TS fic: Dzoonokwa Part II

[sealie]

Dzoonokwa
By Sealie

Part Two
Blair sat cross-legged on the floor before his laptop, trying the define the parameters of his meta search. The swirling starfield of his screensaver mocked him.

'Tall. Leathery tree. Hair like straw. Fat, red lips.’ Inputted into Alta Vista had led him to a fishing website. And ‘Fat, red lips’ on its own had raised a sardonic eyebrow from Jim Ellison. Blair had turned the laptop away from the sofa where Sam slept, in a loose curl of adolescent exhaustion.

Logging onto the Cascade U Web of Science anthropological database had not yielded even a scrap of a clue.

“No luck, Chief?” Jim said from where he was baking (a sure sign that he was seriously upset – although his bread was to die for).

“Nah.”

Jim gestured with his mixing spoon at the salt line at the balcony doors. “Look up protective things, then. I don’t believe I said that.”

“Oooh.” Blair liked that idea. “I mean, I know some stuff. We could smudge the apartment with sage.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Hah ha.” Blair tapped at his laptop.

“Look,” Jim began as he pulled off his apron. “I’m going to go down to the department and see what I can find out.”

“About red lipped monsters? At the station?” Blair said incredulously.

“No.” Jim almost but didn’t quite roll his eyes. “Dean and Samuel Winchester. Dollars to donuts there’ll be something on Dean.”

“Jim--” Blair immediately reprimanded. His sentinel was in escape mode; escaping the impossibility that was an attack by a supernatural being.

Jim was halfway out the door. “Keep an eye on the kids, don’t let them leave.”

“I don’t think that that will be a problem,” Blair said to a closed door. Sam slept with his mouth open. The snuffly snore was kind of cute.

^..^

It took him an inordinate amount of time to remember to redo the salt line at the front door after Jim had scuffed it up. But in the meantime, he had found a blessing for Holy Water (he wasn’t too sure if since he was Jewish he could bless water, but if push came to shove he was going to try it) and hoards of information on sacred, silver athames and dhamas which were good weapons against the unclean and undead. The problem was to use a blade you had to get kind of close. That thing had had claws. And where did you buy a sliver dagger in Cascade? Well, there was that occult store on Teavish. Looked like he was going to give Hagen a visit.

On the sofa behind him, Sam smacked his lips and rolled onto his back, waking up.

Blair checked his watch. It was good timing; Dean was due a cognitive check.

“Hey?” he said softly, shutting the lid of his laptop, as Sam blinked at the ceiling.

Sam hummed under his breath, before stretching his skinny limbs like sticks in the over large t-shirt.

“I fell asleep,” he announced, surprised.

“You had a long night.”

“Dean?” Sam cast a confused glance at the fuzzy blanket draped over his legs.

“Still asleep, but it’s time to check on him.”

“Concussion check,” Sam said astutely, throwing off the blanket.

“Yeah,” Blair said slowly, “How old are you, Sam?”

Sam hunched cagily, but answered, “Twelve and a half.”

Ah, the ‘half’ issue, important when you were almost a teenager.

“And Dean?”

“Seventeen, a week ago.”

“You want to check on, Dean? Name, date, where--”

“I know the routine!” Sam said with typical kid waspishness. The thing was most kids didn’t know. Sam disappeared into Blair’s room. Consulting his watch, Blair realised that it was past time for lunch. It had been a fast morning. There was a disgruntled mumble, followed by a squeak of protest, from his room.

The phone rang, startling him. “Fuck, more jumpy than I thought.” Blair scrambled to his feet, running to the phone on the wall by the front door.

“Sandburg,” he announced.

“Chief? Everything okay on the Western Front?”

“Yeah, Sam just woke up. He’s checking on Dean.”

“I’m on the way back to the loft. I picked up gyros and soup. Should be there in about five minutes.”

Blair’s stomach rumbled. “Did you find out anything?”

“Tell you later.”

Dean stumbled out the bedroom, sling askew around his neck. He was pale and given the dark shadows under his eyes, the sleep hadn’t appeared to have helped. But then again he was due another painkiller. Sam stayed close, only a breath between them.

“Jim’s on his way in with food. Should be here in a couple of minutes. You want your pain pill now, or wait until you’ve had something to eat?”

“He needs it now,” Sam piped. “His freckles are out. You only see his freckles when he’s sick.”

“Shut up, dweeb.” Dean fiddled with the sling setting it and his arm more comfortably.

“It’s true!” Sam’s voice rose.

“Sit,” Blair directed.

Dean sat with a thud. “Coffee, man? I need a coffee. Black.”

That was the voice of an addict. Blair wasn’t going to deprive a fellow addict and he had been drinking it since he was thirteen. Caffeine was supposed to help with pain pills – synergism or something.

