Women In The Night

Dr. Quinn Iorfida

After their dinner at Casa Loma, Dean got a text from an unknown number saying that their shift was over, so she went off to ’follow through’ with Muse. Sera had no issue with it, as she had a lot of planning to do.

She couldn’t stay up too late since she had to work in the morning, but Sera was still in the early process of getting everything organized so she could run off and be a monster hunter. She already had a storage unit nearby and she was planning to store most of her major belongings there and just sell the rest for petty cash, which was something she supposed she needed now.

Sera had made it all the way through her livingroom (leaving the couch and night table for Dean of course) when she realized it was well after midnight. She saw that Dean had texted her, saying that she was going to spend the night at Muse’s place and would leave in the morning to go to Kingston to speak with Quinn, and that she’d call once she got there. 

Sera sighed as she put her phone down, looking at her now mostly-empty apartment. It suddenly felt rather lonely, now that Dean’s boots weren’t by the front door or she wasn’t passed out on the couch, snoring gently as she turned in her sleep.

“Well, I still have to work tomorrow,” she said with a sigh as she stood, her knees popping as she did. Sera wasted no time in showering and getting everything ready for the next day before heading to bed, still riding the wave of excitement to be finally leaving her boring, mundane life behind her.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next afternoon, Jared approached her with a coffee and a wary smile.

“So,” he said as he handed her the to-go cup from the café in the lobby, “you still quitting so you can run off with your long-lost childhood bestie?”

“You know it,” Sera replied, “Last night, I sorted basically everything in my living room into three piles: stuff to store, stuff to sell, and stuff to travel.”

“Right. About that – how the hell are you travelling anyways? You don’t own a car.”

“I don’t, but Dean does. She has this old van she converted into this like, mini-apartment.”

“Uh-huh. So two grown women are going to be living together in a van?”

“Well,” Sera admitted, picking at her salad, “Dean has to do some renovations to accommodate both of us – but we will likely be sharing a bed when we’re not staying in motels.”

“And for what feels like the millionth time,” Jared said, gesturing with his fork as he picked at his microwave rice, “Why are you doing this again?”

Sera chuckled, “Because it’s an excuse to get out of this shitty corporate lifestyle, travel, help some people, and bond with an old friend.”

Jared shook his head, “I still think you’re absolutely crazy. You’re giving up everything – a stable job, a good apartment, and a decent credit score. I know we all have our quarter-life crises, but this is a little over-the-top.”

“I know it’s drastic,” Sera admitted, “but…I think it’s exactly what I need. I can’t help but feel like this was meant to be, y’know? Especially the timing of it all.”

“It may seem like that now,” Jared said with a shrug, “but a couple months from now when you’re shittin’ in a bush, you might be missing this corporate lifestyle. At least our bathrooms have lavender-scented handsoap.”

Sera scoffed, “I can get scented handsoaps anywhere, and I can probably find some that are better.”

“Oh, definitely, but you see my point, right?”

“Yeah,” Sera sighed, “pros and cons to it all. I guess...I’m just hoping that in the end, the pros will outweigh the cons, y’know? And for me, the thrill of travelling and adventure and seeing new things, well, it outweighs a lot of cons. I’ll take shittin’ in a bush over sitting at a computer for eight hours any day.”

“Couldn’t be me,” Jared joked, and the two of them shared a laugh as they sat together and enjoyed their lunch. 

Just then, Sera’s phone buzzed and she saw that she had a text from Dean;

Just got to Quinn’s. Call u later.

Sera smiled, eager to hear all about Dean’s little day-trip later that night.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dean drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, staring at the old Victorian house in front of her, feeling as though she was playing chicken with it.

It had been a long time since she’d visited her old mentor, nearly a year. She hadn’t been involved in the fight between Quinn and Daisy, but she had very clearly chosen Daisy’s side by continuing to travel with her, which certainly hadn’t gained her any favours from the professor.

Still, the knife was very clearly a clue leading to Quinn and Dean couldn’t overlook it, no matter how much she wanted to.

