Enter the Dragon for seramercury
Title: Enter the Dragon
Author: just_ruth
Recipient: seramercury
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: cats and librarians, sometime in the first two seasons
Author's Notes: the feline vocalizations in this story are taken from the author’s owner.
Judge Hilary Pursuivant was the hero of a number of Weird Tales written by Manly Wade Wellman in the 1920’s. The Judge and his friend Henry Thunstone were called “occult detectives” but behaved much like Hunters.
Summary: A black cat crosses Dean’s path
Word count: 1625
*******
Dean shrugged the collar of his jacket closer to his ears. Not for the first time, he wondered why he and Sam were hanging out in East Bumfuck Massachusetts; it was a tiny college town with a diner that didn’t have any pie (Miss Louisa is feeling poorly, but we’ve got a nice rice puddin’), a bar that didn’t have a pool table, not a whiff of a poker game for five miles and the gas station was charging ridiculous prices for regular.
“So why are we here again?” he demanded.
“There was another death last night,” Sam answered.
Oh. Right. Because some workers putting in digital cable near Hancock cemetery found a stray coffin and even though it had been re-buried inside the grounds, something was running around killing people. Salting and burning the coffin hadn’t helped, so they were here in East Bumfuck to check out the library of the late Judge Hilary (what kind of a name was that for a guy?) Pursuivant - Dad’s journal said it was one of the most extensive occult libraries on the East Coast, while also including the cryptic remark “here be dragons.”
Sam bounded up the marble steps to the small building. Dean scowled. Sam didn’t need to be quite so enthusiastic about going. This place looked so old it probably didn’t even have an Internet connection. If it had one, then it had blocks put on the words that led to the more attractive pornography sites.
“Arro!” The black shape jumped between his feet and Dean pitched forward with a yell, landing on his shins and elbows.
“Ow!” he yelled.
Sam turned in the door way. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” Dean growled. He looked at the bottom of the stairs where a black cat washed its paws. “Later, you son of a bitch,” he promised.
The cat just pointedly licked its shoulder against him.
Dean jammed his hands into his pockets and sulked as Sam talked to the collection’s librarian.
Agnes Merriweather was a sturdy woman in navy with white collar and cuffs, with a posture as straight as a ladder-back chair. She gave the impression of looking at them over the top of glasses even though she wasn’t wearing any. Her pewter-toned hair was wound into a neat bun at the back of her neck.
“Handcock’s cemetery?” she frowned. “I don’t recall, but the Judge did have several pieces of evidence from the area. . .”
“Fine,” said Dean, “we’ll just take a look.”
Oh, but there was no “just taking a look” - only one person could view the archived materials at a time; one piece at a time, while wearing gloves. Fortunately, Sam brought a pair of surgical gloves from the Impala’s trunk. Dean conceded, with some grumbling, that Sam took better notes too.
That left Sam delightedly up to his elbows in research and Dean wandering the stacks like a lost soul.
“‘Allo,” said a voice as he poked through a dismal assortment of magazines. He looked up and didn’t see anyone there.
“‘Allo,” it said again, just as he found an old Smithsonian with a pictorial of Art Noveau bronze figurines (well, at least there were some bare breasts). Dean looked over the top of the magazine.
“‘Allo-oh,” said the baritone a third time.
“What the hell?” Dean stood up and a black cat scooted from under his chair. “Oh, it’s you again!” The cat flipped its tail - a feline version of the finger if he’d ever seen one.
“Cats don’t belong in libraries,” he informed it as he followed it. It vanished around a corner. “The hell?”
“Mrp!” It trotted across the shelf division behind him.
“Now how did you do that? Hey, come here!” He headed down the shelves after it. It made a sharp right and he did too.
The library cart came out of nowhere and caught him amidships. Dean, the cart and the books landed in a noisy heap as the cat scooted away. Dean cursed as he floundered out of the mess.
“Good heavens, young man!” shrilled another librarian. “What do you think you’re doing?” She looked identical to Agnes, except her hair was piled on top of her head and she wore tobacco brown with no collars, no cuffs and an amber brooch.
“There was this cat --” Dean sputtered.
“Cat? If you mean Dragon, he never bothers anyone.” She scowled. “Well? Don’t just stand there. You made this mess, you can clean it up!”
“Dragon? Jesus,” Dad had a weird sense of humor. Dean righted the cart and started dumping books back on it.
“In order young man!” The old bat snapped. Dean cursed under his breath but sorted the books under her gimlet eye. “What brings you to the Judge’s library?”
