Creante paced anxiously.  He slipped from the shadow of the large black SUV to the darkness that engulfed the sidewalk beneath the broken street lamp and back again.  It was getting late; soon he would have to return.  He only had a few hours left.  He only killed two so far.  He only needed one or two more, at least for tonight.  If only, only, only!  He slipped into the cramped SUV shadow, letting out an eerie howl in disgust; why were the streets so empty?!  It was only September; it wasn’t that cold out yet.  Only two tonight.  Only two yesterday.  Only one two days ago.  He continued to pace, at this rate it would be months before he reached his goal.  Glancing at the sky Creante was about to make his way back home when he heard a rustling.  He pressed himself as far into the ground as he could while he watched the young teen turn the corner down the block.  He carried a small black shopping bag and looked very disgruntled.  As he came closer Creante could hear him mumbling and cursing, “Damn near one in the morning and she sends me to the store!  I was sleeping for Christ’s sake, but noooo, honey buns are so fuckin’ important that I have to…”  Like a cat perched for the pounce, Creante readied himself.  And as the youth passed under the dark streetlamp Creante latched onto his shadow.

***

The cold draft slithered across the floor, washed over Sabin’s foot, crawled up his leg, slinked around to his back and settled, very comfortably, at the base of his spine.  With a shiver, he sat up, then immediately groaned and settled back down; his head was pounding.  After a moment of groggy yawns and eye-rubbing Sabin realized he was not in the normal comfort, and warmth, of his bed.  He sat up again, this time looking around.  No, instead he was sitting in the large arm chair by the living room window.  With a furrowed brow Sabin jumped up and began to examine the entirety of the apartment, but nothing was out of place.  Still confused he headed straight for his bedroom, sat on the bed and pulled out his journal from the nightstand.
September 15th, 2008
It has happened again!  This is the third night I have awoken in another part of the house.  Yesterday morning I was in the kitchen and the day before that on the floor in the hall outside the bathroom.  I’ve searched my subconscious but I cannot recall anything after getting in bed for the night.  On the same hand I have no recollection of dreaming.  It is as though I closed my eyes and just slipped away until morning.
Sabin thought for a moment, letting his eyes wander around the room until they rested on his closet.  He continued writing:
I refuse to be pessimistic but I cannot ignore all possibilities. Creante’s presence has been weak since Samantha’s funeral and yet, if possible, he seems even more distant. If I did not know better I would think he was no longer a part of me. But I do know better. And I cannot help but feel that something is terribly wrong.
With a sigh Sabin placed the journal back in the drawer of the nightstand and returned his gaze to the closet.  He drummed his fingers against the side of the bed several times before heading to the closet and swinging open the door.  On the inside rested a rather cheap full-length mirror.  Sabin stared hard at his reflection.  His hair was tussled, the ribbon that held it in a ponytail was low and barely even on.  He leaned forward and gazed into his blue-grey eyes; they were tired, stressed, and tiny lines escaped from the corners.  Leaning back he examined the rest of his body.  Pulling aside the left collar of his shirt he could see the ends of three scars.  Without much thought he traced a few others: across his stomach, minor ones down his arms, and the terrible ones around his wrists.  With a sigh he let his arms drop to his sides, “Nothing to say for yourself?”
His reflection started questioningly back at him.
“We have endured far too much for you to keep things from me.  For you to even think you can keep something from me.  I know it, I can feel it, you are up to something.  Something horrible.”
A blank stare.
“Ugh!” Sabin groaned in disgust and slammed the closet closed.

