that much of a surprise when Dean stubbornly refused. Kid had already proven he was hardheaded. Finally, Peter threatened, “I’ll spoon feed it to you if I have to, but you are going to eat one way or another.”
The glare Dean sent him clearly said, "You wouldn’t dare!"
Peter matched him easily, raising an eyebrow. “Try me.”
With a groan and much complaining, Dean sat up and slowly started to eat the soup. Once Peter was satisfied that Dean was eating, he went back to the bathroom for the Tylenol. Hopefully, between the chicken noodle soup and the medicine the youth would feel better. He could hear the kid coughing again although not nearly as severe before, Peter noted with relief.
To his surprise, Dean was drinking the last of the broth when he came back. He gave Dean a stern look. Dean just shrugged, trying to look as innocent as possible. At least he was breathing easier and some color had returned to his cheeks.
He filled a cup with water from the tap and turned back to his guest. Dean’s jaw had taken on a stubborn set as the innocent look melted away in favor of a defiant stare when he realized Peter intended to give him medicine. Coupled with his ruffled hair, he looked like a sick, petulant child. His lips twitched, but Peter dutifully kept from smiling in favor of being firm.
Peter held out the pills and glass expectantly. Dean glowered at him, a small pout emerging. It was getting increasingly hard not to laugh and ruffle the kid’s hair.
“Its just Tylenol. Now, take it.” Peter ordered, using a commanding tone.
The pout was in full effect by then and Peter was fighting not to laugh. Grudgingly, Dean snatched the two pills and popped them in his mouth, swallowing them dry. Peter shrugged, setting the glass on the coffee table.
He put his hands on his hips. “Show me you swallowed them.”
The slightest widening of Dean’s eyes told Peter he guessed right about the kid faking. He jerked his head, indicating he expected the kid to actually swallow. With a fierce scowl, Dean did, and then opened his mouth. Peter nodded, satisfied that the kid had swallowed the pills.
“Happy?” Dean snarled.
“Absolutely,” Peter deadpanned. “Now drink some water and go to sleep.”
He picked up the empty bowl and turned away before grinning at Dean’s indignant expression.
There was a slew of grumbling coming from behind him that only made him grin wider. By the time he was headed back bed, Dean was once again a lump of blankets on his couch. Only now instead of coughing, he was snoring. Loudly.
Shaking his head, Peter turned off the light and padded back to bed.
He was up again at 5:45am, showering and getting ready for his morning classes. As the coffee pot gurgled, he considered waking Dean. Nah, he’d let the kid sleep a little longer.
Instead, he occupied himself by getting a fresh towel and putting the Tylenol on the bathroom counter for Dean to use when he woke up. That done, he shuffled through the newspaper clippings Dean showed him the night before. It was hard to believe how much Peter’s world had changed in the last twelve hours. Everything seemed topsy-turvy and far more dangerous. And logic seemed to have been on the first bus out of town, which left him wondering how he was going to handle his new knowledge once this was over.
Coffee ready, Peter poured it into a mug and stirred in two packs of sugar.
His eyes inevitably drifted to the couch and Dean.
Peter had known since he was fourteen that he wanted to join law enforcement. While his family had not been poor, they had not been greatly wealthy. Both of his parents worked really hard and Peter had followed their example. To achieve his goal, he busted his butt in high school to get a full scholarship for advanced math for four years in college followed by two years in accounting. He grimaced. Accounting had been utterly boring and tedious work, but it had helped Peter hone his patience and attention to detail. It’s what made him a good detective. In the future, he hoped to be recruited by the FBI. Until then, he was content with working with NYPD. He wondered if Dean ever had that chance, to decide what he wanted to do with his life. Based on the little he knew about the young man, Peter suspected Dean had been raised knowing about hunting and the evil out there. Dean called it the ‘family business’. Did that mean the kid already believed it was a foregone conclusion he was going to always be a hunter? He didn’t get the impression that hunting was exactly a great career.
What were Peter’s choices now that he knew? A glance at the clock confirmed it was time to put those thoughts away. It was time to get into professor mode.
He left a note on the counter asking Dean to meet him at the Musselman Library around noon so they could dig around through the archives for information about the mysterious owner of the knife the death omen showed him. Until then, Peter could only hope the kid slept and took it easy. But he doubted it.
