Vampires, Werewolves and Hunters… oh my. by Laurie Whitlock

Non-Canon Awards; Mythical Creatures

Title: Vampires, Werewolves and Hunters… oh my.

Pen Name: Laurie Whitlock

Rating: M

Genre: Fantasy

Word Count: 4,479

Pairing: Dean/Bella

Beta: Tammygrrrl

Summary: (255 Character Limit) Bella knew that vampires were real, thanks to her ex boyfriend Edward Cullen who happened to be one, and she eventually found out that werewolves were real, also thanks to her ex best friend Jacob Black. What she didn’t know was that there were Hunters in the world and they knew how to kill everything: because there were a lot of things Bella thought to be fairy tales that were real.

Disclaimer: I own nothing; all characters belong to S. Meyers and Eric Kripke and the CW Network.

 

~xx~

First, it was finding out that vampires were real. It wasn’t that big of a deal after I found out, in fact I was pretty cool with it. Edward told me that there were really only two rules: one, if you hunt humans, don’t do it where you live, and two, never expose yourself to humans unless you are willing to kill them. The rules were pretty simple and of course, I wasn’t going to tell anyone that the Cullens were in fact vampires because really, who would believe me?

And then, after my eighteenth, it all changed. Jasper tried to take a bite out of me; for which I don’t blame him, and then Edward decided that he no longer wanted to play “protect the human” and after telling me that I was only a cause of distraction for him, he left, taking his whole family with him, and I was broken for awhile.

Then, after the Cullens leaving, my best friend Jacob Black helped me out of my pit of despair and I found out another secret, werewolves were real also and my best friend and his entire tribe were werewolves; they just weren’t true Children of the Moon. Learning that werewolves were real was a little scary at first but it grew on me and then, just like Edward, Jacob up and left me as well.

I was broken again but recovered more quickly than I did when Edward left. I threw myself into school and work and after graduation I told dad that I wanted to go on a vacation. He agreed that I needed a break and so, I booked a plane ticket and went to visit mom and that’s when I found out a third secret.

~xx~

I had been at mom’s for a couple of days and I was starting to notice different things in the house. At first I thought it was just part of mom’s quirky charms and I let it go. I was looking for a book to read; mom had a wide array of books on many topics- I closed my eyes and grabbed a book at random. When I opened them again, I saw that the book was a journal, I was going to put it back again but there was something about it that made me crack it open. It was mom’s, I could tell by the handwriting, but the thing that was odd was that it wasn’t typical stuff you put in a journal, it was more along the lines of a guide book for hunting… mythical creatures. I wondered if perhaps mom was going to write a book or something and these were her notes.

Part of my brain knew that I should put the journal back but I kept on reading. The pages were full of scratched out words, pictures, text in Latin, Greek, Roman and some that I couldn’t place. The pages were titled with things like, “Werewolves and How to Kill Them,” “Djinn and How to Kill Them,” “Demons and How to Exorcise Them” and multiple others.

I was so lost in the lore of the journal that I didn’t hear mom come home and I nearly jumped into the air when I heard her say, “Bella, where did you find that?”

I looked up at her after picking up the book and said, “On that shelf there. I was looking for something to read and I came across this. I know I should have put it back but I couldn’t stop reading. I’m sorry to invade your personal thoughts.”

“No, its okay Bella,” mom said with a sigh, “It’s about time that I tell you about my life anyway. You are old enough now.”

“Your life? What do you mean mom?”

Mom placed her duffel bag on the floor and walked over to sit on the chair that was opposite me. She took a deep breath and then said, “Bella, I am a Hunter.”

I was confused for a minute and said, “What, like deer? So is dad.”

“No, not deer Bella. More like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, djinns and anything else you could possible think of.”

I was still confused and mom could clearly see it on my face. She sighed again and said, “Everything that you thought was fake, isn’t. Mythical creatures are real and there are Hunters in this world whose job it is to protect people and look into deaths that are unusual.”

“So, you are trying to tell me that you know that vampires and werewolves are real?” I asked trying to make sense of this.

“Yes… wait, what? How do you know they are real?” Mom asked, now confused.

“Um… well, I uh…”

“Isabella Marie Swan, what are you hiding?”

Once she used my full name, I knew that I was going to have to tell her the truth. And so, with a sigh, I told my mother everything. Once I was done, she sat there looking at me for a few minutes and then said, “I never wanted you in this world. I hoped that with me leaving you with Charlie, that you would grow up in a normal world and wouldn’t have to deal with the shit that I deal with. I guess I was wrong, and for that, I am so sorry Bella.”

“It’s okay mom. How were you supposed to know that I was going to end up being the girlfriend and best friend of a vampire and a werewolf.”

She nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. We spent the rest of the day and well into the next morning talking about everything in regards to being a Hunter- how to kill everything in the world, and how she became a Hunter- I apparently come from a long line of Hunters.

By the time I went to bed, I felt a lot closer to mom than I ever have had. There was just one thing that I didn’t tell mom when I was telling her about the Cullens and La Push; it was the fact that Victoria was still hunting me, and I was sure that she would either come for me, dad or mom. I was going to ask mom, beg her if I had to, to train me on becoming a Hunter. I knew that she wasn’t going to be happy about me wanting to be a Hunter, but I wasn’t going to leave myself vulnerable to Victoria or anything else in this world, not anymore.

~xx~

It has been four months since mom told me about her world and started training me to be a Hunter as well. I had been right in my thinking that night that she wouldn’t be happy with me wanting to become a Hunter, but she relented when I told her that I would figure out another way to learn the trade. First thing that I had to do was build up my muscle mass. I joined a gym, took karate and boxing lessons, and also took yoga to help with flexibility. When I wasn’t doing one of those, I was learning Latin, Greek and Roman so that I would be able to translate things and cast spells, and also learning about how to kill everything. It was a lot of work and information to take in, and I was glad that I wasn’t in school right now so that I could focus all my time on my training.

Dad wasn’t happy that I wasn’t going to college right away, but he was glad that I was spending more time with mom. When I asked mom if dad knew she was a Hunter, she told me no, he didn’t know everything, but she had a feeling that he knew some things.

I would go and visit dad every once in awhile and it was on one of those visits that Victoria turned up and I let her toy with me for a while before I ended her life. It felt good to end her life with my own hands, I knew that I should feel guilty for ending her life but I didn’t because I knew that if I wasn’t a newbie Hunter, I would be the one who was dead and not her. Once the fire was out from my burning her body, I went back to dad’s place, changed and starting making dinner for us as if nothing happened.

When I got back to mom’s, I told her about my first kill. She was proud of me and presented me with my very own journal, she told me that it was time for me to start documenting my Hunts and kills so that I could have something to hand down to my child should I ever have any. I thanked her and then went to my room so I could start my journal.

~xx~

It’s been a year and a half since I started training to become a Hunter and mom has said that I was finally ready to come on a hunt with her. There was a case up in Colorado that was baffling the local cops. There had been four victims in the span of two months who have been completely drained of their blood, I at first thought of vampires but mom said that there were no obvious bite marks on any of the victims. I then took out her journal and started flipping through the pages trying to figure out what could be the cause of the killings and when I finally came across what it was, I had to snort because I thought that for sure this wasn’t real because I had read about it in a book.

“What about this, mom?” I asked handing her the journal to the page I had opened.

“This might be it,” she replied.

I took the book back again and looked at the title and picture of the Red Cap. “Are you sure this is real, mom?” I questioned.

“Of course Red Caps are real Bella, yes I know that you’ve probably heard them mentioned in one of your fantasy books but I can assure you, they are real.”

I nodded and read what mom had written on them again, “A small human-like creature with blazing red eyes, wearing a red hat and having a long white beard. He has eagle claws for hands which he uses to kill humans. The best way to protect oneself from a Red Cap is to recite words from the Bible which it fears the most. Hearing these holy words will send him running away as fast as he can.”

“Wait, but how do we kill it?” I asked, confused seeing as how there was nothing in her notes.

“Ah, well, that’s the thing. I really don’t know.” she replied.

“So, we are just going to go there, find this thing and recite the Bible at it in hopes that it will leave the town forever?”

“Well no, I’ve contacted some fellow Hunters to see if they know how to kill it. Hoping that they get back to me soon.”

“So, what do we do till they call?”

“Go and see if we can stop any further killings.”

I nodded and stood so that I could go and pack because I knew that we would be leaving early next morning. I packed only the essentials, some clothes, my journal and my personal stash of rock salt, matches, my gun, bullets and my knife. There would be more of that stuff in the trunk of the car under the hidden hatch. Once everything was packed, I took a long shower and then went to bed. I kept trying to figure out how exactly we were supposed to kill the Red Cap when there was nothing written in mom’s journals expect for the bit about them hating the Bible. When I finally got to sleep, I was restless and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.

The sun was hardly up when mom barged into my room, telling me to get up so that we could get on the road. I just groaned, rolled over after she walked out and after a few minutes, I got up; with another yell from mom. I need two things: a steaming hot shower and a steaming cup of coffee. The shower would be first and knowing mom, the coffee would be waiting for me as soon as I got down stairs.

I pulled out my clothes first, a well worn pair of jeans, my black AC/DC tank and my combat boots. After that, I went into my bathroom, turned on my shower and when it was nice and hot, I climbed in and took a quick shower. Once I was showered and dressed, I pulled my hair up into a ponytail, grabbed my duffel bag and head downstairs. I dropped my duffel on the floor after entering the kitchen and inhaled the delicious aroma of fresh brewed coffee.

