Chapter Four

“So let me get this straight,” Sam said, staring at Dean from across the small table in their motel room the next morning, “While I was sleeping, you managed to stumble onto another death and then blab what we do to your date?”

If there was one thing John Winchester had drilled into their heads, it was to never tell anybody their big family secret. Sam had lived with Jesse for a year and half and never revealed the truth and the only time Dean had only ever done it was to the girl he had fallen in love with. The fact that he had revealed all to the cute blonde he’d met only yesterday was not only dangerous, it was downright astonishing.

In light of Dean’s revelation, Sam didn’t know whether to be astonished or angry. Finally, he decided to go with astonished because it was so rare that Sam had the high ground with Dean and even rarer when his brother appeared so completely flustered. Dean's reaction to Sam's accusation of blabbing was priceless and the younger Winchester even felt a twinge of guilt (though not much) at breaking his brother's balls. However, it was too much fun to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Dean tripping over his tongue trying to explain himself.

“I did not blab to my date," Dean feigned outrage even though to his chagrin, that was exactly what he had done. However, Dean was convinced he was justified in his actions and was prepared to defend himself to his obnoxious brother. “Look,” he said trying to not sound defensive, which he was, “she knew her stuff alright? I figured her for another hunter. A hunter named Buffy,” Dean explained, a mental picture of the girl carrying a crossbow and nothing else temporarily scrambled his train of thought. With a start, Dean got back on track when he remembered Sam was watching him, “who knew she was actually a slayer.”

Sam did a double take and demanded. “A what?”

“A slayer,” Dean repeated, growing ever more exasperated by the look of disbelief on Sam’s face. “Supposedly, there’s one in every generation, a girl who fights vampires, demons and monsters. From the way she tells it, the slayer was created when these Shamans called the Shadow Men got together and ran a spell giving a girl these special powers. Since then, it gets passed along when the slayer dies and another one is called.” 

When Buffy had told him about the Slayers, he hadn’t much liked that part of her story mostly because it implied she had a finite shelf life or rather had when she was the only Slayer in existence.

“Special powers?” This was getting more far-fetched by the minute, Sam thought until he remembered that there was a time when he was the one who had 'abilities' and had no right to judge on this point.

"Hell yeah! She bent a spoon in front of me. I mean I couldn't even budge it." Dean insisted, ready to switch to violence to wipe away that smug look on Sam’s face. His brother could be such a dick sometimes, Dean fumed.

"Well that's because you're a pussy," Sam said automatically, receiving a punch in the arm for his trouble.

"Smart ass," Dean growled at him and then replied in a more earnest tone. “Sammy I know it’s crazy but I believe her okay? You know me, I'm the most suspicious son of bitch there is but this girl…I think she was on the level. She knew about vamps, she knew something went down here three years ago at Stull Cemetery. She wasn’t sure exactly what but she knew the slayers didn’t get there in time and missed it.”

Mention of Stull Cemetery made Sam sit up straighter.

There were a handful of people who knew what happened to Lucifer and to him that day at Stull Cemetery. While most hunters were aware that the war had ended due to the Winchesters, very few had any idea about the specifics and certainly none that knew it had taken place at Stull Cemetery, the location of Lucifer's cage. If this girl had access to resources that could discern that information, then maybe there was something to her story after all. Sam's greatest difficulty however, was believing he could have gone through all the lore and missed something as important as the existence of a slayer.

Still, one incontrovertible truth remained if nothing else convinced him; Dean trusted her.

Dean didn't trust anyone. His brother had the best instincts of any hunter he'd know. Sam never voiced it but he often thought Dean was a better hunter than John Winchester. When he went with his gut, he was seldom wrong. Even when he put his trust in Benny, the vampire he'd met in Purgatory, it had served him well. So far, Benny had behaved like no vampire Sam had ever encountered, save Lenora and her cadre who had sworn off blood and then it was Sam asking for Dean's trust. His brother had given it and so if Dean believed this girl, assuming he wasn't doing it because he had a thing for blond cheerleaders (who didn't?), then Sam would give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Okay Dean," Sam conceded the point for Dean's sake of Dean’s continued sanity, "If you trust her then that's good enough for me. I trust you."