***

Asia’s Heat of the Moment blared loudly as the car drove down an empty highway strip.  With a frown Sam leaned over and twisted the volume knob all the away around so that the song was practically inaudible.
“Heeeeey!  Dude, that’s Asia!”
“Yea, Dean, I know, Asia, awesome.  I just, I, I don’t like the song, it reminds me of something.”
“Yea?” Dean replied with a snort, “What?”
“Nothing, look I think I may have found something.”
“A job?” he asked with a slight eagerness to his voice.  “What is it?”
“That’s the thing,” answered Sam, while shuffling through a few papers and glancing down at an open journal below them, “I have no idea.”
Dean glanced at his brother from the corner of his eye, “You mean to tell me you actually found a bad mother that we’ve never fought before?”
“I…I’m not sure.  I mean, it’s possible.”
“Well talk to me, what’s going on?”
“There have been several pretty gory murders in this town, which, generally, is pretty quiet.”
Dean turned to his brother with a very un-impressed look then turned back to road, turning the volume of the radio back up.
“No, Dean,” Sam turned it down again, “I really have a feeling about this.”
“Gory deaths Sam?  Come on, that could be anything.  Hell we could just have another inbred basement dwelling crazy person on our hands.”
“No Dean, these were bad.  I don’t think a human did this.”
“Alright fine, uh, what about werewolves? Huh? They aren’t exactly the fork and knife type.”
“Hearts were there and the moon cycle doesn’t match up.”
“Vampires?”
“Territory doesn’t match up, nearest lair is several hundred miles in the opposite direction.”
“Okay, uhm, demonic possession?”
“No odd storms, electrical occurrences are normal, none of the usual signs.”
Dean sighed, “Fine what about—“
“Dean…I’ve thought about most of the usual stuff.  I’m betting we won’t find any sulfur, or hex bags, besides these, there have been no horrible deaths, not even a car accident to suggest a vengeful spirit, the victims have been women, men and children so it’s not as though the attacker has a specific diet, they’ve all died over-night, so there’s no catch-torture-and-release method, and, Dean, let’s face it, we’ve gone up against some weird things.  We’ve fought the big bad wolf.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I’m just saying, let’s go in, check it out, and if it’s nothing we’ll move on.”
Dean sighed, “I’m telling you Sammy, it’s a human.”  He turned up the volume again, “Damn humans are crazy.”


I.

In the years following Samantha’s death Sabin had taken to traveling around.  He would teach as a guest speaker or fill in a temporary position in smaller, lesser known colleges wherever he went.  He had found it was those places that proved to have more interesting people.  It was early Thursday morning and Sabin walked through the quiet and quaint streets of a pointedly nondescript town on his way to its equally nondescript community college.  He ascended the steps with a slight sigh; he was still unable to get the previous night’s mystery out of his head.  On top of that he felt, for lack of a better word, odd; as though something was missing from him.  Physically he was all accounted for but mentally, well, he wasn’t quite sure.
“Morning professor.”
“Hmm?” Sabin looked up, it was the guard in the booth that spoke, “Oh, good morning.”  He was about to continue on his way when he noticed the headline on the local paper: DEATH TOLL AT EIGHT.  “Might I…?” Sabin asked, gesturing towards the paper.
“What that?  Yea g’head, I’m done with it.  Too morbid for me.”
“Thank you.”  Sabin stared down at the headline the entire way to his first class.  Being fifteen minutes early, as usual, allowed him time to read over the article:

Late Wednesday night the body of a twenty-four year old Caucasian man was found in the foyer of his apartment.  The victim, whose name is being withheld by request of the family, had been brutally attacked and left for dead.  Police are unsure on the whereabouts of his attacker or even what attacked him.  His body suffered numerous claw-like lacerations, broken bones and several dismemberments.
Though police reported upon their initial investigation, that the parents of the victim were thought to be sleeping, they were found in their beds, presumably dead from a heart attack or extreme shock.

Sabin looked up from the paper; sleeping?  Heart attack or extreme shock?  Or perhaps…fear?  He shook his head.  He was jumping to unfounded conclusions fueled by recent lack of connection with Creante, the proximity of the deaths, and his racing heart beat.  Sabin scanned the paper, there were only three victims mentioned.

…blocks away from the first victim, two bodies were found near Wally’s Drive-thru and Mart.  Though unavailable for comment, Wally Thompson was visibly upset by the recent events.

Sabin had heard of that place, it was a popular hang-out for a lot of the college students at night.  Though having never been there himself, he couldn’t begin to guess how a couple was murdered and no one around to see or hear it.  Unless they weren’t given enough time to scream…  He cleared his throat and shook the paper even again, forcing himself to read further.

…who worked at the local theatre and was attacked on her way home from work one evening.  The second and third victims were both college students at the local college and were murdered after leaving a late-night study group.  Police are taking these attacks very seriously and urge residents not to panic or…

Unable to read any further Sabin put the paper down sighed deeply.  He rubbed his forehead, stood, sat back down and sighed again.

II.