Once I had at least two cups of coffee in me and breakfast, mom and I headed out to her car. We threw our duffel bags into the backseat and headed for Colorado. It took us 13 hours to get there, once we got into town we first looked for a motel and then for a place to eat. We would go to the police the next day. After checking in to the motel, we salted the windows, made a devil’s trap on the other side of the carpet and drew signals on the walls. Once that was done, we hopped back in the car and then went to find some food.

While we were waiting for our food to arrive, mom got a text and after she replied to it, I asked her about it.

“Who was that mom?”

“It was Sam; he was telling me that he knows how to get rid of the Red Cap.”

“Sam… Winchester?” I asked trying to rack my brain.

“Yeah, that’s the one. He and his brother are close by and he said that they will swing by, give us all the info that we need and also be here if we need the help.”

“Do you think that we will need help?” I asked now wondering how deadly a Red Cap could be.

“Don’t know, never had to deal with one before.”

“And, have the Winchesters?”

“I don’t think so, never really had much time to hang out with them other than the occasional pass by.”

“How did you meet them?”

“I was working a case; I think you were ten at the time. Was dealing with a wendigo; nasty thing, and I was having trouble killing it, it was about to do me in when the guys came to my aid.”

“I’m glad that they were there for you.”

“I am as well. They are a great couple of young men who have gone through hell but it has made them stronger.”

“I can’t wait to meet them and thank them for saving you.”

Mom just smiled and we thanked the waitress after she placed our food on the table. We chowed down; I really loved the double bacon cheeseburger that I had, when we got dessert, I asked mom when the Winchesters were going to meet with us and she said tomorrow. I nodded and once we were done and after paying, we headed back to the motel. Mom went straight to bed after her shower, I told her that I was going to stay up for a little longer, to which she replied to not stay up so long. After promising that I wouldn’t, she placed a gun under her pillow and went to sleep.

I wondered what mom was planning on telling the police about who we were. In the past she has told them that I’m her junior partner, that it was take your daughter to work day and at one point it was that I was a college student writing a piece about her. Maybe this time, we could go with I was a writer who was getting hands on experience for a novel I was writing. I would suggest that to her in the morning. I then decided to do some research on Red Caps, but all I could find was that info from the novel I read before. A dead end.

I then wanted to see if I could find any info on the Winchesters, so I searched their names and came up with a lot of stuff. It seemed that their mother had been killed in a fire when Sam was just a baby, and their father took care of them, moving them around a lot. There were some other articles but it was hard to know what was believable; for instance there was an article that said that Dean was dead, but I knew that he was alive seeing as how mom said that he was coming with Sam. I also found a picture of the boys but I wasn’t sure how old it was, they were tall and very handsome. They seemed like great guys and I couldn’t wait to meet them.

I tried to stifle a yawn while trying to figure out how in the hell we were going to find the Red Cap, but when I couldn’t stop yawning after that first, I decided that it was time for me to sleep. I shutdown my laptop, changed into my pajamas and after double checking the previous salt lines and then making a new one across the door, I crawled into bed, placed a gun under my pillow and instantly went to sleep.

~xx~

The next morning, when I woke up, mom was already up and had gone out to get breakfast for us. I thanked her, downed half the coffee and then got a shower.

“Sam and Dean should be here soon,” I heard her call as I was just getting out of the shower.

“Okay I’ll be ready soon.” I called back. I quickly dressed not wanting to be caught naked and as soon as I got out of the washroom, there was a knock at the door. Mom cocked her gun and went to answer it. I heard her laugh and when she uncocked her gun; I figured that it must have been Sam and Dean. I moved away from the bathroom and saw that the picture I had been looking at last night didn’t do these two men justice, for they were far more handsome in real life.

“Sam and Dean Winchester, meet my daughter Isabella. Bella; as she likes to be called, these are Sam and Dean.”

“Hello,” I greeted giving them the once over.

Sam was the taller of the two, had long dark brown hair that hung just near his shoulders and piercing brown eyes. He was really handsome but one look at Dean and I was done. He was a little shorter, had the same colour hair as Sam but he had piercing green eyes. You could tell that Dean was the older of the two and one look in his eyes showed all the hell that he’s had to deal with. He was so handsome and looked like someone who liked to have a good time.

“Hello,” Sam replied while Dean just nodded.

“Good, now that the niceties are out of the way, let’s get down to business shall we?” Mom asked and I chuckled.

“Right,” Dean said, “There isn’t much lore on Red Caps, but Sam found one piece of information and I came up with a plan after learning it.”

“What did you find, Sam?” Mom asked.