~*~
Absently, Peter handed out the reading assignment for the weekend and dismissed the class. Sinking back into his desk chair, he pinched the bridge of his nose. O’Brien had been sitting in the back again, a peculiar expression on his face. Truthfully though that was all he thought of it. His mind was busy elsewhere. With his students gone, however, and a few minutes to himself, Peter reflected back on the strange student. There was something off about Eric O’Brien and if he wasn’t worried about discovering the identity of a werewolf and a ghost, perhaps he would have looked into the young man’s background more.
But his next class was filing in. With a sigh, Peter straightened and prepared to do it all over again.
It was a quarter after noon when Peter made his way down the halls to his office. He needed to call Sheriff Wayne, update him, and see if Lilly had gotten the case files before meeting up with Dean.
A familiar prickling of the hairs on his neck and Peter missed a step. Catching himself, he resumed walking normally albeit a bit faster. He walked into his office and shut the door behind him.
Turning around Peter barely suppressed a shout of surprise as the soldier-the Death Omen-appeared before him. Instinctively, his hands went into his pocket, fingers gathering up the small packet of salt Dean insisted he carry. Its eyes were as red as before, its body just as dirty and mangled. The face though… it looked almost worried?
Blue lips moved quickly, silently, then it vanished.
Trembling, Peter placed his hand on the desk for support. If he read the death omen’s lips correctly…the hunted had become the hunter. This was bad. Very, very bad.
It took several minutes before Peter felt sufficiently recovered enough to call down to the station.
“Hey Lilly, I was just wondering if you had those case files yet?”
The secretary hmphed. “What do these have to do with the case, Burke?”
Peter winced. Ouch, she was in a foul mood. Using his most placating tone, “A hunch, ma’am. I think the deaths may have something to do with the disappearances.”
Lilly sighed. “Fine. Well, I have everything and will fax it over to your office now. But you’d better be right about this, Detective! Do you have any idea what I went through to get you that file from Maryland?”
“Thanks, Lilly. You’re the best,” Peter replied, hanging up quickly. He couldn’t wait for the files to come through. Talking to Dean was more important. Grabbing his bag, Peter hurried out.
Dean was in the library, settled at a table in the back and surrounded by mounds of books and copies of public records. Without looking up, Dean pushed out the chair next to him with his foot.
“Hey, man,” Dean said, tired and a bit frustrated. At least he looked better than earlier. “I’ve looked through public records going all the way back to the early 1900s for anyone with the initials I.S. and no one matches our pissed off spirit’s MO.” He paused, craning his neck up. “Professor?”
“The soldier came back.”
Dean immediately sat up straight, alert. “What happened?”
“It was trying to talk to me,” Peter answered, running a hand through his hair. “I read its lips.”
Both eyebrows shot up. “What did it say?”
“It said, ‘You are being hunted.’ Then it just disappeared like before.”
Dean cursed darkly. “Crap! The vengeful spirit or the werewolf knows we’re on to it.”
“Yeah,” Peter sank down in a chair on the opposite side of the table. “Maybe both even. And we still don’t know who they are.”
He poked at a bound volume of newspapers. “Did you find anything at all?”
“Maybe.” Dean flipped open a volume to a marked page. He turned it around to face Peter. “Take a look at this. I think I have a lead on our vengeful spirit. March of last year, a kid from a tour group was killed. His throat was slit. The weapon was never found.”
Peter swallowed the sickness and grief as he read the newspaper headline: ‘8th Grade Student Murdered in Gettysburg National Military Park’. He quickly scanned the account, noting that Tony Gibbon was separated from the group for all of two minutes before he was killed. The boy’s best friend had been only five feet away, just around the bend when Tony’s throat was cut. A witness statement from the best friend indicated Tony had found something moments before he was attacked. Then he read the brief description of the killing blow.
“The way Tony died,” Peter paused, inhaling sharply. “The way he died sounds similar to the student who died in the Slaughter Pen fields in October.”
“That’s what I thought.” Dean said, ending with a rough cough. Clearing his throat, he continued. “So I checked out the rest of the headlines for that month. There were two more attacks in the next week. First, Sergeant Ian Harper was killed while guarding the crime scene three days later. The same night, the wife of another officer on duty, one Lindsey Turner was found raped and murdered. Presumably the husband, Private Mitchell Turner committed all three murders. He disappeared from his post and it looks like they never found him. Now, since the attacks all took place on the military park, the Army took over the investigation.”
“No chance of getting those records then.” Peter sighed. He tapped his finger on the newspaper page in front of him. “The reporter says this happened at the Devil’s Den. That’s just beyond the Slaughter Pen fields.”
“Exactly. So, I’m thinking that maybe it wasn’t the deaths of that professor or teacher that woke the death omen.”
