It's Not Natural: A Sunset Coven omake

U.S. Route 41 was a couple of hundred miles short from being Route 66, but it was rather harsh ride for the minty-coloured Volkswagen Camper type 2. At any given moment, it could just give out and stop. The driver prayed it would do so just in front of a garage or anywhere near from a city with a garage.

Yes, he had to pray real damn hard, cause the situation didn’t look good. The sputtering of the machine grew louder, and could even be heard through Stevie Wonder’s Superstition that was blasting through the speakers. There was a particular rattling noise that arose and died quickly after the driver lowered the volume of the music.

‘That didn’t sound healthy,’ commented the co-pilot.

‘Aw dammit, this crap car can’t take anything!’

‘We’re not far though. Look exit 124 is ahead.’

‘Good, because if this bitch here gives up on me, I swear Rian, it’ll be you who’ll get a beating. Riding from Miami to Wisconsin is just a bad idea.’

‘Excuse me Eliot, but if my memory serves right, you were the first one jumping in the car when you’ve heard women were missing.’

‘You shouldn’t have shown me their pictures,’ he mumbled, remembering the faces of bombshells that went missing. He shook his head and blinked. ‘Granted, beautiful women missing is an issue, but it doesn’t sound like one that’s our kind of problem you know. Moreover, we have more important things to do. You know that better than I do.’

‘Yes, but I was slightly concerned you were having trouble to concentrate in Miami,’ Rian said dryly and pointed towards the welcome sign of the village of Winneconne. ‘Here we are.’

‘Okay, let’s go.’

(Title song: Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water)

It’s Not Natural!

A Sunset Coven omake

Based on the web-novel Sunset Coven and CW-series Supernatural

Starring characters from Sunset Coven and The Launderette

Written by Trice: Sore loser of a NaNoWriMo word-war challenge against Suri

,but also the writer of The Launderette, commonly known as Laundro

The car didn’t die on them and they arrived without hitch in Winneconne. Since everything looked alright with the car, they immediately started to work. Eliot tracked down the entourage of the victims to interview them under the pretence he was a federal agent and Rian, who had a hard time to face people while lying into their face about his identity, was doing what he did best: research. They met up later in their motel room and exchanged the information they had dug out.

‘So, I’ve talked with the sister of the latest victim. Apparently before she went missing, she went for an evening jog and she never came back,’ Eliot said as he pulled out a can of beer out of the six pack he had bought earlier. ‘Since she often changed her route, it pretty much leads to nowhere. But! The first victim was on her way to find her boyfriend that was out fishing on Winneconne bridge at night before she disappeared and the second one was drunk and last seen on her way from a bar in Oshkosh to Rainbow park. But it’s the third one who really gives it away…’

‘Are you talking about the woman who had a midnight swim in the lake Butte des Morts?’ Rian asked. ‘I read it all in the newspapers. So you think it’s the lake?’

While his thunder was stolen by his little brother, Eliot kept his composure and went on, ‘Yes, I think it’s the lake. I mean the fishing bridge, the park that’s near the same lake and the last victim probably jogged near the lake as well. There’s definitely something in or around the water that’s grabbing the victims. I went to the Winneconne bridge but there was no EMF activity.’

‘It can’t be a ghost. The area of the lake is too big,’ Rian said and ran his finger along the edges on the lake drawn on the map that was on the table. ‘See, Rainbow Park, and Winneconne bridge are at the opposite sides of the lake. If it were a ghost, he’d be more likely to be attached to a certain place.’

‘Unless there’s a remnant of a ship or something floating on the lake,’ Eliot insisted.

‘Already researched that possibility and there were no stories about such thing. Moreover, people would have noticed a ghost ship. The lake is not that big,’ he said. Not noticing that Eliot was nagging in a mumble, Rian went on, ‘Well, I did find that Butte des Morts is actually a Native American burial ground. According to several legends there used to be great battles for the territory of Butte des Mors. So Butte des Morts or Hill of the Dead used to be a sacred ground where they buried the dead.’

‘You said no ghosts.’