The drip coffee wasn’t that old. Dean accepted the cup with a heartfelt sigh. Blair shook out two of the painkillers from their container. Voltarol – not the strongest painkiller on the market, but pretty serious. If the doctors had prescribed these, Dean had to be feeling the burn.

Dean tossed the tablets back and drowned them in a scalding mouthful of coffee.

“Where’s--” Dean’s face puckered up, “--Detective Ellison?”

“He’s here,” Jim announced as he opened the door. He held two brown paper bags: one piled with groceries and the other with the distinctive logo of Zorba the Greek’s Restaurant (the owner Philip had a sense of humour). He sniffed. “Coffee?”

“Would you like one?” Blair said innocently.

“It stunts your growth. Ah, see that it has.”

Blair sniffed loudly at the crack, but Sam spoiled his attempt at being aloof by sniggering. Blair mock glared at the small kid, but judging from Dean’s obviously still growing, gangly height, Sam was probably also going to be tall.

Dean slurped at his coffee noisily. Jim shook his head, letting it go, and began to unpack the lunch bag. Sam pounced on a chicken monstrosity with a, “can I have this one, please. Can I?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Sam took a gianormous bite. “I’m starved.”

Dean snorted under his breath.

“I am,” Sam said out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m growing.”

“That you are, Bitch.”

“None of that language in our home,” Jim barked.

Dean dropped his gaze. “He is, though. He’s grown this winter.”

Sam nodded happily. “Uncle Bobby says that I’m probably gonna be taller than Dean and,” he said with relish, “Dad.”

“You need your vitamins.” Blair pushed a container of salad across the table.

Sam took a proactive bite of his sandwich, filling his mouth to capacity.

“So,” Jim said with a gravitas that stopped everyone mid chew, “do you have an emergency way to contact your dad?”

Sam closed his mouth, rabbit-like over his cheek-fulls. Dean froze, bread stuffed between his teeth.

“Your father, John Winchester. Corporal, Company Echo-2/1, ex-marine.”

“You been checking up on us?” Dean spat lettuce as he stood.

“Sit down, son.”

“I’m not your son!”

“Sit down, Dean,” Jim ordered. “It’s a reasonable question. He should be worried about you. If he’s been trying to contact you at your hotel and he got no answer, he’ll be very worried.”

Dean rocked onto the balls of his feet.

“Do you have any idea why he wouldn’t be answering his cell phone?” Jim took Dean’s phone from his own pocket and set it on the table.

“He’s on a job,” Dean said reluctantly, visibly stopping from snatching up the phone. “He doesn’t always have the time to check up on us.”

“Catching a doppelgänger?” Jim said dryly.

“Sam! You didn’t!” Dean rounded on his brother, indignant.

“Dean, sit,” Jim said solidly.

Dean sat, slumping in the hard wood chair.

“I don’t pretend to understand what your dad thinks he’s doing.” He held up his hand stopping Dean’s protest. “I’m talking. The manager at the hotel said that she hasn’t seen your father since you checked in a week ago. Have you had contact in that week?”

Dean glanced at Sam, before shaking his head.

“A week? Shall we make a missing person’s report?” Jim’s tone was neutral.

It was like watching an interrogation, Blair thought somewhat horrified. Jim had all the cards. He had evidently spent a productive morning at the department and had found a wealth of information on his temporary wards and their missing father.

Dean shook his head.

“If he’s gone a week, man. We should file the report,” Blair interjected.

“How often does your dad leave you and Sammy alone, Dean? And for how long?”

“It’s not like that! He’s got a job to do. He’s got a job that no one understands. But someone’s got to do it.”

“Hunting monsters?”

“You saw it. They’re real.” Dean shook his head in frustration. “No one believes. Even when they see them. They kill people. They killed --. It’s not the fuckin’ X-Files. They’re real and they’re out there. You saw that monster in the alley and you don’t believe it.”

Jim interlaced his fingers and set them on the table top. “Was that a doppelgänger?”

“No!” Dean said incredulously. “Doppelgängers are like banshees, they’re like ghosts that haunt you to death. That was a monster, like a werewolf or a Wendigo.”

Wendigo? Blair wondered. Native American monster, I think?

“So the attack was unrelated to your dad’s,” Jim hunted for the word, “job?”

“Are you a hunter?” Dean countered.

“I can be,” Jim answered.

Dean’s mouth fell open.

“Blair?” Jim said, and since he was using Blair’s given name, Blair sat up straighter. “What have you found out this morning?”

“I haven’t identified the being. But it was corporeal and bled, so I’m guessing that silver, especially if it’s blessed, might harm or kill it. We need a knife, man. I think that I can get one from Hagen.”

Sam took a forgotten bite of his sandwich and swallowed, trying to be discrete. Dean just sat watching.