“You're thinking it was Tony’s murder,” Peter murmured.
Dean nodded. “I also think Tony found something that belonged to our vengeful spirit and his touch is what woke it up.”
“How does that work?” Confused didn’t begin to cover how out-of-his-depth, Peter was feeling anymore.
“See, usually digging up the body of a spirit, then salting and burning it is enough to banish ‘em. But if a spirit is tied to a specific object like a knife for example, that means that object has to be salted and burned too or its not going anywhere.”
“The knife the soldier showed me,” Peter leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “That’s what Tony found at Devil’s Den.”
“Yep.”
“But, if it is the same ghost, why is it kidnapping the girls?”
Dean crossed his arms, thoughtful. “Maybe because that’s what it did before it died? Unfinished business?”
“So, even before this guy was dead, he was kidnapping girls? What is he, Bundy the Ghost?”
“No. But he may have been a serial killer like him.”
Peter stomach did a drop twist. O’Brien’s words echoed in his mind again: Look at the disappearances recently and the murder earlier last month! Just like the Lost Creek Cutter. And according to O’Brien, the Lost Creek Cutter was a serial killer. Should he say something? O’Brien had told him they were just stories told to him by his grandfather. Considering he thought ghosts and werewolves were just figments of the imagination twenty-four hours ago that wasn’t saying much.
Dean coughed again, heavier then before, drawing Peter’s attention. The youth swiped his nose on his sleeve, then again, this time with a tissue. Peter couldn’t shake the tendril of fear that it may be worse. He remembered Dean’s condition this morning. Silently, he prayed the kid wouldn’t get any sicker.
Oblivious to Peter’s thoughts, Dean flipped open another volume and pushed it toward him.
“And check this out. I think I know the first time the Sergeant Ghost appeared. Amanda Randall. Twenty-two year old journalist visiting Gettysburg for the reenactment of the battle on July first through the Fourth of July celebration was found dead in the Slaughter Pen Fields on July seventh.” Dean pointed to a picture of a lovely green-eyed brunette in the paper. “She was here with her best friend, Laura Weaver. I gave her a call and she told me something very interesting: the night Amanda went missing, they saw a Civil War soldier. He appeared in their room and then just disappeared. Everyone assumed it was just an actor from the reenactment and he was the likely killer. But the police never found him.”
Peter caught on quickly. “The death omen. Do you think the other victims saw the soldier too?”
“Already confirmed it,” Dean answered with a smug grin.
Peter gaped at him. “When?”
“This morning while you were ‘teaching’,” Dean said, shrugging with feigned casualness. “Just followed a hunch.”
The detective couldn’t decide whether he wanted to smack the kid upside the head or his own forehead. “And just how, did you go about learning this?”
He wasn’t fooled for a minute by the innocent, ‘who me? I didn’t do anything’ expression.
“Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Dean grinned broadly, completely unrepentant. He closed the newspaper volumes, stacking them up. A quiet snort escaped him. "So, we've got a vengeful spirit, a death omen, and a werewolf. Man, and I thought my last case was messed up."
That was not very reassuring. And he trusted this kid’s lead? Yeah, he’d taken leave of all his senses that was certain. Peter sighed. “What next?”
“Now, we check out Devil’s Den and see if we can find that knife.”
“I need to go back to my office first. Lilly faxed over those files.”
Dean nodded. “Good. Meet you in the south parking lot.”
Fifteen minutes later Peter was crossly climbing into the passenger seat of Dean’s Impala.
“Taking this boat out there in the snow is a bad idea.” He grumbled, shuffling through the new reports.
“Don’t listen to him, baby. He has not idea what you can do.”
Peter stared at the younger man as he patted the dash, practically crooning to it. He was not unfamiliar with the bond that could be forged between man and his car, but this struck him as odd. It seemed more reminiscent of a captain speaking to his war ship or a knight to his steed. A warrior’s affection.
The large car rumbled as Dean drove them off campus.
“So, what have we got?”
Peter perused the pages Lilly sent. “Well, the report on Tommy Seiver, the victim found in November, basically says the same thing the newspaper article did. Seiver was last seen September seventeenth at a college party, got real drunk and acted like a jerk. He was reported missing September twenty-third after he failed to turn up for work two days. Fits the lunar cycle. The other two may be more helpful, though.” Peter paused, when Dean was overtaken by a coughing fit. Peter glanced up, unable to hide his concern. The younger man merely waved his hand for the detective to continue.