“My brother’s looking at the Judge’s collection,” Dean finished stacking the cart.
“Ah, that explains why Agnes asked me to check on you.” She nodded. “My name is Agatha Merriweather. Well, come along, clearly you need to be kept busy.”
“B-but!” Dean started to back away. “That’s not necessary, ma’am . . .”
“Raow!” The cat was right behind him. Dean yelped, managed to avoid stepping on it but sat down hard. Agatha picked up the beast.
“That’s enough, Dragon,” she said. Dragon butted her under the chin and purred loudly. She put it down and it puttered away. “Now then, young man . . .”
“I hate cats,” Dean muttered. Dragon turned as if he’d heard that and let his eyes shine at him.
He mellowed as he helped Agatha put the books away. The Judge sounded like he’d been a hunter back in the nineteen twenties although Miss Agatha called him ‘an occult detective.’
He returned to the main desk just as Sam emerged dusty from the archives.
“The only thing I could find was the legend of Sally James,” he reported, “it was back before the Revolutionary War. She was accused of witchcraft and hung from an old sycamore by her neighbors. They supposedly put up a stone warning to keep her buried under garlic.”
“Goodness,” said Agatha, “I remember that story; ‘let none disturb her deathless sleep and o’er her grave wild garlic keep. If she do rise much woe will boast; pray to Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’”
“Well, it couldn’t be Sally,” said Agnes. “Didn’t Father say the Judge settled her bones and replanted the garlic?”
“Ah, but what about her familiar?”
“Familiar?” Dean and Sam turned.
“Oh, yes, she supposedly had a familiar. It was flung into the hole next to grave. Nasty thing, had bat wings, I think.” Agatha frowned. “The garlic may have been keeping that locked away.”
“Would it be capable of killing?” asked Dean.
“I don’t know,” Agatha looked at her sister. Agnes shook her head.
“There’s our answer,” said Sam grimly. “Thank you, ladies.”
The cat jumped up on the desk. To Dean’s annoyance, it butted Sam with its head and Sam began to pet it.
“Come on, Sam, we can’t waste any more time,” he scowled at the cat which flattened its ears at him.
Sam gave the black animal a final rub and followed Dean.
******
Dean flung his arms up to protect his head as the thing dove at him. It was like a bat, but it had the tiny, screaming head of a wild-eyed and furious woman. Sam drenched him with holy water, but missed the creature.
“Shit!” Dean sputtered. “Now what?”
“Would an exorcism work?” Sam wondered.
“I just want to put a silver bullet in it!”
They waited near the place where the original grave had been disturbed. After a few swooping attacks, the familiar seemed to have vanished.
“This is bad,” Dean whispered. “It got rid of three of the guys from the dig already, who’s left?”
“Don’t know,” Sam shifted, keeping his eyes on the sky. “How is it even here? I thought familiars couldn’t live when the witch died.”
“Well, first the Judge settled her, then we burned what was left, what the hell else is there?” Dean paused. “Wait, wasn’t she hung?”
“Yeah, on a sycamore tree.”
“Where? Where’s the damn tree?”
“Uhn . . .”
“Ssstah!” hissed a cat. “Errrrow”
Something shrieked like a crow and a tangle of cat and whatever fell out of the branches above them. The brothers dove aside, Sam slamming into the tree. “Dean! This is a sycamore!”
“Great! I’ll get the chainsaws!”
The familiar flapped in one direction and the cat fled in another.
They had to leave the area in a hurry. The sycamore fell at the wrong angle and wiped out a large section of the cemetery wall and while they saw it land on the familiar, the truck and the bulldozer weren’t what they had planned on.
Sam insisted on stopping and telling the Merriweather sisters what happened. Agnes asked a lot of questions while Agatha made meticulous notes. Dragon sat on a shelf and watched everything intently.
“I still don’t like cats,” Dean muttered as they left.
A lean dark body raced across the road. Dean slammed on the brakes and the Impala swerved into the ditch.
They were forced to stay in East Bumfuck until Virgil could get a new wheel. Miss Louisa was feeling better so at least there was pie. Everywhere they went, Dean swore he spotted at least one black cat a day. Sam thought he was seeing things.
*******
Epilogue:
Dragon sat on the steps of the library, purring to himself. A sharp-featured blond man sat next to him, petting him and rubbing between his shoulder blades just so.
“You’re right,” he said to Dragon. “They do sound like fun. I’ll have to play with the Winchester brothers myself someday.”
“Mrr,” agreed Dragon.
