Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 belongs to Gekko Film Corporation MGM Productions, it is not mine, nor are any of the characters who appear within. Supernatural belongs to the WB television network. Notes: part 2 of Dancing with the Devil series. Picks up where “The Night Watch” left off. Contains spoilers from the 1st season of Supernatural. And the 7th season of SG-1.
“Those Who Hunt by Night” by Karen
The moon sailed along overhead like an overloaded ship lost in a foggy night-bound sea and the scudding clouds driven along by a chill autumn wind only enhanced the impression.
By the time the uniformed Illinois police officers and the emergency personnel completed their duties and departed, the moon had already reached the point in its cycle where it was a shade from waxing full.
In some places, the unseen observer hidden in among the scrub bushes lining either side of the road would have called it a hunter’s moon. In the back of her mind, she finds that quite appropriate, the only question, really, is whether the roles of should be reversed, if her target is still the hunter, or if he has now numbered among the hunted. It’s an interesting dilemma, one to be savored and perhaps shared among her fellows.
She has waited crouched down among the shadows, biding her time and waiting for just the right opportunity to go out to the clearing on the far side of the road and make her own investigation. She could have delegated the job to one among her followers, but she has recently learned from experience, sometimes it goes back to that old saying, if you want something done right the first time, do it yourself .
The watcher, going by only outward appearances, is a petite blonde female and most likely in her early twenties.
She shuffled her feet and ground the toes of her metal-spiked boot heels into the soft, yielding ground. She has been waiting a long time, not just here beside the road, but waiting for decades. Demons have lots of time, but they are not known for exhibiting overly perfect patience.
Something that Meg has observed quite often of late in dealing with her own personal enemy, the Winchesters, trickling down from the father, John, down to his sons, Dean and Sam.
Demons are not known for being tender-hearted, but in a wayward part of her mind, she almost feels sorry for them, almost, but not quite.
When the clearing at last emptied of people she moved forward careful not to disturb the distinct imprint in soft dirt, crouching down to trace the outline from top to bottom and around on either side. She traced the length, breadth, and imprinted the exact configurations on her mind, for future reference. She stopped to suck in a deep breath of the chill evening air and put one slim hand on her hips.
She sniffed, an action remarkably similar to that of a mountain lion getting and holding on to the scent of its quarry near at hand. “John, John, what have you gotten yourself into this time? That’s the problem with do-gooders in general, once you start you end up meddling in just about everything.”
All the people that had tramped around and over the original indentation had pretty much smudged away its clear definitions, but she knew, without a doubt, that she was on the right track.
Interlude
Meanwhile John had taken Janet to a mall to buy new clothes since he tended to travel light and alone and his boys where off conducting the family business on their own, he had very little in the way of either feminine company or clothing. Janet certainly could not go around in his spare clothing, not that he did not think she looked quite attractive with his flannel plaid jacket hanging down below her slender waist. So, he had loaded up his truck, and taken her shopping. The clothes that she had been wearing when he had literally stumbled across her had long since been thrown out.
John had been shopping for women’s apparel many times with his wife, Mary, many times so he was not that uncomfortable or nervous about the task, it was just a little awkward standing ‘guard’ as he tended to think of the duty of waiting outside of the fitting rooms, holding a women’s purse, and exchanging one garment after another as they either failed or met with said woman’s approval.
Finally, Janet, whom he had come to think of a sensible, pragmatic and level-headed person, came out with an armful of clothing that she wanted. “Success?” John asked casually.
“I think so,” replied Janet with a smile. “Thanks for going to all the effort, it must be some kind of genetic code for guys to put up with this sort of thing and women to want to go through with it.”
“Thanks, Doc,” John quipped. “Next on the agenda, we grab some diner, it’s getting pretty late and I could eat.”
“Sounds good to me,” she replied.
***
The diner is crowded and the regular patrons seem to be mostly blue collar workers and their families, sprinkled here and there with a few semi-truck drivers off the interstate, and farmers. John feels that dressed as they are now they should have no trouble at all with blending right into the mix.
They chose a table and scanned the menu while waiting for the girl to come over to take their orders.
“So, do you always camp out of budget hotel rooms?” asked Janet by way of making conversation.
“No, when just when I’m traveling on the road for business,” John quickly replied. “I’m from Kansas, originally, my business just takes all over these United States.”
“Ever been to Colorado,” asked Janet as she scanned the menu, wondering if she could get something that was not too greasy, perhaps even a salad.
“A couple of times, my boys where up there recently. Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason,” Janet shrugged. “I used to work in Colorado Springs.”
“I know you said you’re a doctor, mind if I ask in what specialty?”
