Chapter 4: Supernatural

Two weeks had passed and Jamie was getting restless.

The Leverage team had been good about keeping her occupied. She'd helped them research their latest mark and served as home base, running the computers and the coms from Portland while they worked in Seattle. She was both frustrated and touched that they kept sending one of their waitresses up to check on her. She certainly didn't mind not having to cook her own food, though. And the beer was awesome (she'd quit the morphine cold turkey and been on nothing but ibuprofen since she woke up), not that she'd ever admit it to Hardison. She got almost as much entertainment from teasing him as Eliot did.

But she hadn't killed anything in weeks. She hadn't hit so much as a heavy bag in weeks. So, yeah, she was restless.

She was sitting next to Eliot on the couch half perusing her journal entries on wendigoes, half watching the movie Parker had in, when Harsidon walked out looking like he'd raided her brothers' closet: a leather jacket covered a flannel buttoned halfway up over a gray t-shirt, well-worn denim had replaced his usual designer jeans, combat boots covered his feet, a dagger stuck out of the sheath at his waist, and an anti-possession charm hung around his neck. She nearly choked on her beer.

She kicked Eliot's leg and hissed, "I thought you said they didn't know about this stuff!"

Eliot looked confused, and hissed back, "They don't!"

She jerked her chin toward Hardison.

Eliot's eyes bugged out, "What the hell are you wearing, man?"

Hardison looked over at them, "You like it? It's my costume for the convention this weekend."

Jamie's eyes narrowed at the book tucked under her arm, a sickening suspicion sneaking up on her, "What convention?"

Hardison held the book up and confirmed Jamie's suspicion, "Supernatural convention." Then he grinned smugly at Jamie, "Still gonna try to tell me your name ain't an alias?"

"My name is not an alias." She said calmly.

"Damn. Cold, woman. Just, whatever. Carver Edlund's even supposed to be at this one!" Hardison continued on excitedly, "He's supposed to be releasing a book of deleted scenes and there's even a rumor he's gonna start writing new ones."

"I'm going to kill Chuck!" Jamie burst out as she snatched her phone off the coffee table. Hardison jumped back at her vehemence and Eliot looked at her curiously. When she ignored him in favor of punching buttons on her phone, he gestured for the book, which Hardison tossed to him.

Dean answered on the third ring, "Hello."

"Where are you?" Jamie snapped.

"Who is it?" she heard Sam ask in the background.

"Good to hear your voice, too, sis." Dean answered them both.

"Put her on speaker." Sam said.

She heard shuffling and then extra background noise as Dean did.

"Where are you?" she asked again.

"Southeast Oklahoma. Just broke an old Indian curse in the Blackjack Mountain area." Sam answered.

"You need to be in Portland." she demanded.

"We can be there in two or three days."

"Make it two."

"What's going on, Jai?" Dean asked

Jamie hesitated, "Just… get here."

She heard Dean start to argue and then Sam cutting him off, "Okay. See you soon."

She snapped the phone shut and had to resist the urge to throw it across the room. She felt Eliot's gaze on her and turned to face him. He had Hardison's book in his hands and an incredulous look on his face.

He held it up, "Wanna explain?"

Jamie glanced toward Parker and Hardison, "In private."

Eliot quietly helped Jamie into the kitchen. Thankfully, Hardison and Parker didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary besides Jamie's sudden bad mood. Eliot lifted her gently onto the counter and she leaned back against the wall as he waited patiently for her to explain.

When she finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper, but Eliot could see the barely controlled rage behind her eyes.

"Those books," she nodded toward the book still in his hand, "are my life. My brothers' lives. Carver Edlund, the author, his real name is Chuck and he's a prophet. He wrote the books before he knew that. He thought his visions were just dreams until we tracked him down."

Eliot looked down at the book then back at her, "So these are true?"

Jamie nodded, "Every miserable word."

"And that was your brothers you called?"

Jamie nodded again, but this time she almost grinned, "Yeah. Last time we came across one of these conferences, we had to take out a whole hoard of ghosts. Sammy told Chuck that if he didn't stop writing the books, and I quote, 'We have guns, and we will find you.' I honestly thought he was smart enough we wouldn't have to carry through. And besides that, he kinda just vanished after the last apocalypse."

"The last – I've kept my ear to the ground, but I'm starting to think I've been too far out of the game."

"Maybe a bit."

Eliot shook his head, "So Hardison…"

"When he finds out all this is real… he'll either be more prepared than most, or way harder to convince."

"When?" Eliot raised an eyebrow.

The look Jamie gave him was almost patronizing.

He sighed, "I know… just… I want to shield them from it as long as I can."