The bar had a classic Old-America feel to it, the air smelling of worn-out leather and whiskey and filled with the sound of classic rock. It was fairly busy for a small bar somewhere along route 80, the continuous bustle made Sam slightly nervous and, not for the first time, he wished Dean would let him pick the bars occasionally. They were supposed to be headed to Davenport to investigate the sudden deaths of four men in the last year, all of whom had their insides turned to soup as though they had been near a contained explosion. Naturally the doctors were stumped. It sounded like just their kind of thing, probably a malicious spirit, but it could be something far worse; there was never a way to be sure with their line of work.
All this was irrelevant to Sam now. He had just got off the phone with Bobby and there was a seriously good case down in Florida. He has his mind made up that this was more important, now he just had to convince Dean, which was never to be taken lightly. Sam sighed and scanned the bar, finally his eyes caught sight of the altogether too casual stance of his brother leaning against the far end, talking to a pretty little blonde in a short denim skirt. This was going to be tedious.
As he walked up he heard Dean's voice, though it was a little deeper than necessary. 'It's no trouble at all. I'll call up the casting director tomorrow and see if we can't get you a little something.' Sam fought the urge to gag as he could almost hear the cheesy wink, and wondered how so many girls fell for this stupid act. As Sam loudly cleared his throat, Dean turned round with a vapid smile on his face. Sam raised and eyebrow at him.
'Sammy!' Dean cried clapping a hand onto his shoulder. 'This here's my brother Sam. Sam this is...' He trailed off, unsurprisingly.
'Crystal' giggled the little blonde. Typical was all that crossed Sam's mind.
'Crystal!' Dean repeated giving his brother a look that showed exactly what he wanted from bubbly little Crystal. 'I've been talking to her for a while now and I think she's got some potential.' He smiled a huge smile and Crystal giggled behind her hand.
'Well I wouldn't know now would I?' Sam retorted as sarcastically as he could manage. 'That's your area of expertise.'
'True, true. Sammy wouldn't know talent if it danced naked in front of him. I, on the other hand...' Dean turned on what Sam could only imagine he presumed was a charming tone. It made the younger brother want to vomit. He'd heard quite enough of this for one night, besides, they had more important things to talk about.
'Listen, Dean, the doctor called, he said the swelling's nothing to worry about but you should probably go and have the pus drained away.' Putting on the straightest face he could muster Sam revelled in the disgusted expression that came over the blonde's face.
'Ew.' was all she managed before she grabbed her purse and quickly sauntered to the other end of the bar. Dean gave him a look to kill.
'What in the hell was that?!' He demanded, downing what was left of his beer in outrage.
'I got a call from Bobby about a case.' Sam paused as Dean gave his customary look of indifference and went right ahead and said the same damn thing he said every time.
'We already have a case.'
'Yeah but this one's huge.' Sam tried to stress the importance with every syllable. 'Bobby called us specially because there's going to be hype about this one, and he thought we might want first scoop.' He knew it wasn't going to be that easy but that didn't stop the little creep of hope crawl into his tone like it did every time.
'Yeah, and?' Dean motioned to the barmaid for another bottle of beer.
'And, we already know what we're dealing with.' Sam started to let the excitement grow in his voice, 'They're from England, just moved here last week and, they have quite the reputation.' Dean took a swig from the bottle placed in front of him and looked up at his brother with a reserved expectation.
'They? Who's they?' He said with a slight impatience.
'That's what's so interesting.' Sam pressed, watching Dean's look of disbelief, confident that he would change his tune once he heard what was currently residing in Florida. A phenomenon that no hunter had experienced before in known history. That they had this case laid out for them was a miracle and Sam did his best to put every ounce of emphasis he could on his next few sentences. 'There's a spirit. A vampire. And a werewolf.' Dean's head turned slightly. 'And they're all living in the same house.' Now Dean looked Sam dead on with raised eyebrows in disbelief.
'That's impossible.'
'That's what I said.' Sam responded insistently, to show that he wasn't just mindlessly following tales, 'But Bobby says it's confirmed. There's been sightings of them all over England. They were in a city called Bristol, where a coven was destroyed, then there were definite sightings in Wales and a few unconfirmed in various other parts of the country before they disappeared. Now they've shown up in Florida.' Sam looked at Dean expectantly, as though his gaze would force a reaction from him, would make him give the consent that they should go and check it out.
'How is that even possible? Most werewolves don't even know what they are, and spirits aren't known for just picking up and emigrating.' Dean might have put every effort into looking nonchalant but Sam knew he had peaked his interest and smiled satisfactorily.
'I don't know. But get this, the vampire that's with them.' He paused to make sure the full effect of what he was about to say sunk in. 'They say his eyes turn black.' Dean's eyes rose slowly from his bottle, and Sam knew that they were both thinking the same thing.
Early the next morning fog was thick and everything was a dull grey and with the quiet air of a bar full of hangovers. The grumbling image of a '67 impala swung out onto route 80, breaking the silence until it had swung away into the fog, no longer heading for Davenport.
