The ride towards Whiteclay would not be long–maybe a quarter of an hour or less if not for the ankle-deep snow that made the road hard to see and drive through. But Irwin knew a dangerous situation if he smelled one, given that he always seemed to land himself in one.
Either through deliberately or ignorantly bulldozing his way through the situation, or by the consequences of his action. He and God only knew how much he had paid for that.
The rope and wounds on the woman suggested that what he will be facing had a semblance of intellect or, at the very least, sentience. Seeing as it was in the middle of winter, no normal evil human would be dumb enough to hunt for their victims.
"We're either dealing with a monster, a witch, or some kind of pagan god." He informed Scott as he checked his spatial bangle.
It had fifteen cubic feet of space, quite large in his mind, and it was storing the weapons he had accrued over his short career. A pistol, a box each of both Devil's Trap-tipped iron bullet and silver bullets, five different kinds of stakes, jar of virgin's blood, an Angel Blade and Sword, Hex Bags for his Personal Magik, five Health, Magic and Stamina potions, and another one of the Soul Bomb he had used when he killed Dagon's High Priestess.
He figured that would be enough to handle whichever monster he would come across. Even if it wasn't, then he still had Scott by his side, which was literally created to be a demon super soldier.
"Are you sure? Maybe she just got… lost." Scott said hopefully, but knew that it wouldn't be the case.
Irwin chuckled, patting Scott on the shoulder with a sordid grin. "Oh, that's right. This would be your first hunt with me. Don't worry, bud. I won't let you get killed."
"Uh, would you be willing to change that to 'won't let me get hurt'?" He asked hopefully.
"Afraid not, bud," Irwin responded with a mournful hiss. "Afraid not."
Soon, the Health potion proved its worth and let the woman awaken to a series of groans. Her eyes trembled from the agony coursing through her body, visible to Irwin even under the heavy darkness that had surrounded the car.
Her hazel eyes pierced through the backseat and landed upon Irwin, who was gleefully smiling at him.
"Howdy!" He greeted her with a tip of his nonexistent hat. "My pal here hit you because you damn came out of nowhere, lass! We're going to Whiteclay for medical treatment."
Her eyes widened as she pushed through and tried to grab the steering wheel. "NO! No! Not Whiteclay. Whiteclay–bad. Help!"
The car skidded on the road as she out powered Scott to stop the car, but before they could hit a tree and get stuck on the road, Irwin had pushed her off the front of the car with enough strength to smash her back against the back seat.
Lurching to a stop, Irwin giggled at Scott's frightened curses directed at the woman but stopped once Scott's eye glowed with an unnatural blue light.
"Relax." Irwin placated the Special Child, dissuading him from releasing his powers. "Calm yourself. You're going to fry the car and we'll get stuck here."
"Sorry." He said, breathing in and out as the woman regains from her disorientation.
"D-Don't go there… please." She pleaded tearfully, pallid hands clenched into a fist.
"Why? What's in Whiteclay?" Irwin asked, but her answer was sobbing. Hysterical sobbing that threatened to pop the roof off the car. "Calm down. We can help you. We have guns and experience killing stuff. Was it a monster?"
Her sobbing halted as her reddened eyes trained itself unto Irwin. "Monster. You–"
"How tall?" Irwin asked calmly, which helped her train her memory.
"T-tall. 8, maybe 9 feet." Her shaking hand tapped the ceiling roughly.
"Skin? Is there fur or human-like?" Irwin nudged Scott to begin driving once more.
When the woman didn't answer, Irwin looked back and found her drifting to sleep. He snapped his fingers as a stream of magical energy sliced through the air and jolted her awake.
"NO! What–Skinny, yes, boney." She exclaimed with a sob. "You can see the bones in the-the bloodied skin."
Irwin was getting an inkling as to what they were dealing with as he asked, "Did you… hear its voice?"
"Yes."
"Tell me… are we near any Indian reserve?" He asked her one final time.
She gazed at Irwin incredulously and nodded in disbelief, earning a joyless chuckle out of the man. Before she could ask what was not funny, Irwin held out a hand and pressed it against his lips with a shush.
"Did you hear that?" He asked rhetorically, albeit with a hint of excitement. "That's the sound of a fucking Wendigo!"
