Maybe It's Not So Bad - Plus Sized Reader

Twenty Three

My research brought up diddly with a side of squat on information, but a massive headache and tired eyes by the time that the afternoon had rolled around.

Sure, I'd managed to find bits and pieces on ancient beliefs and worshipping of Freya, including a lot of modern-day Reddit threads, but nothing that pointed towards our current predicament.

Many of the old wiccans and rituals were long extinct, thankfully giving me some peace of mind that we weren't dealing with a widespread case of cursing but not helping me with narrowing down potential remedies in the process.

I hadn't managed to fall down any rabbit holes that led anywhere beyond sore eyes and a dull ache in my temples, anytime that I found a potential lead it dried up faster than it had been discovered, except one particular lot about rune magic but that wasn't anything extraordinarily helpful beyond giving basic instructions of weak spells.

It seemed like our best bet was to rid ourselves of the head witch entirely, unless we could find a way to dethrone her and remove her magic.

Cruel, but for the best.

I couldn't help but feel out of my depth and that Sam, our resident magic man, would be the better one to take on the research that I was doing.

He always had this knack of finding just the thing we were looking for and his exclamation of; "So get this," always got a smile out of me.

Not that I was bad at researching, but witches were one area in hunting that I didn't have a lot of experience in and I felt considerably out of depth, at least Sam would know some of the underground wiccan and magic sites to visit to get answers.

I was chasing my tail with social media and a Wiccanpedia that anyone can find on the web's surface.

With a groan, I dropped my head back and closed my eyes.

"Where's an angel when you need them?" I mumbled, reaching up to rub my temples. "Or a direct line to a God themselves that isn't a prayer they'll ignore."

With a long sigh, I let myself relax for more than five minutes before righting myself, a decision of take a painkiller and slinking into bed rooting itself.

Typically, I would ignore the pain and push through for the sake of the lives we could save, but everything hurt to look at and we weren't getting anywhere fast, so I could spare some time until one of the boys got back to me, hopefully with good news.

I didn't even notice how quickly I fell into my nap once I'd led down until my trilling phone woke me up barely two hours later, my head still aching but at least not as badly as I had been when I'd settled under the covers.

With the speed of a sloth, I fumbled around the bed to try and find where I'd dropped my phone to as I dozed off, eventually finding it partially tucked under the pillow and answering without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" I mumbled, rolling over but keeping my eyes closed in the hopes that I could stave off the headache that had lingered.

"Did I wake you, Sleeping Beauty?" Dean asked, sounding more amused than apologetic.

I gave him a grunt in response, reaching to pinch the bridge of my nose with my free hand.

"Yeah, I'm not feeling too hot, but I don't think you're calling just to check up on me."

"And you'd be right, but don't think that means that I don't care."

"I know, Dean," I smiled, stretching out my aching thighs with a groan. "So, what's the goss?"

The sound of shuffling briefly came through the phone before Dean came back to me.

"I managed to get some stuff out of the witchlings."

"Witchlings?" I laughed, raising my eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm sure you get it, anyway they told me a lot more than I was expecting, in fact they spilled pretty much all the beans they were carrying."

"Were any of them particularly interesting?"

"Depends, do you count a head witch gathering four other witches to cast some big ultimate spell as 'interesting'?"

"I...would count that as the plot of The Craft," I said after a moment of pause.

"Right?"

"So how does this lead to the deaths we're investigating?"

"It seems that she recruits four others into her coven, pushes them to a ridiculous limit and then if they die...well, too bad, onto the next."

"That's cold, all those lives needlessly taken for some ego and vanity."

"Yep, Nancy is vetting these girls out, seems like she's running low on powerful chicks so she's resorting to the long game of recruiting newbies and training them herself."

"But for what spell?" I frowned.

"Not a clue, but it sounds like it's gonna be big if she's willing to take lives for wanting to leave her reading group and to top it all off, yes, she does brand them with a rune."

"Wait...as in, like, literally branding?"

"No, more like magical branding, I have photos of the ones the newbies have."

"Great, as if that's any less daunting."

"I know," he sighed. "Anyway, we're planning on heading to the hospital, I'll drop them off and then pick Sam up."

"You think it's a good idea to leave them alone?"

"Sure, I've given then some tips...we need all hands on deck for this and we can't keep waiting for her to make a move."

I ran a hand through my hair, taking in a deep breath before letting it out in a long sigh.

"You're right, I'll get up and wait for you guys so that we can recon and figure out where to go from here."

"You sure you're feeling up to it? We can handle this if you need more time."

"No," I sighed again, sitting up, "but when has that ever mattered in a hunter's life?"

"True," he said in a way that told me that he was likely nodding. "Okay, I'll call Sammy and tell him to get ready, be there in an hour."

"Got it."

We both hung up and I threw my phone to the other side of the bed before sitting up, regretting every movement I made as my head continued to pound while I stretched kinks out of my shoulders and neck.

The room felt heavily silent as the minutes crawled past, whether that was due to the anticipation of their arrival or the throbbing in my head I couldn't say but I pushed past it to tidy the room for their arrival.

A slow twenty-odd minutes crawled by before a knock came at the door.

I paused, looking up from the papers I had been stacking.

A pit fell into my stomach.

It didn't take being a hunter for ten plus years to know that something was wrong.

I made no move to answer it, instead I shifted around the table to the bedside to retrieve a knife I would always keep hidden beside the bed.

My hand barely grazed the hit of the knife before another knock came, this one louder and more desperate.

"Come on, hunter," sneered a mature woman's voice from outside. "Answer the door, don't keep me waiting."