After the last few minutes of ball busting, Sam's sudden vote of confidence took him back a bit and Dean settled down, recovering from what he deemed as one of Sam's 'chick' moments.

"Thanks," He said simply, wanting to leave the subject behind.

Still, Dean was grateful that Sam was deferring to his judgement because he was happy to get all the help he could get on this job. Despite his brother's assurances, Sam did not look well even after getting more than fourteen hours sleep. There were far too many dark circles under he still looked pale. Sam wasn’t concealing his exhaustion at all. The trials, which should have been Dean's to undertake, was taking its toll on Sam and he wasn't sure how much more his baby brother could take before his body gave out. If there was a way out for Sam, Dean was determined to find it.

"There is one thing strange though," Dean mentioned as he sipped substandard coffee from a Styrofoam cup, "she says she gets her info from a group called the Watcher Council who're there to help the slayers. They sound a hell of a lot like the Men of Letters and I wondered if you saw anything like that when you were going through the books in the Batcave?"

"No," Sam shook his head, certain on that. "I mean I haven't been through all the stuff in the bunker but I didn't see anything referring to a Watcher Council or a slayer for that matter. Something like that, I would have remembered. " 

"Doesn't make sense then," Dean shook his head, giving up trying to figure it out, "nothing from the Men of Letters and her Watcher Council had no idea about Lucifer, other than the usual stuff in the Bible. I mean she was clueless about the angels and demons running around."

"That's a lot of gaps," Sam agreed, his brow furrowing in thought. He wondered if he ought to consult his father's journal and then dismissed the notion. Both he and Dean and read the thing cover to cover over the last eight years and they'd seen nothing to suggest the existence of a slayer or a Watcher Council. Then again, John Winchester had been unaware that his own father was a Man of Letters.

"Yeah right?" Dean stated when suddenly there was a knock on their door.

In typical Winchester fashion, they both went for their guns.

Dean stood up first, motioning Sam to stand by while he approached the door cautiously, the barrel of his '45 leading the way. Slowly, he leaned forward and peered through the peep hole, seeing who it was. A fraction of a second later, Sam saw Dean's shoulder's slump, relaxing. He stepped back form the door a second later wearing a somewhat a sheepish expression on his face before lowering the gun.

"Who is it?" Sam asked puzzled, doing the same.

Dean didn't answer but opened up the door and stepped aside.

"Hi there," Dean's 'slayer' greeted them as she swept into the room carrying three cups on a cardboard holder and a brown paper bag. "So I took a week off work so we can work this job together. I thought we'd get started bright and early so I brought breakfast. I stopped at the Slice and got Mary to fill your coffee orders from yesterday. I figure we can start by talking to the second victims’ family since I’m guessing you already did the first one. I think unless the family is someone who saw us at the saloon last night, we can still do it. Although, if it someone who saw us then I think you’re right, Sam’s going to have to go in alone.”

She said all this without breath as she lowered their breakfast onto table. The nice, wafting aromas immediately prodded both men’s stomachs to jump to attention.

Glancing at Dean, she concluded, "Can't believe you keep in shape eating the junk you do."

Staring past at her at Sam, Dean swallowed thickly, trying to maintain his usual swagger as he finally realised he paused to speak at last, "Hey Counsellor."

His first thought, other than ‘God she could talk’ was even in street clothes, she still looked spectacularly hot. She was wearing this cute girly burgundy jacket, jeans and boots that made her a little taller, but not much. She looked as good in pants as she did in that ass grabbing skirt she’d worn the night before.

Sam was still playing catch up.

"Working this job together?" He threw Dean a questioning look since this was all news to him.

"Well yeah," Dean cleared his throat as Buffy stood between the two of them, her eyes jumping from face to face in expectation of a response to her earlier plan of attack. "I mean this is Buffy's turf after all and she wants in."

"And you said yes?" Sam was more incredulous by Dean’s agreement than Buffy’s presence.