“Dean, I told you last time I wasn’t using this ID.”
Dean shrugged as he pushed the elevator button for the fourth floor, “Don’t know what to tell you Sammy, you lost odds and evens.  Laws of the land.”
“Dean it—“
The elevator stopped on the second floor and an old lady came in, standing right between the two brothers.  Sam sighed loudly, made a face, and shot dirty looks at Dean who only shrugged again with a smile.
When they got off on the fourth floor Sam tried again to plead with his brother, “If we ever had a chance at getting caught—“
Ignoring him entirely, Dean called out to the policeman sitting in a wooden chair half-way down the hall, “Excuse me!”
He stood as they approached, “Uh, you can’t go in there, it’s a crime scene.”
Dean nodded, “We know, we’re with the FBI and we need to get in there and have a look around.”
The young man eyed the two of them, “Can I …see some ID?”
“Of course,” Dean answered with a smile, which he displayed to Sam, and then reached into his suit’s inside pocket.  He flipped the black case open and held it up.
“Mr…Smith,” the policeman said and then turned to Sam.
Sam sighed, glanced at Dean, angrily reached into his inside pocket, and held out the ID.
“Mr…Barksfoggle?”
“Yea,” Sam replied stiffly.
The policeman stared at Sam with his mouth open slightly.
Dean leaned in, “They ran out of cool codenames.”
“Ohhhh,” he replied after a moment.  “That’s gotta suck.”
“Yes,” Sam said, thoroughly unamused, “it does.  Can we come in now?”
“Right, right! Sorry.” He turned and unlocked the door, “I’m actually pretty glad you folks showed up. We have no idea what we’re dealing with here. People are tempted to just up and move, and I don’t blame them.”
The door swung open and the entire floor below was stained a dark color.  Dean’s eyebrows rose as he tentatively stepped in.
Sam followed behind, “So, this is where the body was found?”
“Nah,” he replied with a shake of his head, “that’s where the arms were found.”  He leaned over and closed the door, the entire floor, wall and back of the door were stained the same mud-red, “That’s where the body was found.”
Dean whistled.
“And the parents, they were found in their bedroom?” Sam asked.
He nodded, “Yea, this way.”
“So you mean to tell me that someone tore this sucker apart,” Dean pointed at the room behind them and then at the door way in front of them, “and they didn’t hear anything?”
“That ain’t the weirdest part.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sam.  “The papers said they died of a heart attack or extreme shock.”
“Well,” he opened the bedroom door, “there’s nothing to see here, the bodies were already moved and all.  But I saw them before they were moved.”
“Yea, and?” Dean urged.
“Their faces were all, twisted and contorted, like they were screaming.  But they were in bed, all covered up and snuggly like they were asleep.  They looked like something scared the shit outta them.”
Dean straightened up, “They what?”
Sam glanced at his brother and tried to change the point, “Uhm, well, what about the other victims?  Were they also killed as brutally?”
“Uhm, the first girl looked like the parents did, then the second and third ones did too.  Last night’s, the bodies found over by Wally’s, they were torn up pretty bad though.”
“But that’s…five bodies that were scared to death?” asked Dean.
“Looked like it,” he answered with a shrug.
“Uh huh,” Dean said with a nod, “bye.”
Sam and the policemen watched Dean rush out of the apartment.
“Your partner alright?”
“Uhm…yea, it’s, uh…bad…burritos. Thank you for all your help,” Sam said quickly as he followed his brother.

Dean was standing at the elevator pushing the down button repeatedly.
“Dean, what the hell is wrong with you?” Sam asked in a fierce whisper, glancing down the hall at the cop.
“Not doing it,” he replied staring up at the numbers above the elevator, the ‘eight’ was lit up.
“Doing what?”
Dean turned to Sam slightly, looking at him from the corners of his eyes, “Ghost sickness?  No, not again, no way.”
Sam sighed, “Dean we don’t even know if that’s what it is.”
“They looked like they had the shit scared out of them, enough information for me.  The hell is this elevator?!  I’m taking the stairs.”
“Dean!”  Sam ran after him.  “Dean think about it, we read the police reports, there was no mention of a rash or—“
Dean stopped halfway down the stairs, “Yea we read ‘em and they had to use dental records to identify that poor sunuva bitch,” he shook his head and continued down the stairs, “uh-uh.”
“Wait listen, that’s just my point!  With the ghost sickness all the victims seemed to have died from a heart attack.  There was no physical damage done.”
Dean seemed to be considering the information, “Stronger ghost maybe?”
“Or it’s not ghost sickness.  Look, let’s talk to that drive-thru guy—“
“Wally?” he said with a slight scoff.
“Yea him, visit the morgue, and question a different police officer, I’m sure we’ll find something that’ll prove it’s not.”