Author: just_ruth
Recipient: seramercury
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: cats and librarians, sometime in the first two seasons
Author's Notes: the feline vocalizations in this story are taken from the author’s owner.
Judge Hilary Pursuivant was the hero of a number of Weird Tales written by Manly Wade Wellman in the 1920’s. The Judge and his friend Henry Thunstone were called “occult detectives” but behaved much like Hunters.
Summary: A black cat crosses Dean’s path
Word count: 1625
*******
Dean shrugged the collar of his jacket closer to his ears. Not for the first time, he wondered why he and Sam were hanging out in East Bumfuck Massachusetts; it was a tiny college town with a diner that didn’t have any pie (Miss Louisa is feeling poorly, but we’ve got a nice rice puddin’), a bar that didn’t have a pool table, not a whiff of a poker game for five miles and the gas station was charging ridiculous prices for regular.
“So why are we here again?” he demanded.
“There was another death last night,” Sam answered.
Oh. Right. Because some workers putting in digital cable near Hancock cemetery found a stray coffin and even though it had been re-buried inside the grounds, something was running around killing people. Salting and burning the coffin hadn’t helped, so they were here in East Bumfuck to check out the library of the late Judge Hilary (what kind of a name was that for a guy?) Pursuivant - Dad’s journal said it was one of the most extensive occult libraries on the East Coast, while also including the cryptic remark “here be dragons.”
Sam bounded up the marble steps to the small building. Dean scowled. Sam didn’t need to be quite so enthusiastic about going. This place looked so old it probably didn’t even have an Internet connection. If it had one, then it had blocks put on the words that led to the more attractive pornography sites.
“Arro!” The black shape jumped between his feet and Dean pitched forward with a yell, landing on his shins and elbows.
“Ow!” he yelled.
Sam turned in the door way. “You okay?”
“Peachy,” Dean growled. He looked at the bottom of the stairs where a black cat washed its paws. “Later, you son of a bitch,” he promised.
The cat just pointedly licked its shoulder against him.
Dean jammed his hands into his pockets and sulked as Sam talked to the collection’s librarian.
Agnes Merriweather was a sturdy woman in navy with white collar and cuffs, with a posture as straight as a ladder-back chair. She gave the impression of looking at them over the top of glasses even though she wasn’t wearing any. Her pewter-toned hair was wound into a neat bun at the back of her neck.
“Handcock’s cemetery?” she frowned. “I don’t recall, but the Judge did have several pieces of evidence from the area. . .”
“Fine,” said Dean, “we’ll just take a look.”
Oh, but there was no “just taking a look” - only one person could view the archived materials at a time; one piece at a time, while wearing gloves. Fortunately, Sam brought a pair of surgical gloves from the Impala’s trunk. Dean conceded, with some grumbling, that Sam took better notes too.
That left Sam delightedly up to his elbows in research and Dean wandering the stacks like a lost soul.
“‘Allo,” said a voice as he poked through a dismal assortment of magazines. He looked up and didn’t see anyone there.
“‘Allo,” it said again, just as he found an old Smithsonian with a pictorial of Art Noveau bronze figurines (well, at least there were some bare breasts). Dean looked over the top of the magazine.
“‘Allo-oh,” said the baritone a third time.
“What the hell?” Dean stood up and a black cat scooted from under his chair. “Oh, it’s you again!” The cat flipped its tail - a feline version of the finger if he’d ever seen one.
“Cats don’t belong in libraries,” he informed it as he followed it. It vanished around a corner. “The hell?”
“Mrp!” It trotted across the shelf division behind him.
“Now how did you do that? Hey, come here!” He headed down the shelves after it. It made a sharp right and he did too.
The library cart came out of nowhere and caught him amidships. Dean, the cart and the books landed in a noisy heap as the cat scooted away. Dean cursed as he floundered out of the mess.
“Good heavens, young man!” shrilled another librarian. “What do you think you’re doing?” She looked identical to Agnes, except her hair was piled on top of her head and she wore tobacco brown with no collars, no cuffs and an amber brooch.
“There was this cat --” Dean sputtered.
“Cat? If you mean Dragon, he never bothers anyone.” She scowled. “Well? Don’t just stand there. You made this mess, you can clean it up!”
“Dragon? Jesus,” Dad had a weird sense of humor. Dean righted the cart and started dumping books back on it.
“In order young man!” The old bat snapped. Dean cursed under his breath but sorted the books under her gimlet eye. “What brings you to the Judge’s library?”