‘I don’t think it is a ghost… If I have to guess, it’d go with a native American lake monster. Might have been pissed off with all the developments that have been going on on the land or something, but…’

‘Lake monster? Which one?’

‘Well, the tribe from this area, the Meskwaki, believed there was a giant serpent, called Maneto, living in the lake who drowned and killed people.’

‘Okay worth to look into it,’ Eliot admitted. ‘So how do you find it and kill it?’

‘Well, I only found out that it’s hard to kill because it has horns and armoured scales. It only feared Thunder Beings because when it gets struck by the thunderbolts, it dies.’

‘I bet there’s no way to find a Thunder Being, whatever that is?’

‘It’s a storm spirit.’

‘Fantastic. Let’s go to a hardware store to buy some stuff to gank the bastard.’

***

‘It’s been two hours we’ve been here,’ Eliot complained as he wolfed down his fish burger. They had been hanging around by the lake for hours and still no lake monster.  He pumped up his burger in the air angrily. ‘I’m even eating this to piss him off and it doesn’t work.’

‘You know, I’m not even sure it is  a Maneto we’re looking for.’

‘What? And you’re saying this now?’ Dammit, he could’ve had the full Monty burger with double beef and bacon, instead of that thin as a card-board fish burger.

‘Maneto was a fish monster and ate fishermen, however so far all the victims have been women who hadn’t gone fishing themselves, so I was wondering if it could be something else. Problem is that I haven’t found anything linked to the lake or any legends.’

‘Ghosts would still have been a better guess. We should just head back and research some more during the day.’ From the corner of his eyes, he observed Rian’s stoic expression and simply knew he felt sulky because he was certain no ghosts were involved. ‘Or maybe we should just go around to see if there’s no girl near the lake who’s getting attacked by some lake snake.’

Rian stood still and narrowed his eyes. ‘That is not good.’

‘I’m not talking about purposely using a girl as bait, just find one who’s already around-‘

‘No, I mean,’ Rian said and lifted his hand to point towards the water. ‘Isn’t that a girl?’

Eliot craned his neck and looked to the water. A figure was stepping into the lake. When the water was a knee-length, it seemed to undo a piece of clothing, toss it away and go further into the lake. ‘Not sure if that’s a woman, but if it is, sure giving a show.’

‘We have to get her out of there,’ Rian said.

‘I see nothing dragging her in there,’ Eliot replied. ‘Maybe she’s just having a midnight swim. That would explain why she tossed a piece of clothing off.’

When the figure had vanished into the water, Rian undid the bag he carried with the battery and other supplies as well as his shoes. ‘No, she’s not coming up… She’s going to drown.’ He dashed off, throwing other things on the ground that were in his pockets.

Eliot followed Rian who ran towards the water, but stopped at the foot of the lake as he still had the fish burger in hand. There was no choice, he had to finish it first. While he quickly stuffed the last piece in his mouth, Rian gotten into the water and started paddling around like a dog. He was never much of a swimmer, however he did his best to find the girl. Since he was pretty slow, Eliot had enough time to finish his burger and catch up with Rian. While it was night and dark outside, he stumbled onto the girl quickly thanks to Rian’s on to the point directions. He was able to fish her out, but hardly managed to keep her above the water on his own.  Rian finally reached his big brother and give him a helping hand to drag the girl back on dry land.

They lay her down. As Eliot sought for their bag to fetch a torch, Rian examined her. First he placed his ear near her mouth area. When Eliot arrived with the torch and shed some light, Rian confirmed his suspicion by checking her torso. She didn’t breathe anymore. ‘Not breathing,’ he said and grabbed her by the wrist. ‘No pulse either.’

‘Shit, I better call 911,’ Eliot said and patting his pockets. He grabbed his phone and realised that he had gone into the lake with it. Now that was useless.

‘I’ll start CPR,’ Rian said calmly and proceeded with the chest compressions. After doing a set of thirty, he checked her breathing again. Still no breathing. He had to proceed to the next step. He opened her mouth. ‘Can’t see whether it’s clogged.  It’s too dark…’ He lowered himself, ready to give a mouth-on-mouth, but it was just when their lips were a few inches from touching each other, that the woman’s eyes opened. For a few seconds the girl and Rian exchanged some glances, and finally the girl moved on her side and coughed.