“General practice.” Janet put down the menu and brought her head up so that she held eye contact with John, “How long have we been together, what is it, the better of two, maybe three weeks?”
“Something like that,” John said, nodding in the direction of the girl waiting tables and indicating that he was ready to place his order. The girl came over with a pad of paper in hand. “BLT and a Miller Lite beer me. Janet?”
“Taco salad with a side of fruit and water.”
“Got it,’ replied the girl, “Anything else?”
“No, that should do it, thank you,” Janet said. “I’ve been debating whether or not to tell you about something,” began shout before she trailed off into an awkward silence. “
“Whatever it is, your secret is safe with me, I hope you know that by now,” John replied.
“When I think back to how you found me, lying on the ground all twisted and bent out of shape, I told you afterwards that my memories were just as scrambled. But I distinctly recall being in some kind of fight, and then someone firing at me, point blank.”
“Bad dream?”
“Hardly, unless I’ve begun dreaming in vivid color. “I should be dead, but I’m not, how do you explain that?”
“This might sound a little crazy, but sometimes it’s better not to look a gift horse in the mouth, if you’ll pardon my use of a time-honored cliché.” John wondered if he might be wrong in this instance by relying on his hard won instinct and experience, but there was so much more that he wanted to know about her, so much that might wish to share, not that his wife, Mary, was dead, and there no way to bring her back.
Janet tapped her fingers on the edge of the table, breaking eye contact and let her head drop so that the bangs of her brown hair fell across her eyes. “Funny you should say that. You know, a public place like this might not be the ideal locale for this discussion, but I can’t think of better time.”
“
**
It had been the better part of the last fifteen years since John Winchester had encountered a creature capable of identifying specific markers of someone that had quite literally been to other worlds. The thing that he was having the most difficulty wrapping his head around was the fact that this particular marker was one that his journal did not have an entry for, after all, unless one believed in urban myths and elaborate paranoid conspiracy theories; there were no such things as alien and if that logic followed; no such things as alien abductions, or off-world travel.
The realties of the paranormal and the supernatural was enough of a job to start to worry and chase after ‘little green men. In John Winchester’s mind ‘little green men and conspiracy theories were things better left to those who wrote articles for the sensational pulp newspapers and sci-fi techies.
So when he first ran across the head of a cult, he first thought was: ‘Great, another would-be scam artist out to make a fast buck by brain-washing the gullible,. There’s nothing remarkable about that, Hell, it happens almost everyday.
At last that was what was running through his mind until he found out that his surmises about it being a cult was right on target; what he had not counted on was that power behind the cult leader was in fact, very alien, not paranormal. He had begun to feel quite out of his depth.
John Winchester had not lived as long as he had in chosen profession to ignore his gut instincts, and as had been proved time and again, his instinct was right on target.
When he arrived home again, he had not mentioned a word of what had happened at the retreat compound or the mysterious anonymous letter he had received from an organization with the letterhead initials NID, to either of his sons. The older one, Dean might have understood, but not Sam, he was too young, barely out of toddler hood and Dean, well, at the time Dean had his own issues to be dealt with in his own unique fashion. The letter and its contents had long since been wadded up into a ball and thrown away, but he could not stop thinking about it.
Present Day
Meg had followed the trail, and had momentarily become confused as the track appeared to cross and then rectos the same area, before she picked it up once again. She did not have the high tech gadgets for following a moving target, what she did have was a keen sense of direction, a good nose, her prey either did not realized that they were being hunted, or even better from her point of view, did not care.
Either way, Meg, thought in the back of her mind, John Winchester would soon feel the moment of his life slipping away, and when the final moment came, she would be the one to kill him. The thought felt right, it felt that it would bring full circle an ongoing sort of grudge between the two of them; one that Meg intended to win at all costs. If the women, Janet, was her name, got in the way, ‘Well, then,’ Meg said aloud, “that will be just an added bonus, won’t it?”
Scene 5 Fight Scene
Janet’s thoughts were not so muddled by her recent ordeal that she could not sense danger when it approached. After all, she had been on the knife’s edge of breaking her non-disclosure oath to tell a civilian about her work with the United States Air Force and the Stargate Command Program, but something had held her back.
Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was loyalty, at this point she did not really care. She liked and trusted John Winchester, however, it did not take much to realized that he was being equally close-mouthed and leery about telling her too much information about the specific nature of his own ‘business.’.
Meg came up behind them, having worked herself up into a controlled frenzy. Under other circumstances she would have brought along her henchmen, but John Winchester, whether or not he was aware of it, had earned himself her attention alone.