“You haven’t answered the question, Dean. How long does your father normally leave you both alone?”

Dean shook himself. “Usually, it’s one or two nights max. Last year or so, he can stay away three-four.”

“Okay, I am going to make a missing persons report and make a few phone calls. We need to find your dad. If this thing was hunting you, it might be hunting him and he’s gone missing. At the very least he needs to know what has happened. Does that sound reasonable?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean breathed.

^..^

Dean and Sam were sacked out on the sofa watching a video of Godzilla. Jim nursed a beer on the balcony, even though it was early evening and the sun was just setting casting a wintery light. Fucking senses. Fucking sentinel stuff. If he didn’t believe the evidence of his senses, he might as well hand in his detective’s shield and move to the Funny Farm.

Monsters: Wendigos; Werewolves and Doppelgängers.

Perhaps the Funny Farm would be the best place to relocate to.

It was insane.

Inside the loft, Sam laughed at something on the television and Dean chuckled with him.

A familiar chug-chink heralded Blair’s junker of a car pulling into its parking space. The kid tumbled out of the car, big cardboard box in his arms. Jim cringed, wondering what sort of smelly crap Blair had got from Hagen’s Alternative Therapies store. Blair shut the side door with his butt and didn’t bother or forgot to lock it. He rarely bothered; trusting the residents of Prospect.

Jim upturned the bottle into the bare earth in one of the pots that Blair said he would plant organic herbs in come spring. They probably would taste a little better with a hint of beer. The bottle he tossed in the recycle bin set on the balcony for just that purpose. Living with a wannabe hippy could be a little irritating. He slipped back into the loft, only opening the door a fraction, keeping the heat inside. Slowly, he mentally, flicked his sense of touch dial in response to the warmth.

Blair barrelled into the loft shedding coat, scarf, hat and gloves. The two boys turned on the sofa and peered over the back as he started unpacking the box on the kitchen table. The contents seemed to be mainly books. Dean’s interest returned to the television. Sam clambered over the back of the sofa – Jim winced at the sneakers on his upholstery – and went over.

Blair jabbed a finger at a red hardcover book. “That’s a fascinating book. I don’t know if it’s going to be that helpful, though.”

Jim rolled his eyes. How the kid researched anything with the way that he got sidetracked was a mystery. He crossed the room, dialling up his sense of touch a fraction more, enjoying the indoor warmth. There was an intricately wrought knife on the table, the blade edged with three sides. Jim headed on over to check it out. It was badly balanced, not very good for throwing or for slashing. At best it would be a stabbing blade.

“It’s ceremonial, man. But it is silver.”

Jim flipped it, head over tail. The hilt was weighted. It made a satisfying smack in his hand. The hilt was shaped in what Jim charitably thought was an ugly man with sharp teeth or a monkey. He hefted it, to throw it against the main post holding up the ceiling.

“Don’t!” Blair snatched it from his hand. “You’ll probably damage the point.”

“What’s the use of it?”

“The support is hard. People are softer. Throw it at the sofa.”

Dean turned in his blanket nest and watched warily.

“I’m not throwing it at the sofa, I just got it re-covered.” Jim huffed. “Did you get anything of any use?”

Blair waved at the books with the blade. He tutted loudly and pulled out a satisfactorily long, jaggedly sharp knife.

“Silver?”

“Hagen said it was.”

Jim examined it minutely, which for him was pretty minutely.

“Galvanised,” Dean supplied, standing next to him. The kid moved very quietly and had got close before Jim had registered him. “Like good silverware.”

“Will it work?”

Dean shrugged one shoulder. “Should do. Dad’s got a couple.”

“You know we are assuming that this thing’s coming back,” Blair pointed out. “I mean it might not. It might not even be evil just hungry.”

In the face of both Jim and Dean’s stares, Blair raised his chin.

“If it’s a new species like a sasquatch, we could try reasoning with it.”

“It attacks children,” Jim said.

Sam bristled at that.

“You see that thing you don’t try to reason with it. We shoot first, throw knives and ask questions after,” Jim said implacably.

“I’m just saying--” Blair threw his hands in the air. “Fine.”

“I left a message at the motel, giving my cell phone number so if your Dad turns up he can contact us. I’ve also asked Henri – a detective in Major Crimes – to check the hospitals in and around Seattle for your father.”

Dean looked positively constipated.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll go to the motel,” Jim continued relentlessly, “and get your things and bring them back here.”

~*~

“Bye!” Sam waved at Dean and Jim pulling away in the Ford into the campus traffic.

Blair marvelled at Jim’s machinations; he had separated the boys, therefore Dean wouldn’t run away. Sam was utterly fascinated by the artefacts which Blair has collected from his trips to Central Africa. A casual promise to show Sam the artefacts in his office had evolved into a day trip with Blair, acting as assistant when they took the opportunity to hunt through the Rainier Library.