While Rian, just arched back and gotten up, Eliot asked, ‘Did you take out your phone out before jumping into the water?’

‘Yes, it should be lying somewhere near the bag,’ Rian answered.

‘Didn’t see it, I’ll go look again. Can you take her to our car?’ he asked. ‘We’ll drive her to the hospital.’

‘Err, yes, I, err, can,’ he stuttered and reached out a hand to her to help her back up. While he had excellent skills in research and medicine, he was pretty useless when it came to talking to girls, or just people in general. ‘Uhm, well, good evening, I’m Rian. Uhm, well, kinda late to say good evening, uhm, I’ll carry, uhm, you to the car, if you allow me to do so.’ The girl disregarded the hand and stood up without any help. ‘Oh, apparently, you don’t, uhm, need he-help.’

‘I don’t, but maybe you do.’

First thing that came out of her mouth was from start mean which made Rian blink. But if she was talking, it must be a good sign.

‘Can’t find your smartphone,’ Eliot said to Rian. He carried the bag of supplies on her back and held up the torch towards Rian and the girl. ‘Why are you not heading back to the car already?’ He took note that the girl was not only more than one head taller than he was, but also was rather toned as far as her dripping wet sleeveless grey top and jeans gave away. ‘We should get you a blanket, you’ll get the chill like this.’

‘No thanks,’ she replied curtly.

While Eliot and Rian wanted to protest, a scream thundered. The trio cocked their head.

‘That must be Magneto,’ Eliot said.

‘It’s Maneto, not Magneto from X-man,’ Rian corrected.

‘Whatever,’ Eliot replied, then told to the girl, ‘Hey, could you…’ He turned his head but the girl was nowhere to be found. ‘What the?’

***

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded and crawled back to her boyfriend who was bleeding from his head. ‘Hiro,’ she cried and clutched onto him as she tried to avoid to have eye-contact with the fiery yellow-eyed naked man. Damn, that had been a late-night picknick gone wrong. Jolene just wanted to surprise her boyfriend, Hiroki, for their first anniversary together by inviting him to come over at the lake, where she’d await him with a hand-made meal, a bottle of wine and a lot of candles. It was to be supposed to be the most romantic night ever.

Whilst she was waiting, she heard the sound of a violin. The instrument was being played by that stunning guy sitting on a rock and she thought of talking to him, but when her boyfriend came, the violin guy who turned out to be stark naked, had a fit and violently pushed Hiroki away. Now Jolene’s boyfriend was currently unconscious as his head clashed with a rock during his fall. ‘Hiroki, please,’ she pleaded, while shaking him a little. ‘Please wake up. I’m scared.’

The yellow-eyed creature ceased playing the happy tune on his violin and flashed a smile towards the girl. His violin disappeared from his hand and he came forward with big strides toward her.

‘Nooooo!’ she cried.

He grabbed the girl by the back of the collar of her shirt and dragged her to the lake. Though the rocks grated her flesh through her clothes, Jolene wrenched under the grip of the creature as an attempt to free herself. They entered the lake and Jolene screamed again on top of her lungs as she slowly gotten submerged into the water.

‘Hey! You son of a bitch!’ a voice rang.

The creature turned around. It had been his dumbest move yet, as the girl Rian and Eliot saved charged in. ‘Eat this.’ She extended her arm out from the side of her body and slammed it into against his throat.  ‘So what, I’m practically throwing myself half-naked to you and you still going for another girl, you slippery Scandinavian bastard,’ she shoved him onto dry land and threw him on the ground.

‘I’m not stupid,’ the creature moaned. ‘I can smell you from miles away.’

‘What did you say?’ She sat on his back, circled her arms around his head and locked it.

Jolene splashed out of the water and looked amazed at the spectacle that was offered to her, a woman headlocking a monster. She finally snapped out of it when her boyfriend woke up and tried to get up. ‘Hiroki!’ She ran to him.