"Is there a problem?" Buffy stared at him, realising now that she'd barged into the room and gone off like some bossy drill sergeant (with nicer clothes and not so much moustache hair) without giving them both a moment to catch their breaths or process what was happening for that matter. "It is okay right?"

"Its fine," Sam replied good-naturedly, smiling at her and gesturing at Buffy to join them at the table. "I'm just wondering what you did with my brother. He's not usually this..."

"Friendly?" Buffy offered.

"Whipped," Sam said with a widening grin.

"Sammy I swear I'll kick your ass," Dean threatened as he sat down on opposite Sam. "Look we don't work jobs on other hunter's turf. This is no different." He said once again attempting to convince Sam that he wasn’t thinking with his hormones here. Well not entirely.

Sam laughed, taking delight in Dean's reddening colour before turning to Buffy, "Thanks for breakfast.” He said reaching for the bag, “please excuse my brother while he’s trying to regain his dignity."

"Bite me," Dean retorted, making a face at him as the three sat down.

Buffy relaxed a little once she realised that Dean's relationship with his brother was not all that different from her own with Dawn. They were constantly bickering but beneath it all there was a bond stronger than steel. One only had to hear about how Dean talked about Sam to know that Dean felt as strongly towards his younger sibling as Buffy did. And like Dawn, Sam enjoyed getting seeing big brother tripping over his ego from time to time. She supposed she ought to be flattered since Sam’s ribbing gave her a clear idea of how Dean normally regarded his dates. It upped his cute quotient another notch.

"God, you're such boys," she teased, giving them both looks that could only be delivered by the female of the species. 

"Guilty," Sam admitted and reached for the cup marked 'latte' on the holder. Grateful to discard the stale coffee he’d been drinking, he popped the cover and took a long swig, before asking her, "So you're a slayer?"

"Yep," she nodded. "Every generation, one girl in all the world, blah, blah, blah," she trailed off hoping Dean would have given his brother the lowdown without her having to take someone else through it again. Giles was so much better at it than her and Faith’s response of ‘deal with it’ had its merits too.

"I've never heard of it," Sam confessed. "Not even once."

"I'm not surprised," Buffy answered, understanding his confusion. "I talked to Giles last night after you dropped me off," she glanced at Dean who was rummaging through the paper bag before turning back to Sam, "Something really freaky is going on. When we tried to figure out what was happened three years ago, we were operating under the assumption that we had all the books on the subject. I mean the Watcher Council had volumes and volumes of ancient texts. However, the books you mentioned didn’t exist for us until I told Giles to go find them. It seems they’re out there but no one had gone looking. The Watcher Council thought they had every occult book in existence in their library and somehow, they just missed yours."

"I wonder if it’s the same thing for the Men of Letters." Dean mused.

"Could be," Sam replied, more aware of the library at the bunker than anyone else. He'd spend most of their time in the place reading all the books there. It was the closest thing to home the two of them had ever had. "When this job's done, what we should do is try and run some kind of comparison against each library’s collection.”

“Okay, okay, you two can get off on your Dewey Decimals later,” Dean retorted, eager to get to the job at hand. You had to cut Sam off when he descended into research talk or he’d be like a winner at Oscar night, going on and on. Besides, it bored him to tears. "Right now, we got to work out this case. You need to get on the net and find out what you can about the poor bastard who died last night."

“Right,” Sam nodded and stood up to go find his laptop.

“While you’re doing that,” Buffy spoke up, “I spoke to my friend Willow last night. She’s a wiz on the computer like Sam and she was able to tap into Kansas Medical Examiners database and pull a copy of the preliminary autopsy report. She sent it through to me this morning, I haven’t read it yet.” She explained as she reached into her jacket and produced the printout before dropping it on the desk.

“Nice one Counsellor,” Dean said approvingly and picked up the printout and unfolded it to read. “Sam, the dead guy was the owner of the saloon. His name is Bob Sherman.”

“Great,” Sam replied when he returned to the table with his laptop and sat down.

“Says here,” Dean said continuing to read. “He was dead before the acid was poured all over him.”