- - - -

“Well it’s not ghost sickness,” Sam said into his phone as they left the drive-thru and headed to the car.
“No, and it’s not ghost anything.  Or demonic possession or any of the usual stuff,” Dean commented.
“Yea, yea no we checked for that too,” Sam continued.
Dean stood on the driver’s side, leaning on the top of the ’67 Chevy Impala while he watched Sam talk into his cell phone.
“Yea, it’s possible.  We haven’t heard anything from Castiel, so we’re not sure if we’re dealing with a seal here.  Yea…you sure?  He can be trusted?  Uh huh….yea….alright, we’ll look into it.”
“What’s up?” Dean asked.
Sam leaned on the top of the car as well, phone in hand, “Well Bobby says there’s nothing specific to point us in any one direction, it could be a whole lot of things or nothing at all.”
“Helpful.”
“Well he did suggest we speak to someone that he knows is in town.  He’s supposedly an expert in the more esoteric folklore.”
“And we aren’t?”
“I don’t know, Bobby said he ran into him a few years ago and he was a great help, a little curious and talkative…and ‘weird’…”
“Weird?  Weird how?”
“Didn’t say, but he did say we can trust him enough to tell him we’re hunters and he’ll give us all the help we’ll need.”
Dean sighed and opened the car door, “This guy got a name?”
“Yea, a Mister Sabin Duvert.”

III.

Sabin sat behind his desk with a sigh; he was exhausted.  He had spent most of the previous night laying in bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling in a mixed attempt to figure out what was going on and, on the chance he was the cause of everything, at least remain conscious if something were to happen.  Instead he wound up with less than two hours sleep and an incredible migraine.  Luckily, it was Friday and he had had an exam planned for weeks.  So he sat at his desk and listlessly scanned the room for cheaters and sleepers.  He hadn’t caught someone sleeping in his class in quite a while, and he hoped if there was such a brave soul, he would be able to slip into their subconscious.  At the very least it would prove that he wasn’t as ‘off’ as he thought he was lately.  Sure enough, in the corner in the far right, someone was determinedly face-planting the desk.  Sabin could just imagine the student handing him a half drooled on paper that would be poorly written and rushed on top of it.  He sighed and let his eyes linger on the figure as he felt a very small piece of him drift away from his mind.
There was a knock on the door that Sabin and a few students off guard.  He stood, “Continue working,” and went to the door.  He opened it to find himself facing two men, both wearing beat up jeans, boots, light fall jackets; one wore a button down flannel shirt and the other a black t-shirt.  The men glanced at each other then back to Sabin.  “Can I help you gentlemen?” Sabin asked.
“Uhm,” Sam glanced at Dean and then back to Sabin, “you know what, we can see you’re busy so we can come back later.”
“Not at all, my students are taking an exam, what is it you need?”
“Bobby sent us over, we’re the Winchesters.”
“Bobby…?  Oh!” Sabin exclaimed as the memories of a few years ago came back, replacing his worry and concern for the town’s current events, “Yes of course, I remember now.  He told me a lot about you two.”  Sabin took a step into the doorway and lowered his voice, “What brings you here?”
“The murders that have been going on,” Sam replied in an equally low whisper.
Sabin felt something in his chest tighten, “Oh?”
“Yea,” Dean continued, “Bobby says you’re an expert in weird-o kooky folklore—“
“Uh, we…don’t know what it is,” San interrupted, “and Bobby said you might be able to help.”
“Ah, I see,” the knot in his chest loosened, but not by much, “I would be glad to help you in any way I can.  Perhaps we—“  Sabin stopped and his eyes wandered from the two men to the wall behind them; something wasn’t quite right.  Something in the back of his mind was shifting, becoming much more prevalent than it should be.  He could feel a sudden surge of energy: someone was terribly frightened.  It was filling him with warmth, and a certain giddiness and a feeling of power at all once.  He couldn’t help but grin slightly.
“Whoa,” Dean took a step back and patting his brother on the stomach with the back of his hand.  This ‘professor’ had canines and premolars that were much longer than should be.
“Professor Duvert?” Sam asked, Dean was already reaching for his gun.
Sabin suddenly realized just how fast and far he was slipping, he bent over in a mixture of pain and shock, breathing deeply; he could feel his body shifting.  He glanced at his shaking hands and could see his fingers painfully extending into claws.
Then there was a scream from the classroom.
Dean rushed past the professor and into the room, gun drawn, which drew several more screams.  Off in the far corner a young man seemed to be having a violent seizure, he was on the floor and screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Dean?!”
Dean turned around to see Duvert crouched in the doorway, black and grey wisps of mist emitting off of him.  “The hell?!”  He raised his gun and fired off several shots but Sabin had pushed past Sam and disappeared down the hall, an eerie laugh following him.  Dean ran to the door way, ready to continue shooting despite the open doors and curious students, but the professor had just turned the corner at the other end.  “Check the kid!” Dean yelled and ran after Duvert.