Rian and Eliot who were still behind, saw the girl handling the monster. ‘Is she performing a camel clutch on a monster?’ Eliot asked, as he exchanged quizzical glances with his brother. ‘That’s awesome.’

While the creature tried to wring itself from the grip of the woman, he pointed towards Hiroki, more precisely his wound. The woman didn’t need to have the monster’s pointers to know that there was blood. She had smelled it from miles away, but now that the scent was stronger, it distracted her and she finally looked up. The sight of the blood trickling down Hiroki’s face made her head pound. ‘Dammit,’ she hissed, showing a fang out and instead of losing grip, she clutched even harder to the monster’s head. ‘Get the fuck out of here!’

Having seen the fangs growing out, Jolene grabbed Hiroki by his arm and helped him up, then ran away as fast as they could, not even looking back once although they bumped into Rian and Eliot.

‘Fuck this, they followed me.’ She sighed. She unwrapped her right arm from the monster’s head and reached for a bottle in the pocket of her jeans. ‘This is not over, Kri. You’re going to get a big whoop on your ass once we’re back home. You can count on it.’ She opened the cap of the bottle with her thumb.

‘I don’t want to go home, you never let me drown people. It’s been a decade and, hey, what are you doing?’

‘See you later, Kri-kri d’amour,’ she spat and murmured, ‘Concipe hoc spurius.’

A white light poured out of the bottle, enveloping the creature. ‘No! Please! I don’t want to! I’ll return home on my own. A-‘ He disappeared into the light and it drew back in right into the bottle.

The woman closed the cap and went back on her feet. ‘This is better stuff than pokeballs.’ That wizard really kept his word.

‘What the heck was that?’ Eliot asked, holding up his gun.

‘Strange way to show your gratitude,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘It couldn’t have been a Maneto,’ Rian said.

She arched a brow. ‘Maneto?’

‘A snake  that lives in lake according Native American myths.’

‘Yeah, not the X-man guy,’ Eliot added.

‘What?’ She “what-the-fucked’ Eliot and shook her head. Stupid uneducated humans. ‘No, not that. It’s a nøkken, a Scandinavian shapeshifting water spirit, a bit like the Scottish kelpie. It lures women to drown them in the water. Anyway…’ Oh, no she said too much. Perhaps it was because it had been some time she held a conversation with humans. However it she better had to cut it short, it was rather obvious that they were hunters, not her kind of crowd. ‘It’s gone now.’

‘Then did you kill it?’ Eliot asked, gun still raised to her head. ‘How do you kill it?’

‘Why do you care?’

‘So we know how to deal with it, if we ever come across it again,’ Rian explained calmly.

‘You shouldn’t come across it again. It’s a Scandinavian thing,’ she answered. It was already an accident it came here, now she couldn’t bear the idea of having to chase another one of these bastards to America. What a horror.

‘We want to know.’

She blew a lock of hair off her face, then faster than anyone could blink she threw herself on Eliot by clasping her one hand on the back of his gun and the other over his wrist which she snapped easily by little putting pressure on it. Eliot fell down on his knees and twisted in pain. Rian had no time to fight back as the gun, the woman just stole, was already pointed his way. ‘If, and I say big “if” you come across it again, you can chase it by saying the name of the nøkken. However, that’s pretty much impossible to find out.’ Well, hers was Kristian, but that didn’t really matter here. ‘And again, you won’t come across one again.’

Rian crouched down over his brother and examined his wrist. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Why is a vampire after a nøkken?’

‘Vampire?’

‘Well, yes,’ Rian said. ‘Uhm, well, I’ve noticed something was wrong when I saved you. I’ve taken your pulse… And, uhm, well, there was no pulse. You didn’t have any a second ago either. Moreover when I did CPR, you didn’t gasp for breath or started to cough you just started at me eyes wide open, then coughed. As if you had to remind yourself to do that. If you’re an undead, there are not a lot of things you can be. I mean you’re too clean-cut to be a zombie. You weren’t sensitive to artificial light when Eliot was holding the torch while I was performing CPR on you, which means you’re not a ghoul… While there are other options to consider, I’d go with vampire since you’ve only reacted when I was about to perform mouth-on-mouth. You were probably afraid I’d find out you have fangs.’