“I’ve never been to a University before.” Wide-eyed Sam took in the dreaming spires.

“This is my building.” Blair pointed at the grey, ornate façade. “It houses Anthropology, Social Studies and Psychology.”

He had to keep a hand wrapped around one of the straps of Sam’s backpack as he drew them to his office in the bowels of the building. Sam patted the strip of paper which declared that ‘Blair Sandburg’ was an occupant in the office.

“You’ve got so much stuff,” Sam marvelled, faced with the mess of an office.

Blair sort of half-grimaced, embarrassed. “It seems to breed. Books, man, food for the soul.”

“I like libraries.” Sam drifted into the office.

“What have you been reading?” Blair plonked down on his seat and force of habit led him to switch on his computer.

“School stuff.” Sam plucked a red, leather backed tome off a stacked shelf.

“What do you like to read?” Blair asked absently, as his email opened. There was nothing flagged up as requiring immediate attention.

“I like studying,” Sam said with a hint of defensiveness.

“Yeah, so do I.” Blair leaned back. He found a quiet moment to simple study the kid. The book hunger bled from every pore. Sam had a book in one hand even as he reached for another. “There is some order,” Blair offered.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Blair pointed at the shelf directly under his collection of handmade leather and sisal bags. “That’s my fiction collection – some of it – you might enjoy the Willard Price books. Amazon Adventure is the first one.”

“Where are the handbags from?” Sam raised an impish eyebrow.

“Kenya, Ghana and Uganda,” Blair answered evenly.

“So many books,” Sam said again, enviously.

“Knock yourself out. What we’re going to do today is think. We don’t know what that thing is, but someone, somewhere will have written about it. We know what it looked like. We will find it.”

“I’ve never done research before.”

“Well, then,” Blair said with a plumy British accent, “time to learn a new skill set.”

“So how are you going to start?” Sam moved around the table to Blair’s side.

“I’ve tried cross referencing its physical description on the on-line databases and I didn’t find anything. Dean said that it looked like a Wendigo, so I’m going to find out about those beings.”

“Okay, so how?”

“Well, this --” Blair clicked on an icon on his computer desktop, “--is the Rainier University Anthropological library database which links to the So-Sci network.” Another click and he opened Netscape. “I also find Alta Vista pretty useful.”

~*~

“Pack up your stuff,” Jim ordered, it shouldn’t take too long; it appeared that they had the contents to fill one or two bags each. “It’ll be safer at the loft.”

“Like Hell. How’s my Dad going find us when he comes back? Because he will come back!” Dean bristled from head to tail.

“I’ve given the motel owner twenty dollars, she will pass on the message,” Jim said evenly. There was a scent of gun oil and old metal. The metallic greasy scent tingled against his lips. There was an old gun, probably a shotgun secreted somewhere.

“Yeah, right.” Dean stood in the centre of their grimy motel-apartment.

“When your Dad does make contact, I’ll give her fifty. I’m good for it.”

“You made of money, man?”

“No,” Jim drawled, “that’s why I’m not paying for your motel room until the end of the week.”

~*~

“So,” Blair summarised, “A Wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of tribes the Ojibwa/Saulteaux, the Cree, and the Innu/Naskapi/Montagnais -- Algonquian-speaking. It’s cannibalistic, malevolent and supernatural. Do you think we’re dealing with a Native American Manitou?”

“You’re asking me?” Sam actually pointed at his chest.

“Yes,” Blair answered without hesitation. “You know more about this than me.”

“Dad kinda kept me out in the dark until I was ten. I only did my first ghost hunt a year ago.”

“You’re a bright kid. You saw it. What did you think when you saw it?”

“I thought it looked like it was made out of sticks, wood.” Sam drew his hand down his face. “Its face was fixed with fat, red lips until it changed and then Detective Ellison’s rounds hurt it.”

“Really?” Blair cocked his head to the side. “Sort of maybe like a mask?”

They both turned and looked at the collection of African masks on the wall opposite the handbags.

“Do you,” Sam hazarded, “have Indian masks?”

“Native American,” Blair corrected without rancour. “No, it’s not my field. But, there’s a whole museum devoted to the North West tribes two minutes walk from this office.”

“Come on, then.” Sam launched off the arm of Blair’s computer chair. “Let’s go.”

“Ha!” Blair echoed the glee of the chase. “Let’s go.”

~*~

“Put the shotgun on the bed, I’ll unload the shells from the gun,” Jim said absently as he cleaned out the bathroom.

Dean swore under his breath. In the privacy of the bathroom, Jim could grin outright. He wished that he’d been a sentinel when he had been training the new recruits in boot camp.


~*~
Part III