So, with a deep sigh, she grabbed the bottle of wine in the front seat and got out of the car and made her way up to the front door, her feet dragging the entire way.  She kept glancing around her despite the fact that Quinn literally had no neighbours for the next five kilometres or so, since he lived on an island off the coast of Kingston that was mostly inhabited by farmers. 

All too soon, Dean found herself at the front steps, staring at a brass knocker in the shape of a lion on the door. When she was little, she used to find it charming, but now it just seemed dangerous, warning her to stay away.

“This is all for Mom,” Dean told herself quietly as she raised a hand and banged the knocker on the door three times.

“I’m coming!” A voice from the doorbell said, and Dean pointedly stepped into the camera’s blindspot. She waited anxiously, shuffling her weight from foot to foot, listening to the familiar footfalls approach the door.

The door opened and Dean smiled, “Hello, Dr. Iorfida.”

It had been a long time since the two had seen each other, but Quinn hadn’t changed much; he still had the sameshaggy,  messy, dark hair and scruffy beard, the same wide, circular wire-frame glasses that highlighted deep bags under his tired brown eyes. He wore a brown knit sweater, and Dean could see the chains of his amulets that Quinn always wore.

He looked Dean up and down – her heart beating in her chest – before he sighed, “Well, at least you brought wine.”

“Oh, um, yeah,” Dean said, thrusting the bottle at him, “You still like merlot, right? I uh, I got it from a winery in Toronto.”

Quinn smiled, “I do still love merlot. Now come on in, I’ve got a pot of tea boiling, should be enough for two.”

“Thank you,” Dean said, following Quinn into his house. It also looked about the same as she remembered, fully embodying the “dark academia” aesthetic that Quinn favoured so much, and it looked like there were some new relics and charms. She made sure to take off her shoes so as not to damage the hardwood floors and fancy rugs hiding sigils and traps.

“You Whitlock women sure are something else,” Quinn chuckled, perhaps a tad bitterly, as they made their way to the large sitting room, “Showing up unannounced within days of each other. I thought I made it clear I didn’t like company.”

“Yeah well – wait, you said within days of each other?” Dean frowned, “But she checked out of her hostel this morning.”

“You know your mother,” Quinn sighed, grabbing two traditional clay Chinese teacups that were painted red with a black dragon on them. He began to pour the tea from the matching pot, “Doing everything in her power to throw everyone off her trail, even you. She probably doubled back to check out.”

“But she was here, right?”

“Yeah, about two, three days ago? Oh, you still like jasmine tea, right? With milk?”

Dean smiled, “Yeah. Thanks, Professor.” Dean happily accepted the cup and the two sat down in plush armchairs by the fireplace, the mantle filled with photos and knick-knacks. She stared at it before sighing, “Hey um, I’m really sorry. About the fight, last year. I shouldn’t’ve just blindly followed Mom, I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m sorry I didn’t come back to you sooner.”

Quinn looked Dean up and down before sighing again, “Well, while I think it’s a little late, the apology is nonetheless appreciated and accepted. I would hate to lose my star pupil.”

Dean scoffed, “Yeah, right. You just like that I bring you all the good booze from across the country.”

“I don’t know why so many hunters keep bringing me shitty alcohol! They always say ‘how can we ever repay you’, and I always respond ‘with a good red wine’, and yet my cellar is half-full of white and even rosé!”

Dean laughed, “You know hunters – as forgetful as we are vengeful.”

“Yes, you lot only seem to care about dead things.”

“As if you aren’t a hunter yourself.”

“Researcher,” Quinn corrected sharply, though with a smile.

Dean chuckled and drank some of her tea before frowning again, “So...Mom was here.”

“Afraid so. She told me you’d be coming.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Not much,” Quinn huffed, turning to look at his countless photos on the mantle, “Just that you weren’t far behind her, and she wanted me to pass along a message, a mission. I told her to tell you herself like any decent mother, but then she all but thrust this letter at me and disappeared. I was going to call you after she left, but then I got wrapped up in some ghoul case with some newbie hunters.”