‘That and the girl you’ve saved yelled “vampire” when we crossed paths with her,’ Eliot manage to say in a moan.

‘That confirmed it for me, but what I found curious. Why would an undead go into a lake when they can’t die anyway? You were after this nøkken from the start. It wasn’t as if you really wanted to save that couple. You hardly looked back at the girl once you’ve put your hands on the nøkken. So, it’s pretty clear that you were after it.’

‘And you called it a bastard in a very familiar way,’ Eliot added.

‘That’s interesting,’ she replied.

Rian grabbed the piece of cloth that covered the pick nick basket and wrapped Eliot’s arm in it. ‘Sherlock Holmes said that “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.’

‘Yeah, but you’re no fictional genius crack-head created by Conan Doyle. You’re just a guy riding a knock-off Mystery machine. So what’s your point?’

‘Uhm, well, err, uhm,’ Rian mumbled.

‘I think he meant to make a point about how obvious it was that you’re a vampire,’ Eliot said. ‘And don’t insult my car! Damn this hurts.’

‘Oh, in this case, kudos?’ she guessed. ‘And yes, I was after the nøkken from the start. The reason doesn’t matter, but know that he won’t be in this lake anymore and wherever I’ll be taking him… He won’t be drowning people anymore.’ She should have made better pet-choices in life. She thought it’d be more fun than Hati since it always ran away to chase the moon, but in the end having a nøkken sucked. Maybe she should stop picking pets from the Scandinavian lore. ‘Anyway, I have to go now, really.’

‘Uhm, wait,’ Rian said. ‘The victims, uhm, their bodies, uhm…’

‘They haven’t been recovered. Where are they?’ Eliot asked. ‘The family probably want to have them back to bury them and find some closure.’

She removed the magazine of the gun to take out the bullets and scatter them around. She then completely dismantled the gun and dropped everything. ‘If I have to take a guess…’ She turned around and surveyed the lake. ‘He probably hid them somewhere. To find them…’ She pointed towards the water. ‘… just follow the trial of water lilies.’

‘Thank you,’ Rian said.

‘Dude, she broke my wrist,’ Eliot dissed.

‘Oh, right. Uhm, unthanks?’

‘Yeah, you’re not welcome,’ she replied. ‘Cheers, boys.’

And gone was she.

***

They say “home sweet home” and sure it was sweet to return to France. She had to hike to her home, but she could do that without breaking a sweat since she was an undead. It would’ve been different if she were still human. She’d be lying around and die in her tears and sweat.

Her home was not so far a small lake in a rather inhabitable mountain. But this was home for her, it had been since she had left the Sinn-Jammers.

She smiled at the recognition of the path and was rather excited to see her home, but she was greeted by only leftovers of her cabin, as it had been torched to the ground. ‘What the…’ She ran to what was left of it and shoved stones and other lefts overs of the walls away. ‘Dammit, dammit.’ The bottle in her pocket started to tinkle. ‘Stop yapping, I’ll get you out soon.’ She ripped off a patch of the floor with her bare hands. ‘Dammit, dammit.’ Her stash of pig’s blood was gone. She hadn’t been drinking for a while, that wasn’t good. While, she went to look for her other hiding places, she picked up the scent of burning flesh. Her flesh. She peeked up, the sun was going to rise soon, there was no time to look further, she had to go into hiding right now.

She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. And then what? What would she do tomorrow? Rebuild her house? Everywhere she’d go they’d be after her. Dammit. Tiring. She was so sick and tired of this game. Perhaps she just had to end it by tearing off her limbs, spread them and let the sun turn her into bacon. She took out the bottle of her pocket, opened it and mumbled, ‘Līberā hoc sterculus.’

White light poured out, having Kristian appear again. ‘I’m free!’

‘Yeah, but you better run fast into the lake, the sun is rising,’ she warned him.

‘Oh, right…’ He made a leap towards the path that led to the lake, but stopped as he noticed that the vampire wasn’t moving and the smell of burning flesh became overwhelming. ‘What is she…’ She took her arm and started to yank at it. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just leave Kristian.’ She managed to tore her left arm a little. It was becoming harder to find the strength to do it.

