Claire Novak and Joe Delgado: Hunters

As I step through the portal, the void peels itself reshapes around me. The sterile black void bleeds away into a thick, suffocating forest — ancient and alive. Gravel crunches beneath my shoes, giving way to damp earth littered with twisted roots and broken branches. The air hits me like a wall: wet pine, smoke and moss.

Cicadas scream in the dark. Fireflies pulse between tangled limbs like floating embers. The trees rise tall and gnarled, their bark flaking like burned paper, their branches clawing at the sky. The moon hangs low and swollen, its pale light bleeding through clouds that churn and coil like ink dropped in water.

I hear it before I see it—the deep, throaty growl of an engine that can only belong to one car. My business clothes morph and reform, replaced by worn jeans, scuffed boots, and a faded flannel. A pistol presses cool against my lower back, snug in the waistband. A leather jacket takes shape over my torso, and a rucksack, patched and frayed, hangs off one shoulder. Hunter mode: engaged.

Claire Novak is behind the wheel of the Impala, headlights slicing through the dark. Her expression is sharp, tired, but focused. I immediately notice the stark difference from the Kathryn that brought me into the creative world of Supernatural. She’s not bubbly, and warm. A testament to her acting abilities.

Claire revs the engine once, just to show off. I smirk, appreciating the display of power and walk to the passenger side.

I open the door, the creak of the hinge hitting my nostalgia just right. "Claire," I say, my voice a low growl.

"Joe," she acknowledges, her eyes never leaving the road ahead.

"Find Sam yet?"

She cuts me a look, her eyes flashing with a mix of exhaustion and determination. "Would I be driving his car if I had?"

Fair point, I think and toss my bag in the back and slide into the passenger seat, the leather crunching beneath my body. She peels out, the radio crackling to life with a classic rock song, something Dean-approved.

"You geared up?" she asks, her voice a low rumble.

"Does a bear shit in the woods?" I reply, my hand resting on the pistol at my side.

That earns a half-smile from her, a rare moment of levity in the otherwise tense atmosphere.

"There’s a nest in Catahoula. Four bodies drained in two weeks," she says, her voice grim.

Louisiana. Of course. The air already feels heavier, wetter, the humidity clinging to my skin like a second layer.

"Hope we don’t get swamp ass," I mutter, trying to lighten the mood.

She smirks again—barely.

We drive in silence, the world outside streaking past in a blur of skeletal trees and mist, shadows clawing at the windows like they want in. Then… it all starts to bend, warping at the edges. Light bleeds, time stutters. Then the landscape shifts. Not gradually—violently. Like a reel skipping in the projector, the forest jerks forward in time. One blink and we’re somewhere else entirely.

Then… a cabin is there. Just there. Sagging under its own weight, shingles hanging like loose teeth, walls blanketed in mold and **** ivy. Kudzu vines have strangled half the porch. The air turns still, the kind of still that makes your skin itch.

Claire doesn’t react to it. No double-take, no wide eyes. Just drives like it’s normal. Like time didn’t just flat-out fuckin’ fast-forward five miles and thirty minutes in half a second.

I glance at her and think: I’ve just witnessed Supernatural episode’s time jump in first person

She kills the engine, the sudden silence deafening. No words. Just action.

We step out, the gravel crunching under our boots. The heat is thick as blood, the air heavy with the scent of old blood, mildew, and something ancient and malevolent. The cabin hums with a wrongness, and it’s silent. Like… silent, silent, not even nature brave enough to make its presence known.

"You sure we’re in the right place?" I ask.

"Four dead," she says, her voice cold and determined. "Sheriff thinks it’s a goddamn bobcat."

"Right. Cause a fuckin bobcat drains its victims," I reply, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

She doesn’t laugh, but her tone changes, softens. “That’s why I called you,” she says, pauses, then, “I trust you.”

That lands harder than it should. Claire doesn’t say that shit lightly.