“Oof, how’d that go?”

“About as well as you’d expect.”

“Yeah, makes sense. So do you have the letter?”

“I do,” Quinn replied, setting his tea down on a coaster and standing up, moving around the room, “I had it here somewhere….aha!” He whipped out a letter from underneath a flower pot, which left a brown ring on it, “Sorry about that, I wanted to put it someplace I wouldn’t forget.”

“Hey, as long as I can still read it,” Dean said with a shrug as she accepted the letter. It was nothing special, just a plain white, dirty letter that was sealed. No stamps or address, it simply read “Celeste” in her mother’s harsh, rushed handwriting. She opened it eagerly, but she frowned when she saw it was just some newspaper clippings from a northern-Ontario town. 

“A new hunt,” Quinn scoffed, recognizing the paper, “Never change, Daisy.”

“Did she say anything? About her being in the town? Am I supposed to meet her there for the hunt?”

“No, nothing. She hardly said anything, really – she wasn’t here long enough for me to threaten her.”

Dean laughed, “She was gone that quick, huh?”

“Indeed. So, where’s the hunt?”

“Armstrong Station, up north.” Dean pulled out her phone to check on the map, “Looks like it’s about 20 hours away.”

“I’m assuming that you want to go there immediately, yes?”

“I wouldn’t say no to lunch,” Dean said with a smile, “But yeah, I’m gonna wanna head there as soon as I can.”

“Any idea what you’re hunting?”

“I haven’t looked at the article too closely, but it’s animal attacks under what looks like a full moon, so probably a werewolf.”

Quinn’s eyes widened and he set down his tea, “A werewolf? But the full moon doesn’t start until the day after tomorrow!”

“Yeah, this article is from a month ago. Mom’s probably had her eye on this town for a while, gives us some time to figure it out before the full moon ends.”

“Right. Well, I’m going to get started on lunch – tortellini salad okay?”

Dean grinned, “Tortellini salad is great.”

“Wonderful.” Quinn stood with a slight groan, “I’ll get started on that.”

“I’ll help you, I just need to make a quick call.”

“Lettie, I don’t think Daisy is going to answer.”

“Oh, no, it’s to a friend of mine.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow and smiled, “Oh? A friend?”

“It’s a long story,” Dean chuckled, “I’ll tell you over lunch.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sera got the call towards the end of her lunch break, the smiling face catching her attention.

“Oh, that’s Dean now,” she said, standing up from the table and stepping out of the break room, trying to keep away from prying ears, “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey,” Dean said from the other end. It sounded like she was standing outside, with some birds chirping in the background and a bit of wind, “So Mom was here, but we’re a few days behind her.”

“Aw, I’m sorry Dean. Well, where’s the trail leading, any idea?”

“Yeah,” Dean sighed, “Mom left me a letter with some news clippings for a town about twenty hours from Kingston, looks like it might be a werewolf. So I’m gonna head there after lunch, I won’t be back for a few days.”

“Oh.” Sera suddenly felt a bit cold then, “Oh, okay. Um, can you come back? Maybe I can help, we can go up this weekend maybe, I can take Friday, maybe Monday –”

“No, werewolves are tricky, since they only come out during the full moon, which only lasts for a couple of days. If I don’t go, I’ll lose the trail, and chances are that a killer wolf is gonna live for another month. I have to go.”

“Right. Um, anything I can do?”

“Just continue packing and getting ready. If I need anything I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Just text me when you’re there, please?”

“Will do. I uh, I gotta go. I’ll um, I’ll call you later.”

“Thanks. Drive safe.”

“You too. No, wait –”

Both girls laughed lightly at the small blunder, alleviating a bit of the awkwardness. Once they caught their breath, Sera smiled.

“I’ll talk to you later Dean.”

“Yeah, see ya around.”

The call ended, and Sera sighed. 

So. Dean was going to be away for a few days, off on her own hunt.

This was going to be interesting.