‘No!’ The nøkken dashed back and grabbed her by the sides and swing her over his shoulder.

‘Hey, what are you doing, Kristian? Leave me alone!’ She tried to make another head lock, however was unable to as the first rays of sun started to peek through the trees and hit her. Kristian kicked a few more waste away to reveal a trap to an underground. He crouched down, opened it and dumped his master in it. To prevent her to open it back up he sat on it, waiting for her to fall unconscious since daytime was breaking. He felt the trap moving violently under him, but he was able to remain on top. ‘Dammit! Kristian! Get off, get off now!’ It was a good thing she was weakened due to the sun and the lack of blood, else she would’ve blasted that trap and his butt already. ‘Get off!’ she cried a last time. ‘You’re not immune to the sun yourself! Get off!’ A thud followed. She must have fallen unconscious, finally.

However too late for Kristian, the sun was already consuming his water body, turning it into steam. He tried to get away, to the lake, simply because he wanted to live. He wanted to remain with his master and pull pranks for eternity so she wouldn’t be sad anymore… But by the time he reached the lake… It was already too late.

***

The pseudo-mystery machine – as that nameless vampire called it – was now riding the Mother road as the hunters were making their way to St Louis. It was a sure a hellish ride, but since the car gotten fixed up in Winneconne, Eliot’s baby girl could take anything. However he couldn’t. Since the vampire broke his wrist, he couldn’t drive properly, so Rian had taken over. Only problem was that Rian was driving like an old lady who hardly dared to go over 60 miles per hour. Moreover, when it was night, like now, he’d even refuse to go over 50. At this speed, it would take an eternity to go to St Louis.

‘Why are you making a stop?’ Eliot asked, as Rian drove into a road stop.

‘I have to go to the restroom,’ he answered.

Another problem was that driving made Rian feel so uncomfortable he needed to go every 100 miles. Damn, this would take forever. After Rian parked the car and gotten out, Eliot turned up the volume of his music and sank into his seat. “Hung Up” by Madonna was supposed to make him feel better, but it didn’t right now. He opened the window a bit and looked out. A girl with long black hair and a hot as hell body smiled at him. ‘Maybe we should just have a stop here.’ He rose back and gotten out of the car himself.

‘Hey, nice car you have,’ he said to the girl who was leaning onto a 1987 Ford Mustang GT.

‘Thanks. Your car is cool too… But kinda doesn’t suit you,’ she said.

He tapped the car gently. ‘Even so, I won’t let go of her.’ He went over to the girl and leaned over, their shoulders touching. ‘It must be also hard to take care of this one as well.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she replied nostrils quivering. ‘It’s driving me nuts.’

‘I get that. But I’ve recently learned that there are more irritating things than cars breaking down,’ he said and turned his face towards her. She also turned hers and only a few inches separated the tips of their noses.

Their eyes clasped onto each other and were unable to let go. Eliot was fascinated by her dark eyes and she, well, that was a mystery because she was so hard to read. However one thing he was sure of…

‘Tia, are we going? You’re going to laugh when I tell you about what happened in the bar. There was this tall nerdy dude… Tia?’

‘And who’s that?’ Eliot asked without looking back. He knew the girl who just arrived was talking to the woman in front of him since she had reacted at the name “Tia”.

‘My baby niece,’ she replied.

He leaned over and whispered into her ear, ‘Too bad.’ While he moved back, his lower lips briefly caressed her jaw and the woman sucked in her breath. ‘Have fun on your roadtrip.’

‘Yeah, you too.’

***

As the Mustang hit road again, the young witch asked, ‘What the hell was that about?’

‘What?’

‘You and the dude in the parking lot acting all flirty?’

‘Oh, that. Not sure, but he was just the cutest Madonna-loving man I’ve encountered. Just wanted to eat him up!’

‘You know when you say that, I always take it literally.’

‘Might have wanted to do that do,’ she replied, licking her lips at the thought. ‘Just might have…’

THE END...