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“Okay, so. Here’s the thing: we’re conditioned from childhood to believe in this narrative, right? Good guy gets chosen for something that’s bigger than him, learns skills, faces strife, rises, then finally defeats the bad guy? But—nothing’s ever that straightforward in real life, you know? I mean, I’ve only been doing this for a few months, but gosh, I’ve had to, like, rethink… everything I thought I knew.”
“Ah. The real world is not a fictional morality play. A scintillating observation, I’m sure.” Rowena brings her glass to eye-level and squints at it. The drink is an electric blue, with… red particulates floating within. She’s pretty sure that she only ordered a scotch. “The kind of content, Samuel, that draws viewers to your creations in droves.”
Samuel opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, pauses, and actually pouts. He tucks a long strand of hair behind his ear with an earnestness that never fails to remind her of her Sam, and just—this wee little copy is so adorable she’s almost sad at the thought that she’s going to see him die soon. “I thought you said you had a tip for me,” he says, a little morosely.
“Ah. Yes.” Rowena takes a tentative sip from her drink. It tastes well enough like scotch, although there’s a disconcertingly tangy aftertaste. Almost fruity. Sam always gets flustered about food and drink from other worlds—she can imagine him now, ranting away about how their body chemistry was probably not designed for this world’s alcohol. “It will get here soon enough; no need to hurry.”
Samuel leans forward in what Rowena is sure he thinks is an intimidating manner. He’s only thrown back a couple of lime-green concoctions, but his eyes are already a tad unfocussed, his body swaying ever-so-slightly to one direction. His hand skids on the smooth bar-top. “If you’re trying to dupe us, we’ll expose you, you know, my brother and I. You aren’t the first to try this, lady, and you definitely won’t be the last.”
Rowena’s lips twitch. “I’ll be pilloried in the halls of YouTube, will I?”
“For the last time, it’s WeTube—”
He’s cut off by the sound of shattering glass, a terrific, beastly roar, and the horrified screams of the bar’s other patrons. In the ruins of the establishment’s entrance is an ugly creature that resembles an overgrown lizard, dark leathery skin peppered randomly with protruding scales, yellow eyes rolling in its head with rage, almost comically large canines erupting from its slash of a mouth and dripping venom onto the floorboards.
Samuel gapes. “A hodag,” he says, almost reverent, and scrambles to pull the phone out of his pocket while beginning to move toward the beast. Oh dear.
“No, Samuel, come back,” Rowena says without the slightest bit of urgency, before she takes another sip from her fruity scotch. Samuel, predictably, doesn’t listen to her and keeps moving forward, phone in hand and recording. A large, spiky tail whips around and he just about manages to avoid it.
Oh well. At least she tried.
A large figure swoops in, grabs Samuel by the collar and yanks him out of the way before the tail makes another pass and lops his head off. This figure then raises a large hunting knife, and with a roar, charges at the infernal creature. He ducks under its swinging tail and gnashing teeth, and, with practice born of many, many years of literal hell, plunges the knife into its soft underbelly and drags it upwards, effectively disembowelling the hodag. The creature gives one last, piercing screech, twitches, before finally stilling. The figure turns, chest heaving.
Well. Even under all that black blood, the post-murder glow that Sam Winchester radiates is unmistakable.
“Get a tooth, now,” he says to her. “And then we’re leaving.”
Rowena pouts. “So soon? I was just getting to know young Samuel here. He’s very enterprising.”
Samuel, for his part, is sputtering, and, Rowena thinks, talking at his phone. “You guys are not going to fuckingbelieve this,” he’s saying. “Actual professional hunters, hunting down the supernatural. I knew it! There are secret organisations keeping this stuff from us, you guys, and this guy just proves—”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Sam grabs the phone from him, throws it on the ground, and crushes it under one enormous boot. “Go home, close your WeTube channel, take your brother, find Bobby Singer and ask him to train you both before it’s too late.
“And you,” he turns to Rowena, “Get the tooth. Jack’s going to have the portal up and running soon. We’ve got to leave.”
“My, Sam,” Rowena says, smoothing her dress, “you have got to try that voice in the bedroom next time.” She’s gratified to see Sam blush furiously.
With Samuel still watching, jaw unhinged, Rowena mutters a small spell and breaks off a tooth, wrapping it in cloth. “We should trying this time-travelling lark more often; it’s fun in such unexpected ways.”
“Trans-dimensional travel,” Sam corrects her, sounding pained. “I thought we agreed that time travel is never a good idea.”
Rowena shrugs. A sliver of radiant light is starting to form right behind Sam—it seems like this little adventure has finally reached its end. “Travelling across universes to collect ingredients for a trans-dimensional spell—Sam, in a different era, you would be a legend in the magical community.”
Sam fixes her with a strange look before turning to the portal. “I’m only doing this because the threat is trans-dimensional. Nothing else, and never again.”
Rowena smirks. Oh, she’ll make a warlock out of this one yet.