Dean chased the professor across the campus towards the back and behind several buildings before he lost him.  Panting, he put his hands on his knees and looked around; there was no where for the professor to go unless he had the ability to melt through walls or merge into shadows.  “Dammit,” Dean said with a grunt and put his gun away.

When he got back to the building there was an ambulance and a large crowd outside.
“Dean!” Sam was off to the side, by the car, waving him over.
As Dean got closer he could see Sam was talking into his phone, leaning on the top of the car and writing something down.  He waited until Sam hung up, “What the hell was that?”
Sam sighed, “Well I just got off the phone with Bobby, and he’s not entirely sure because we haven’t got much to go on but…he said it sounds like we could be dealing with an ‘Anju’.”
“A what?”
“I’m not sure, he said he would have to do some reading, and I checked Dad’s journal, and there were barely three lines written, something about shadows and fear.”
“Shadows and fear?” Dean repeated.
Sam nodded.
“It’s a demon though?”
“From what Bobby can tell so far.  But Dean, I told him what I saw and he said we must have a very powerful one on our hands for him to physically change a man that way.”
Dean nodded, “Okay.  It’s demon, it can be killed.”  He opened the car door, “Let’s go.”

IV.

Sabin tripped forward and fell onto the side of the arm chair; every ounce of his energy being put into keeping his human form.  He still had not figured out what happened.  It was certainly not the first time he had assisted a student in waking from their dreams…what went wrong?  He clutched onto the plush fabric, his claws tearing into it.  Every time he closed his eyes he saw a quick flash of gruesome images.  At first he thought he was hallucinating and then he recognized them.  He recognized the people.  The areas.  The events.  They were the homicides that had been taking place.  Worse than that, they were his memories.  Sabin yelled out in pain and fell to the floor on his back, arms spread he lay there panting, one word occupying his mind: Why?

And then he saw it, in his mind’s eye, an event he had passed off as a curious dream.  A little girl, with black hair and blue eyes, in a white summer dress was smiling up at him.  She blinked and her eyes turned completely white.  They stood on a dark and dusty crossroads.  Despite the screaming voice of reality in the back of his mind, and the astronomical improbability, the tinniest spark of hope and the overwhelming sadness and loneliness won out.  Sabin nodded his head and bent over, kissing the girl on her forehead.

Sabin opened his eyes, all six of them, and gazed up at the ceiling with a feeling of absolute clarity and calmness.  He took a deep breath and sat up, looked around the room, stood and made his way to the bedroom.  He stopped in front of the mirror on the inside of the closet door first.  He turned his head this way and that, his red eyes scrutinizing his appearance.  A part of him was disappointed, he was still in very limited form, but perhaps that would change as he got stronger.  He reached up and neatened his hair, collar and tie, and pulled a little at the bottom of his vest.  He grinned a very toothy grin and went to the night stand by the bed.  With a casual flair Sabin removed the diary, opened it, wrote the date, and one line underneath it.

Samantha Blair is coming home.

He dropped the open book onto the bed with a plop and walked out the apartment.

A few minutes later the screams of his neighbors echoed down the hall.