Masterpost Part IV: Moose Part V: Squirrel
And where was I, while my brother was facing off against a witch-turned-apex-predator? I was scuttling between the bag of Wiccan crap and the marble basin, gathering everything we needed on the lip of the fountain. The moon was hanging low in the west now, and I knew we didn’t have a lot of time.
I deliberately shut my ears to the snarling from the tiger and the bellowing from Sam. I couldn’t help him, not as a squirrel, and if I tried to interfere it would only end with both of us getting killed.
I’d heard enough of the conversation to know the tiger was the witch who’d cast the spell and managed to get caught in it. (Funny how poetic justice never works in our favour, isn’t it, princess?) I didn’t know if witches could cast spells in tiger form, but I wasn’t about to assume that they couldn’t. And the only thing I could do to help my brother was to turn back into a human and find a way to disable the tiger before it killed him.
If I was too late…
I forced myself not to think of that. I wasn’t going to be too late. I was going to save Sammy.
I grabbed the birch twigs - the last thing I needed for the spell - and I was about to drag them to the fountain when I heard running footsteps. Not an animal. A person.
I ran as fast as I could, reaching the base of the fountain just as a figure burst through the trees. It didn’t take me more than a second to recognize him - it was the hunter who’d shot Sam. I would know the son of a bitch anywhere, and if I’d had any doubts, the scratch marks still on his face from my teeth and claws would’ve told me the truth.
Crap.
Sammy! I yelled, as loudly as I could. Look out!
Sam’s head jerked up - too late. The gun went off, and I saw Sam fall. It felt like it was in slow motion, and despite my horror I was rooted to the spot. I watched his forelegs give way, sending him to his knees, and slowly, slowly, his hind legs buckled too.
No.
There had to be a way. Bambi’s dad got him back on his feet after a gunshot, right?
(Of course I’ve seen Bambi, Sam. I had a stupid little brother who adored the movie and made me sit through it at least once a month.)
Sammy! I called. Get up. Get up!
(And, for the record, this makes you Bambi.)
Sammy, get UP!
Sam must have heard me, because his ears perked up a little. He started to struggle to his feet - kid still didn’t have his coordination sorted out - but the hunter moved, pressing the muzzle of his rifle to Sam’s head.
“Don’t even think about it,” he snapped.
Crap.
Right. Only one thing for it. I had to turn myself human and then I could even the odds and teach the idiot once and for all that my baby brother was off limits.
With the birch twigs in my teeth, I scrambled up to the rim of the bowl.
“No!” the hunter yelled. “You! Squirrel! Stop! Stop right there or the moose gets it.”
I turned.
The hunter was staring right at me, but he still had the rifle, rock-steady, held to Sam’s head.
I glanced up at the sky. Fifteen minutes, tops, maybe less. We didn’t have time for me to negotiate.
I estimated the distance. Twenty, maybe thirty feet. I could probably make the jump, and if I went for his eyes I could disable him. But it would take time, and that was the one thing we didn’t have.
“Get away from the fountain,” the hunter snarled, pressing the rifle harder against Sam’s head.
Sam made a tiny whimpery little noise that set my blood boiling.
Right. Screw the spell. If we couldn’t get it done in time, it was only a question of waiting six months for the Spring Equinox to try again. If the son of a bitch actually managed to do serious damage to Sammy…
I gathered myself for the jump.
There was a sudden snarl. The tiger, which I’d managed to completely forget about, sprang from nowhere, straight at the hunter. He screamed, pulling the rifle away from Sam and trying to shoot it. The shot went wide. The tiger was on him.
I turned away. It didn’t matter what they did to each other. Neither of them was near Sam.
I shoved everything off the rim of the fountain into the water. Somewhere behind me I could hear the man screaming, the tiger snarling, and thuds and thumps and scratchy sounds that I didn’t want to think about.
The surface of the water was rippling, now, moonlight glittering on its surface. As I watched, it started to gleam brighter and brighter until it was shining like a searchlight. After a moment, it dimmed, still shining but not blinding anymore.
I threw a glance over my shoulder at Sam. He was alive, but he didn’t look up to moving.
I dived into the water.
It was like the way I’d felt turning into a squirrel, but in reverse. As soon as I hit the water I felt like my lungs were on fire, my fur was on fire, my bones were on fire. The world was spinning out of focus. I couldn’t move or breathe or think -
And then the pain was receding, leaving a mild tingling feeling in my skin. My head broke the surface of the water.
I stood up on my human legs.
Fortunately (looks like sometimes happenstance does work in our favour, Sammy) I had my clothes. It would’ve been awkward to go looking for fig leaves in the middle of nowhere.
I scrambled out of the fountain and took in the scene. The hunter had exchanged his gun for a knife, and he’d managed to get a couple of good hits in, but he was definitely on the losing side of the fight. The tiger was a few seconds away from turning the hunter into hamburger meat.
I’d worry about that later. Right now my priority was Sam - Sam, who had raised his head enough to watch me but hadn’t moved otherwise.
I got out of the fountain. My clothes were sodden, too many layers soaked through and clinging to me, making me shiver in the cold September air.
As soon as I was out of the water the tiger stopped rolling around with the hunter and looked up. It started towards me. I ducked, hand instinctively going for a gun I didn’t have, but it wasn’t interested in me.
I sidestepped and ran to Sam.