“My brother’s looking at the Judge’s collection,” Dean finished stacking the cart.
“Ah, that explains why Agnes asked me to check on you.” She nodded. “My name is Agatha Merriweather. Well, come along, clearly you need to be kept busy.”
“B-but!” Dean started to back away. “That’s not necessary, ma’am . . .”
“Raow!” The cat was right behind him. Dean yelped, managed to avoid stepping on it but sat down hard. Agatha picked up the beast.
“That’s enough, Dragon,” she said. Dragon butted her under the chin and purred loudly. She put it down and it puttered away. “Now then, young man . . .”
“I hate cats,” Dean muttered. Dragon turned as if he’d heard that and let his eyes shine at him.
He mellowed as he helped Agatha put the books away. The Judge sounded like he’d been a hunter back in the nineteen twenties although Miss Agatha called him ‘an occult detective.’
He returned to the main desk just as Sam emerged dusty from the archives.
“The only thing I could find was the legend of Sally James,” he reported, “it was back before the Revolutionary War. She was accused of witchcraft and hung from an old sycamore by her neighbors. They supposedly put up a stone warning to keep her buried under garlic.”
“Goodness,” said Agatha, “I remember that story; ‘let none disturb her deathless sleep and o’er her grave wild garlic keep. If she do rise much woe will boast; pray to Father, Son and Holy Ghost.’”
“Well, it couldn’t be Sally,” said Agnes. “Didn’t Father say the Judge settled her bones and replanted the garlic?”
“Ah, but what about her familiar?”
“Familiar?” Dean and Sam turned.
“Oh, yes, she supposedly had a familiar. It was flung into the hole next to grave. Nasty thing, had bat wings, I think.” Agatha frowned. “The garlic may have been keeping that locked away.”
“Would it be capable of killing?” asked Dean.
“I don’t know,” Agatha looked at her sister. Agnes shook her head.
“There’s our answer,” said Sam grimly. “Thank you, ladies.”
The cat jumped up on the desk. To Dean’s annoyance, it butted Sam with its head and Sam began to pet it.
“Come on, Sam, we can’t waste any more time,” he scowled at the cat which flattened its ears at him.
Sam gave the black animal a final rub and followed Dean.
******
Dean flung his arms up to protect his head as the thing dove at him. It was like a bat, but it had the tiny, screaming head of a wild-eyed and furious woman. Sam drenched him with holy water, but missed the creature.
“Shit!” Dean sputtered. “Now what?”
“Would an exorcism work?” Sam wondered.
“I just want to put a silver bullet in it!”
They waited near the place where the original grave had been disturbed. After a few swooping attacks, the familiar seemed to have vanished.
“This is bad,” Dean whispered. “It got rid of three of the guys from the dig already, who’s left?”
“Don’t know,” Sam shifted, keeping his eyes on the sky. “How is it even here? I thought familiars couldn’t live when the witch died.”
“Well, first the Judge settled her, then we burned what was left, what the hell else is there?” Dean paused. “Wait, wasn’t she hung?”
“Yeah, on a sycamore tree.”
“Where? Where’s the damn tree?”
“Uhn . . .”
“Ssstah!” hissed a cat. “Errrrow”
Something shrieked like a crow and a tangle of cat and whatever fell out of the branches above them. The brothers dove aside, Sam slamming into the tree. “Dean! This is a sycamore!”
“Great! I’ll get the chainsaws!”
The familiar flapped in one direction and the cat fled in another.
They had to leave the area in a hurry. The sycamore fell at the wrong angle and wiped out a large section of the cemetery wall and while they saw it land on the familiar, the truck and the bulldozer weren’t what they had planned on.
Sam insisted on stopping and telling the Merriweather sisters what happened. Agnes asked a lot of questions while Agatha made meticulous notes. Dragon sat on a shelf and watched everything intently.
“I still don’t like cats,” Dean muttered as they left.
A lean dark body raced across the road. Dean slammed on the brakes and the Impala swerved into the ditch.
They were forced to stay in East Bumfuck until Virgil could get a new wheel. Miss Louisa was feeling better so at least there was pie. Everywhere they went, Dean swore he spotted at least one black cat a day. Sam thought he was seeing things.
*******
Epilogue:
Dragon sat on the steps of the library, purring to himself. A sharp-featured blond man sat next to him, petting him and rubbing between his shoulder blades just so.
“You’re right,” he said to Dragon. “They do sound like fun. I’ll have to play with the Winchester brothers myself someday.”
“Mrr,” agreed Dragon.