●●●●●
Whiteclay was, for the most part, uninhabited and was only designated by the Census Bureau due to its proximity to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In fact, most, if not all, of its commerce was due to the citizens of the Reservation.
What do they buy? Why it's alcohol, of course.
The sale of which was so great that it had become a problem with the local tribal police. Residents of the nearby towns, as well as most Native-American rights legislators had been quoted saying that Whiteclay only exists to sell booze to the nearby Native-Nmericans.
"Suffice to say we aren't here to buy booze. Even if we were, it's for a Molotov cocktail. Get it?" Irwin nudged Scott as he made a stupendous joke. At least in his mind it was.
Like the rest of the woodlands before the place, Whiteclay was covered in snow that had reached above one's ankle. As such, all four liquor stores and general stores were closed, with only the lights from above the stores signifying that there were at least inhabitants within the surrounding area.
They slowed down the car and looked around for any signs of life, passing by the liquor store and church before settling into the parking lot of some sort of restaurant or a diner.
It was hard to see with the visibility, but it was good enough for their purposes. The woman, Tania, she called herself, was still severely injured and Irwin would need a flat surface and a warm space to heal the greatest of her injuries.
Before they could get out of the car, however, the door to the restaurant or diner opened up to reveal a disheveled man wearing a dirtied apron. With one hand behind his back, he snapped his finger repeatedly and hurried them in.
Sharing a brief look, Irwin carried Tania while Scott grabbed the silver luggage from the trunk. The moment he entered the restaurant, a wave of warmth pervaded his body and caused the once-hidden impending sense of danger to disappear.
Unlike the white hellscape outside, the only white thing in the establishment was two of five people inside. Which was weird since, for a bar and grill, it was bereft of anything that wasn't colored in forest green or muddy brown.
The faux bamboo seats and tables circling the central station were occupied by five people of equally distributed confoundment and fear. Add in the disheveled apron-wearing cook and Irwin would have thought that one of them would be a serial killer and he was supposed to find which one while also dealing with not getting killed.
"Sometimes, I love my life." Irwin muttered under his breath as he set down Tania on a large table. He turned towards the others and nodded, "Howdy! Citizens of Whiteclay."
"How…dy?" A heavyset woman of native descent nodded at him before gazing at Tania. "I know her. Wasn't she–"
"You folks better get out of here before the blizzards really set in. " A middle-aged man hushed the woman, most probably her husband. "There's a hospital a few dozen miles north of here. Why don't you take her there?"
"Don't think so." Irwin shook his head, removing her outer clothes and leaving her with a bloodied gray shirt and biker shorts."I'm Irwin by the way, and going to heal this woman with some…thing."
"OW… hurts…" Tania muttered but was still drifting in and out of unconsciousness.
The middle-aged man was about to be forceful, but the disheveled man raised his hands. "Let it go, Jerry. We should let them rest."
Jerry groaned, gazing at Irwin with hesitant eyes. "This is a-a dangerous time–"
"I'm a federal agent, guys. Don't worry. We just hit this woman. We do it all the time." Irwin interjected as he finished lining what was left of Tania's straight bones. "How many people are in the town or village or something?"
The disheveled man whom Irwin thought to be the restaurant's chef answered, "Eleven, permanent. But, uh, seven more are stuck until the blizzard's gone."
'Eighteen victims left. If I'm guessing right, the Wendigo is hunting near Whiteclay or… why would Tanina warn us not to go here with such intensity?'
Irwin briefly gazed at the inhabitants of the restaurant, nerves fraying from anticipation.
Scott entered soon after, shuddering away the snow that had settled on his shoulders. "Where do you want it?"
"Throw it in the center. Help me steady her. " Irwin pressed Tania's cheeks to make her mouth open before dribbling his last drop of Paracelsus' Alchemical Concoction. "This is a stronger version of the earlier Health potion. It'll tire her the fuck out, but fix everything that's wrong with her."
"Wait. If she goes unconscious, then we won't get anything from her." Scott whispered, worriedly.
"I know. That sucks." Irwin responded nonchalantly. "Lucky for us, we're 80% sure that it's a Wendigo, which means we're 80% sure that we don't need her."
"So, we're 64% sure that we're not gonna die?" Scott asked.
Irwin chuckled, "Well, we're in a blizzard so a fire wouldn't exactly work. You know what, let's make that 51%."