As I dropped to my knees beside him I heard a shot. I crouched, instinctively shielding Sam from whatever was going on behind me. He butted my hand with his nose, making a whuffling noise that I might’ve understood if I’d still been a squirrel.
I turned.
The tiger was on the ground a foot from the fountain, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. The hunter was behind it, rifle cocked.
Sam made a distressed sound, looking up at me with big moose eyes.
“Oh, come on, Sammy,” I said. “You’re not serious. That thing almost ate you!”
Sam nudged my hand again.
“Fine.” I raised my voice. “Hey! Dude! That’s an endangered animal, you probably shouldn’t kill it. At least until we’ve figured out what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” the hunter began, but I cut in firmly.
“Later.” There were barely ten minutes of moonlight left. “Need to fix my brother first.” I got a hand under Sam’s chin. “Sammy, come on. I can’t carry you like this. You need to walk. Come on. Up.”
Sam looked sad.
“Sammy. No giving up, now. Get up.”
Sam struggled to his feet. There was no way I could help him walk - he was too damn big - so I settled for guiding him, walking in front of him with one hand on his muzzle. He was stumbling, staggering, blood still leaking from the claw marks down his sides, but there would be time to deal with that later.
“Into the water,” I grunted when we got to the fountain. “I don’t want to get in again in case it works in reverse… In you go, Sam.”
I helped him lift his hooves over the rim, and then he went down again - in the water, fortunately, this time. I stood back to watch. As an observer I could see it was far quicker than it felt. In less than a minute, Sam, my Sam, was coughing and sputtering in the water.
I reached out quickly to help him up.
The water was pink-tinged when he managed to get out. Sam was still bleeding from the gashes and the bullet wound. I grabbed him and helped him sit. He was shivering - cold, shock, I couldn’t tell.
“Dean,” he gasped, “the tiger.”
“Sammy, we’ve got more important things to worry about.”
“Dean, there’s just a few minutes left. Come on.”
I sighed. Life would be a lot easier if Sam didn’t have such a damn conscience. But then I’d also probably have done a lot more crap to be ashamed of. (There, I admitted it. Happy?) What can you do? Not like you can turn the annoying boy-scout tendencies on and off.
“Fine,” I said. “You stay here and keep breathing.” I went to the hunter. “Dude. Let it go.”
“You don’t know what she’s done!” the hunter protested.
“I know you shot my brother. Twice. So if I were you I would try being a little less self-righteous.”
“She’s a witch! She turned my partner into a hamster!”
“Yeah, and she’ll get what’s coming to her. As a human. Let her go. You can keep the gun trained on her.”
“You guys must be hunters. You know what witches can do. Jimmy was a hamster for a year before I figured out how to break the spell. He still won’t do anything all day but run on a giant exercise wheel.”
I don’t know what I would’ve done, but at that point the tiger solved the problem for me by leaping away, right into the fountain. The hunter yelled, pointing his rifle at it.
The last of the moonlight shone on the water, now faintly pink with Sam’s blood.
Nothing happened.
The tiger looked up at the sky. We all looked up at the sky, staring like a bunch of pointy-eared idiots in a fantasy movie until the moon disappeared.
“What happened?” the hunter asked.
“Blood,” Sam gasped. He was on his knees grasping the rim of the fountain to stay upright. “Blood… in the water. Spell won’t work.”
I let out a breath. “Talk about poetic justice.”
The tiger snarled, gathering itself to pounce. I dived for Sam at the same time as the hunter raised his gun. I pulled Sam’s head down and tucked it against my shoulder. He didn’t need to see this.
I waited, holding my breath.
“Go,” the hunter said at last. “By the time the fountain’s running clean again… Well, good luck getting another hunter to come do this.” He glanced at me. “She had hex bags across the street, probably trying to catch whoever passed when the time was right and hoping she’d luck out and get a hunter. The spell only works twice a year, just like the counter-spell. I thought I got rid of all the bags after she cursed Jimmy but I must’ve missed a couple.”
The tiger snarled at us.
“Don’t even think about it,” the hunter said. “I will shoot. Go, and I’ll give you an hour’s head start before I call animal control. I expect you’ll enjoy life in a zoo.”
After a moment’s consideration, the tiger turned and bounded off into the forest.
“Why doesn’t she just do the counter-spell herself?” I asked.
“Too big, I guess. How does a tiger sneak into a Wiccan supplies store?”
I eased Sam down, and that was when I remembered that the hunter shot him. Twice.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, obviously thinking the same thing. “I… I think I lost my mind a bit. Jimmy was my best friend, and now… Well. Woke me up, you and your brother being willing to help her after she… Yeah. Anything I can do to make it up to you…”
“Well, I don’t have my cell phone, my brother’s hurt, and we’re in the middle of nowhere, so…”
“I have a car. Not too far. I can get you back to the witch’s house, and you should be able to get to your car from there. I need to find that last hex bag, anyway.”
“Sure.” I got to my feet and went to him. “I’m Dean Winchester, that’s my brother Sam.”
He held out his hand. “The Winchesters. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Frank.”
“Frank,” I repeated. I ignored his hand, drew back my own, and punched him in the jaw. He went down like a sack of potatoes. “That’s for hurting Sam. Do it again and that’s going to be a bullet. We clear?”
“Abundantly,” Frank groaned, getting to his feet. “You want to get back to civilization now?”
“Sure, man. Lead the way.” I went to help Sam to his feet. “Come on, kiddo. We’ll get you patched up.”
Notes and Acknowledgements