John was at the door of their hotel room and at this time of night the hallways were deserted, Janet stood off to his left her hands full of plastic shopping bags, waiting while John fumbled with the key card to the locked door.
John’s attention was immediately diverted from the keys when they both heard the soft scuffling sound of leather boots on the plush burgundy carpet. John and Janet turned around and saw the petite but compact form of a blond woman running toward them at full tilt from the opposite direction.
Judging by his rigid stance and the muscles of his shoulders tensing up, Janet recognized the warning signs of danger and took up a defensive stance as well.
At that moment John reached into the interior lining of his leather jacket and pulled out a gun. “Someone you know?” Janet asked.”
“Someone I would very much like to not know at all,” replied John tersely and under his breath.
“John, John” Meg taunted, “How many times do we have to do this little two-step maneuver? You know that little pea-shooter of yours can’t kill me.” Meg sprung forward and made a grab for the trailing sleeve of Janet’s coat. “I wonder how many loved ones you’ve lost by now, John. What’s one more or less?”
“Let her go! I’m the one you want!” demanded John.
“How right you are,” replied Meg with a nasty throaty chuckle. “Lucky you, you get a Get out Jail Free card tonight.” She tossed Janet aside and the force of it knocked Janet back into where John stood with his gun.
“This is working out well,” Janet griped.
“Yeah, I know. Janet, go inside the room, and wait for me, “ John said.
“I’ll do it, only because it makes sense, not because you think I can’t take care of myself,” replied Janet in a low whisper.
“We’re not arguing about this, are we?”
“No.
“Good.”
John readied his Colt Revolver, primed and locked the firing mechanism, thumbing off the safety and took aim, thinking in the back of his mind, that it was too damn convenient that his nemesis, in the form of a young blond girl, had been able to track him down this easily. In the back of his mind, he kept thinking, ‘well I gave it a damn good try, but I guess it’s true, you can’t outrun Death, but you can make the bastard work for it.’
Meg closed the gap between them, John’s knuckled locked over the barrel of the gun had turned white but he never wavered.
The retort of the gun firing echoed throughout the hallway, and time seemed to stand still while everything else around him seemed to speed out, but that was just a trick of his overactive imagination. The Colt had been designed specifically for taking out paranormal targets, so when it hit the demon square in the chest, it made a resounding thump, thud and a wet splat. John did not wait to get in another shot, opened the locked door, and ran inside. “Come, on, we’re packing up, and getting the hell out of here.”
Conclusion
“Thanks,” Janet said wryly.
“For saving my life, again. Do you remember, shortly after we first met, I asked you if you made a habit of saving ‘damsels in distress.”
“Yeah, but only the pretty ones,” John teased, but seriously, you’re welcome, and I bet a smart woman like you had probably wondered and come up with a bunch of ideas about why this weird shit seems to follow me around like a bad smell, huh?”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Janet said. “Truth to tell, I’m not exactly a stranger to having weird stuff happen to me, to borrow your rather colorful expression.”
“I guess, I’d prefer not to have to put into a situation where I have to ‘fess’ up and tell you the truth.” John shook his head and plunked down on the double bed of their hotel room. “It took me forever and day to even admit as much to my youngest, but maybe I should tell you, after all, it was because of my business that your life was put in danger back there.”
“Honestly, I am really being eaten up inside with curiosity,” Janet replied. “I’ll understand and if it’s something that you are uncomfortable talking about with outsiders.”
“I’d like to tell you, Janet, really I would, but the problem is, I’m not uncomfortable talking about it, it’s just that I’m not certain that I should.” John sighed and
“Try me,” Janet, “I am a very good listener, I may not remember everything that’s happened up to and after the accident, but I do remember that.”
John closed his eyes and began to speak, “Almost twenty years ago, this all begun with the death of my wife, Mary, our house burned down and I barely escaped with our sons, Dean and Sammy.”
“My God,” Janet whispered.
“Thanks, but I’m afraid that the Almighty had very little to do with it,” John said and then added. “It was work of the “Other Side” if you will that was responsible.”
“Are you telling me that the devil was behind it?”
“Demon, actually,” John said. “Paranormal and supernatural have become pretty much a routine part of my life now.”
“I’, I’m not sure what to think, I never really gave much thought to proving or disproving whether or not the paranormal existed, I’m a doctor, I have to deal with the practical and provable facts, not superstition, but, this, this is just too weird.” Janet said as she sat down on the other bed, running her fingers through her tangled brown hair.
“If you want out, I’ll understand, if you have friends or family in Colorado Springs, we can contact them…” John trailed off.
“No, at least not yet, not until I can wrap my head around everything that’s happened, but thank you for the offer.”
Continued in chapter 3: The One that Got Away
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