“Professor Sean Taylor was apparently suspected of fraternizing with his female students before his death.” Peter tapped his fingers rhythmically on his thigh. “The Board and the police had been investigating him since last spring when someone filed an anonymous complaint. According to this, the police believed that Taylor was attacked first and the girl, Sydney Moore second. But why kill Moore?”
“She was willingly sleeping with her professor,” Dean suggested. “That might have been enough.”
Peter was surprised. “Do you think that’s why the werewolf killed her?”
“I don’t think the werewolf did kill her. According to the medical examiner’s report, her throat was cut first. A werewolf wouldn’t do that. Taylor, however, is the poster child of a werewolf attack.”
“This was the first time the vengeful spirit and the werewolf attacked together,” Peter said, amazement coloring his voice.
“It makes sense, man. It’s the first double attack since the attack at the farm.” Dean eased the car to a stop as the light flashed red. “And there was a survivor.”
That grabbed Peter’s attention “A survivor?”
“Yep. The newspaper article said there was one survivor from that attack remember? Whoever it is, is most likely our werewolf.”
“How do you figure?” Peter demanded, struggling to catch up.
The light turned green and Dean smoothly drove them across the intersection and onto the interstate road that led to Big and Little Roundtops and the Devil’s Den. “Because the werewolf attacks here in Gettysburg didn’t start until a month after the incident,” Dean explained. “Siever was its first victim in September.”
“How do you know the survivor’s the werewolf? I mean, it could be someone else who wasn’t found by the police!”
Dean turned a hard glare on him. “Finish reading the report, Sherlock.”
Silence fell as Peter did just that. It was only broken by the occasional cough from the young hunter at the wheel. When Peter finished, a sick feeling bubbled in his stomach.
“Monica Philips. Was accused of killing her boyfriend in June of last year, was cleared, and left her hometown. According to this, she bought a bus ticket from New Jersey for California. She had to change buses here in Gettysburg. She arrived on Saturday, August twentieth and was supposed to be on the Greyhound bus bound for Springfield, Illinois Monday morning. She never made it.”
“The full moon was August twenty-first.”
Peter licked his lips. “She was stabbed in the heart with a silver letter opener left behind by the original owners of the farmhouse.”
“Talk about dumb luck.” Dean snorted.
“So, Philips was the werewolf? The original one.”
“Looks that way.” Dean eased the car to the left, straight into the park.
Exhaling slowly, Peter reviewed the information in his head. “According to the police notes, the survivor was badly torn up and even bitten on the back of the neck.”
Dean nodded grimly. “Yep, she turned him. Do we have a name?”
Peter flipped through the pages, searching. He froze, breath catching in his throat.
“Hey man, you okay?”
His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. It couldn’t be. No, it couldn’t be. That was impossible!
“Peter!”
Peter dragged his eyes up from the page to meet Dean’s concerned and confused gaze. He blinked, surprised to realize the car was no longer moving. The younger man had turned to face him, a hand gripping his shoulder, anchoring him. A subconscious action, Peter thought distantly. But a welcome one.
“Jenkins,” he croaked. “Nancy Jenkins. She lives on the first floor of the tenant house. She’s a professor. Photography.”
He watched mutely as Dean absorbed this. Dean squared his jaw, eyes sharpening in understanding. Then he nodded crisply.
“All right. We’ll take a look around Devil’s Den and then head back.”
Dean didn’t say it, but Peter could hear the unspoken implication. They would go back to town and stop Jenkins from hurting anyone else for good. The Impala rumbled and growled as Dean guided it back onto the road. It was probably just Peter’s imagination, but he thought the car sounded sad too, like it knew how he felt.
Blankly, he stared out the window at the white covered landscape slipping by. The poem from the original “Wolf Man” film played over and over in an endless loop in his mind. “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the Autumn moon is bright.” Even a woman, his brain supplied, may become a wolf. It couldn’t be Nancy! She was too kind and too passionate to be a…to be a monster!
“It’s not her fault, you know.” The quiet words drew Peter back to the car. Dean continued. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
“Is there anything-“
“No,” Dean cut him off abruptly. “There’s no cure, Peter. Now she isn’t to blame, but if we don’t stop her, she’s going to keep right on killing people.”
Peter wanted to scream to the heavens, he wanted to punch and kick and just destroy something, anything. His eyes burned at the unfairness. Nancy Jenkins was a good person! How could she be a werewolf? And here he was talking about ending her life like it was nothing.
“You can’t be certain its her,” he said, angry. Desperate.