“Well, as you probably know already, Red Caps run when they hear Bible verses.” Sam said and waited for our nods of approval. “Well, the only other thing that I could find states that the only way for a Red Cap to stay alive is for them to make sure that their caps stay red.”

“Yeah, so I was thinking that once we find this little bugger, we trap it somewhere like a cave or something and have recorded bible verses to keep it in there. Now, of course that won’t solve things because the recording will fail eventually, but I figured by that time, their caps will be almost to the point of white and we would be able to kill them,” Dean cut in.

“Sounds good but how long will that take?” I asked.

“Well, here’s the thing. We don’t know.” Sam replied. “Seems no one knows as none of the other Hunters we got in contact with have ever hunted Red Caps.”

“So, we are just supposed to wait?” I asked, not believing what I was hearing.

“Yeah,” Dean answered.

I sighed, “Are you sure we can’t kill it straight out?”

“We don’t know what kills it – I mean yeah we could try, but we still might have to go with Dean’s plan,” Sam said.

“Well, first let’s just try to find this thing and go from there.” Mom said.

We all nodded and then head out. Sam and Dean said they were going to go to the morgue and mom said that she and I would go to the police. I drooled when I caught sight of the car that Sam and Dean were driving- it was gorgeous, black and looked like it just rolled off the line.

“Great car,” I commented.

“Yeah, Baby has been our home for a long time.” Dean replied.

“Take me for a ride sometime?” I asked.

“Sure,” Dean answered.

I smiled and then slid into mom’s car wishing I was sliding into Dean’s. Mom said to meet us at the diner by lunch to go over our notes. Sam and Dean nodded and then left first. Once mom climbed in, we headed for the police station and I told her my idea about me being a novel writer following her around, she said that it was a good idea and so we went with it. The cops weren’t able to tell us anything more than what we already knew. I was pissed that we didn’t learn anything new.

When we met up with Sam and Dean, they told us that there were claw marks on the victims’ bodies that looked like eagle claws and the bodies were completely drained of blood. That wasn’t anything new either; this was going to be a really frustrating case. We ate and then decided to head to the last crime scene, hoping to find out where the Red Cap was living.

We were practically walking into this hunt blind and I didn’t like it. We didn’t know if it hunted in the day or night, we didn’t know how to kill it, and we didn’t know where it was hiding out. We only knew two things about Red Caps and that wasn’t enough. We searched the entire crime scene but found nothing; we looked to see if there were any nearby caves but again came up empty. I swore, there was no way this was going to be wrapped up in a weekend.

~xx~

We had been in Colorado for two weeks and there had been no new victims, no leads as to where the Red Cap could be and we learned nothing new about how to kill it. I wondered if perhaps the Red Cap had simply left Colorado but it wasn’t a theory that I shared with the others, I didn’t want them to think I was a stupid newbie Hunter. It was the middle of the third week and that’s when things started to pick up again. Three people were killed; a fact we were not happy about, but we were able to find some clues as to where the Red Cap was because all three murders happened in the same place of the forest. When we went to search the new crime scene, we were able to find a cave and we had a feeling that that was where the Red Cap was living.

So, we set up the pre-recorded Bible verses to keep the Red Cap in the cave and set up tents in the forest near the cave so that we could watch it. We figured that we would be in the tents for two and a half weeks seeing as how that’s how long it was from the last kill. We took turns keeping watch at night to make sure we weren’t killed, that the recording wouldn’t die before the Red Cap did and to make sure that no one else got killed.

It was on one of those nights that I finally got a chance to really get to know Dean. He was an amazing guy, we shared a lot of common interests and as it turned out, he seemed to like me as much as I liked him. We spent the whole night talking and decided to try the dating thing once this case was over.

Before long, we were close to the two and half week mark again and we knew that it was finally time to kill this Red Cap and go home. Once night fell, we turned off the recording and waited for the Red Cap to come out, when it did, we could see that it was close to death but it still tried to fight when it saw us coming at it. Dean and Sam shot at it but bullets did nothing, mom shot an arrow at it but it bounced off of the Red Cap as well, so I decided to run it through with a knife. It tried to claw me but it didn’t have enough strength and I was able to kill it.

I was glad that this case was finally over because I wanted to be able to sleep in my own bed. Dean took me for the ride that he promised me almost two months ago and that’s when we shared our first kiss. I had a feeling that Dean would have taken it further; which I would have not minded, but he told me that he wanted to date me for awhile first. He also told me that I was like no other girl he had been with and he wanted to do things differently with me. I told him that, that was really sweet and I couldn’t wait till we were able to have our first real actual date.

We swapped numbers and then Dean drove me back to the motel. After saying goodbye, mom and I left for home. I couldn’t wait to get back to my own bed, have a proper shower and write in my journal. I also couldn’t wait till I got to see Dean again.