“Thanks for small favours,” Buffy remarked, hating to think the man suffered after recalling the disintegrated flesh and exposed bones.

"Yeah,” Dean agreed and then looked up, “According to the medical examiner, the cause of death was poisoning with something called atracotoxin."

"What is that?" Buffy asked, nose wrinkling. 

“Venom,” Sam stated, not looking up from his laptop screen.

"From a snake?" She looked at him.

“No,” Sam said continuing to pound the keys of a laptop. “Spider or specifically the Australian Funnel Web spider.”

“Yep,” Dean added, uncertain to be proud or disturbed that Sam had all this information in his head. “That crap all over him is the same kind of acid produced by spiders."

"Gross," Buffy made a face wishing she’d tuned out after hearing the word spider. "So a spider bit him and then spit up on him?"

"It makes sense," Sam replied. "Contrary to popular belief, spiders don't drink all fluid from its prey. It bites them to kill or immobilize them and then regurgitates acid to break down the body so it can just drink it up.”

“Ewwww….” Buffy exclaimed.

"Jeez Sam," Dean stared at his brother in distaste. "Knowing stuff like this is why you never get laid."

Sam made a face at Dean but offered no other comment, more interested in learning what they could about their victim through the Internet.

"So what are we saying here, a giant…Australian whatsit spider bit Bob in his office and then tried to eat him?" Buffy asked. Oddly enough, after encountering a giant praying mantis creature who tried to mate with its victims prior to devouring them, an enormous spider roaming around Lawrence was not the strangest things she’d ever heard of.

"Then we should have seen it getting ready to chow down,” Dean retorted. “I mean you and me were right on top of that chick screaming. If this was an eight legged freak situation, we would have seen something and what about the first victim? That sure as hell wasn't a spider."

"Maybe it’s something manifesting as a giant spider?" Sam suggested. “Like a shifter.”

“Shifter can’t do the acid. I don’t care how versatile it is.” Dean returned.

Buffy sat back a moment, taking in how the two worked together. Clearly Sam was research guy and Dean was the one driving the plan of attack. It was not unlike how she had worked with the Scoobies and Buffy had to admit that while she didn’t miss the slaying, she did miss the friends she had worked with. Sure, they stayed in touch but still, the days when she, Willow and Xander would sit in the library at Sunnydale High with Giles watching over them, were undoubtedly the best of her life. 

“Whatever it is,” Buffy spoke up, returning to the conversation, “we need to know how this thing finds its victims. Any ideas?” 

“Well according to this,” Sam lifted his head from the laptop screen, “Bob has lived in Lawrence all his life. He owns a house in Oread, married with three children. He’s never travelled abroad and is pretty much your typical Midwestern bar owner.”

“No similarities to Benson,” Dean sighed. “Benson was a Professor at Kansas U, had a fiancée, had just moved into town and lives on campus. No kids.”

“So it’s just random,” Buffy frowned. “Those are the hardest to pick.”

“There’s something,” Dean said firmly. “There always is. Sammy, me and the Counsellor were burned at the bar last night so we can’t go back there asking questions.”

“Yeah,” Buffy shot Dean a dark look. “They think I’m some kind of sicko thanks to your brother.”

Dean couldn’t help but laugh at that which only resulted in getting kicked under the table again. “Ouch, man you can kick for someone with such little feet.” He teased.

“Did I miss the wedding?” Sam asked trying to keep a straight face.

“Don’t be funny,” Dean retorted, casting an awkward glance at Buffy to see her reaction and found she was just as embarrassed. Why? Hey he was a catch! Realising where his brain had just taken him, he shook it off and got back on point. “Okay smart ass, you’re going to have to talk to the people at the Saloon. The Counsellor and I will take Bob’s family. Sound good to you?” He asked Buffy.

The plan was sound so Buffy nodded, “yeah that works for me.”

“So,” Sam said easing into his chair, a slow smile stealing across his face as he asked Dean, “the big question now is what will it be? Agents Castle and Beckett, Mulder and Scully or Clark Kent and Lois Lane?”

Sam ducked when the napkins came at him.

TO BE CONTINUED