“Actually, I can. There’s a test that’ll prove whether or not she’s a werewolf.” Dean was infuriatingly calm, his word precise and cool. And Peter hated it.
“And if she passes?” Peter demanded, hands closing into fists.
“Then we let her go and figure out who else it could be.”
“That’s it? Just let her go? No apology or explanation?” He slammed his hand down on the dashboard.
Dean abruptly hit the brakes and Peter had to quickly brace himself as the car skidded on the ice. Turning to him, Dean snarled. “Don’t you dare hit my car again.”
“Its just a car!” Peter roared back, unable to control his indignation. “How can you care what happens to a car when you’re talking about killing another person, a human being, as if it’s nothing!”
“Just what do you think this job is, Detective?” Dean snapped back, temper rising too. “You think I want to shoot some nice college professor? You think I want to do that?”
Peter’s eyes grew wide, taken aback by surge of fury.
“You think I want to be out here in the middle of the winter, digging around for some stupid knife too? I don’t! Well guess what, that’s the job. Its sucks, believe me, I get it. But if we’re going to end this and have any chance of saving Chloe Roark’s life, we have to do this. That’s the job.”
Peter’s anger faded away, helplessness and guilt replacing it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Dean turned away, inhaling deeply. “Forget it.”
He climbed out and slammed the driver’s door, causing Peter to flinch. Reluctantly he followed suit, walking around to join Dean at the trunk. Dean closed the trunk, slinging an army duffel over his shoulder. Without a word he handed Peter a sawed of shotgun.
“It shoots rock salt,” Dean explained tersely. “So if you see the spirit, don’t hesitate to shoot it. You probably won’t get another chance.”
Peter accepted it with a curt nod.
They exchanged no more words as they approached the rocks that made up the Devil’s Den. They split up, searching the perimeter for signs and met up before they walked up into the rocks.
“So, your dad was out here earlier checking out the area,” Peter casually said, keeping his eyes on the white covered rocks and boulders that made the Devil’s Den. He had to say something. The silence was driving him crazy. “Did he know the ghost was tied to this place?”
Dean grunted. Peter glanced over at his companion, startled to see the young man’s face tightly drawn. “Probably.”
“You don’t know?” Why would Dean’s father keep him in the dark? It made no sense, especially considering the danger!
“Dad operates on a ‘need to know’ basis, and apparently he decided I didn’t need to know.”
The clipped reply told Peter all he needed to know. Dean did not care for the military ‘need to know’ approach his father took, but at the same time the kid respected him too much to say anything. He wondered if the older hunter knew how lucky he was to have someone so loyal to him as his back up.
Before Peter could say anything more, Dean was moving toward a sheltered area of the rocks.
“Professor, what does that look like to you?”
Peering over Dean’s shoulder, Peter was startled to see a large paw print in the snow.
“Wolf tracks.” He traced the tracks further up into the rocks. Maybe it was the cold getting to him, but he suddenly had a really bad feeling.
“The werewolf’s out here too,” Dean growled. “Time to go.”
“Wha-why? We need to find the knife!” Preferably while it was still daylight. Under no circumstances did Peter want to be out here after nightfall.
“If I wasn’t out here with a rookie it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Peter scowled. He may be a rookie when it came to things that went bump in the night, but he was hardly helpless! He had two years of intense combat training at the academy plus the moves he’d learned while walking the beat in New York. The way Peter figured it, he may not be quite as skilled as Dean, but he was perfectly capable, thank you.
“As it is, not only is the spirit out here, but so is the werewolf. Taking those two things on at the same time is just crazy, dude. We’ll both wind up dead.”
He really was starting to hate Dean’s logic. It made it almost impossible to argue. Almost.
“Its still daylight. Don’t the monsters normally come out at night?”
“Give the guy a merit badge,” Dean snapped, his patience obviously gone. “There’s nothing about this case that makes it normal, Professor. Got it? Nothing! Now let’s go.”
Peter really wanted to argue but he bit his tongue and nodded. After the fight in the car it seemed like a good idea to heed the hunter’s word.
The walk back to the car seemed much longer than leaving it. Dean had just passed through the last of the boulders, walking into the open parking lot when the hair on the back of Peter’s neck prickled. He stopped, glancing around. A shiver of fear raced down his spine. This definitely wasn’t the presence of the death omen.
Dean must have sensed it too because whirled around, gun held ready.
Peter saw his green eyes go wide, mouth opening in a yell. “Peter!”
Everything went black.
Back
Next