"You take the back. I breach the front," she orders, her voice firm and unyielding.

"We’re not even gonna scout?"

"No point. They’ve already smelled us," she says, her eyes locked onto the cabin, her body tense and ready for action.

She moves like she’s been waiting to fight, her blade an extension of her. Fluid, angry, and deadly. I circle wide, the back porch groaning under my boots. Two vamps linger near a boarded-up window, half-hidden in the shadows. They don’t see me yet. Then Claire lets out a piercing wolf-howl that echoes through the night.

They turn, their eyes glowing with hunger and malice. I’m already moving, my machete raised and ready. The first one gets a clean decap, his head hitting the dirt like a dropped melon, blood spraying in an arc. The second lunges, fangs bared, eyes yellow with hunger. We stumble and slam into a post on the back porch. I can feel his teeth brushing my neck, his breath hot and putrid. He’s snarling something about “fresh blood” when I shove the UV grenade in his face and click.

In a flash, his eyes burst, smoke rising from his face. He stumbles, blind and disoriented, and I finish him with a hard, two-handed swing. The blade bites deep, splitting his skull, brain matter and blood spraying across the ground.

Glass shatters inside the cabin. Claire’s already in, her movements a blur of **** and precision. I burst through the back door, machete raised, ready for whatever comes next.

It’s a slaughterhouse inside. Walls tagged in blood, bones scattered like trash. Claire’s a whirlwind of ****, dodging, slashing, kicking like she’s dancing with **** and daring it to lead. Two vamps are on her, but she takes one down with a blade clean through his throat, head hanging by small pieces of muscle, blood spraying across the room. The other scratches her shoulder, but she pays for it with his spine, her blade slicing through his back with a wet, crunching sound.

“Claire!” I yell, my voice a battle cry.

“Stay focused!” she shouts back, her voice a mix of pain and determination.

Something barrels into me—young, stupid, fast. We crash into the wall, the impact shaking the cabin. I can feel his breath hot and putrid. He’s snarling something about “fresh blood” when I drive the stake into his chest, twisting it with all my might. His scream is short and wet, his body hitting the floor with finality.

Claire finishes hers with an uppercut slash that damn near bisects the vamp, blood spraying the ceiling and walls. Then—silence. No music. No growls. Just the quiet crackle of settling wood and the drip of something wet on the floorboards.

Claire’s chest rises and falls rapidly, her body covered in blood, but it’s not hers. I take a second too long watching her, admiring her strength and ferocity, and, to be frank, it’s fucking sexy as hell. “You good?” she asks, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Peachy,” I say, clearing my head. “You?”

She looks at the bodies, her eyes cold and unyielding. “Better than I was.”

Outside, the air is cooler, cleaner. Moonlight shines off the bayou, and the sounds of nature have returned, the frogs croaking like nothing happened. The night is quiet, the tension broken, the monsters dead.

“You didn’t need me for this,” I say quietly, my voice a low rumble. “You could’ve done it solo.”

“I didn’t want to,” she replies, her voice soft but firm.

That lands too, a weight in my chest that I can’t ignore. We don’t say anything for a while, the silence heavy with unspoken words and shared experiences.

“I need a fucking shower,” I grunt, the adrenaline wearing off, leaving me with a sense of exhaustion and satisfaction. “And a drink.”

“There’s a motel not far. Hot water. Bourbon in the trunk,” she says, her voice a low rumble.

“Classy,” I reply, a smirk playing on my lips.

She walks ahead, her leather jacket hugging her shoulders, her hair pulled back, still gleaming in the moonlight. I follow, my mind racing with the realism of events I just experienced in my domain, a major genre shift than the previous “performances” as the voyeurs call them. I smile as I follow Claire back to the Impala and notice the change in her walk. There’s a swagger there that wasn’t there before. Her jeans hugging her ass as her hips sway seductively. She glances back, clearly catching me staring at her ass… but I also catch a smile, and a bite of her lower lip.