Chapter 6 - Harvester of Sorrow

"Boss," Tony said just loud enough for the wire to pick up his voice. "This place smells like old feet."

"Deal with it, DiNozzo," Gibbs responded into the microphone. While Tony continued ramble, he took of the headset and handed it to Dean. "You really want to help?" The hunter nodded. "Make him shut up."

"This isn't in my job description," Dean muttered before putting on the headset. "It's Dean. Yeah. I know. I know that too. Well, Sam and I have had to do way worse. You do realize everyone who walks past you is going to think you're talking to yourself? Hey, I've met homeless dudes that don't talk to themselves. How the hell should I know?"

Gibbs smirked as he listened to Dean's side of the conversation and made his way through a burger, having gotten fast food for himself and Dean before the stakeout began. He had known when he had brought the Winchester brothers into the investigation that Dean and Tony's personalities would clash in an amusing fashion. He decided that by the time this was all over, either ending with them defeating the Orochi or ending in their untimely deaths, the two men would either be best friends or worst enemies.

After Gibbs and Dean had arrived back at NCIS and were briefed on Irena Lund and what appeared to be her hunting grounds, Gibbs had the delight of spending an hour up in Vance's office weaving what he personally thought to be a particularly convincing lie as to why he hadn't given him a heads up about the 'FBI' and why they needed to consult on the rest of the investigation, even though they were fairly sure that the serial killer from the Midwest was not involved in Lance Corporal Belisarius's murder.

However, they had hit a bump in the road. Ducky had been down in autopsy trying to come up with a reasonable cause of death for the Lance Corporal, and Vance was waiting. The fact was, there wasn't really a decent way to explain away someone being ripped apart limb from limb and a solid eighty percent of their body getting turned into dog food. Vance was looking for answers, and the ones they had weren't going to cut it. He imagined the director wouldn't take 'a demon did it' very well.

So, right now, Ducky and Abby were doing a wonderful job of stalling him and trying to come up with a decent reason why a very violent, rabid wolverine could have made its way into the apartment and massacred the Lance Corporal. He didn't envy them their position.

The mid-winter sun was currently inching its way towards the horizon. It was around 1700 hours. They had spent most of the afternoon in the bullpen researching the Orochi. Or rather, Tony had been researching the Orochi while he had McGee and Ziva checking up on witch lore.

By the time the six of them had left NCIS to stakeout Dominic's and the homeless shelter, McGee and Ziva's eyes had been wide, apparently not thrilled with what they discovered about witches. Tony had filled them in on what he had learned about the Orochi in the bullpen before they left for Anacostia.

"So, like your angel buddy told us earlier, the Orochi demon, according to Japanese mythology... or not-so-mythology, the Yamata-no-Orochi is an eight headed snake serpent. It's favorite past times include eating people and destroying everything in sight," Tony explained, seeming wholly displeased by the information he had gleaned about the monster they were facing.

"How's the old myth go?" Sam said. "It might give us some idea of how to kill it."

"Well, this Japanese god, Susano, he found a couple and their daughter crying by a river. They explained why they were crying to him. Apparently, every year, the Orochi came to devour one of their daughters. That year, they had to give up their eighth and final daughter. To save her, Susano proposed to the daughter. When she accepted, he transformed her into a comb that he carried in his hair. He told the girl's parents they had to brew sake and refine it eight times. They had to also build an enclosure with eight gates, each of which included a vat of sake," Tony explained.

McGee snorted slightly. "This sounds right up your alley, Tony."

"Shut it, McCheeky. When the Orochi arrived, he was lured in towards the sake, and he dipped each of his heads into one of the vats. He got drunk off of the sake, and that allowed Susano to slay the thing and cut it to pieces. I couldn't find anything more specific on how he killed the thing."

"Great," Dean growled. "The one part we need to know the most. Guess we'll just have to count on Cas for that."

"Wait, one more thing. Apparently, when Susano cut open the Orochi, there was this blade inside of it called the Kusunagi. He presented it to the Japanese sun god Amaterasu as a gift," he told the room at large before he finished donning his outfit - rugged, too-big clothing with holes and an interesting smell to it accompanied by a watch cap and a very convincing fake beard. He sniffed himself experimentally. He had to admit, he felt a small pang of pity for his senior field agent. The outfit smelled like mothballs and shame.

"A sword? Perhaps that is what we need to defeat the Orochi?" Ziva proposed.

"Yeah, well, a sword is generally used to kill. Which means we either a) let Gibbs, McGee, Sam and Dean get turned into soul food by the Orochi, or b) we kill one of them while the Orochi is in there bodies. I don't know about you, but I kind of like them alive, so..."

"I like living," McGee said in a small voice.

"Well, if Cas decides to grace us with his presence, we'll see what he knows about the Kusanagi. Chances are if the sun god's still got it, it's not going to be easy to find," Dean said, shouldering his bag. "Can we get out of here already? Your boss is only gonna buy that we're FBI for so long, and I don't really want to be around when he calls the man in charge over at the Hoover building."

"Let's go," Gibbs said, and from there, he, Dean, Tony, and Ziva had taken the surveillance van to the homeless shelter and bar in Anacostia, while Sam and McGee took the Impala back to Gibbs's fishing cabin. Gibbs and Dean would be taking the first twelve hour shift, providing back up to Tony and Ziva, should they need it, and keeping an eye on the area. Meanwhile, Sam and McGee would be eating their dinner and trying to get some shut-eye, all the while avoiding demons. McGee had been given a shotgun with rock-salt shells as well, just as Gibbs had.

So, here they were, waiting for something to happen to either Tony or Ziva, waiting for one of them to see something suspicious, to see a sign of the witch. It would've helped if they had some kind of description of what she looked like outside of John Winchester's description of 'pretty damn gorgeous' in his journal.

"I'm getting off now. Yeah, I've seen Evil Dead. No. No. And no. I'm going. Bye." Dean passed the headset back to Gibbs. "I'm just a man, Gibbs."

"Welcome to my world," he said, placing the headset back on his head, not intending on leaving DiNozzo unsupervised. His senior field agent seemed to have settled down somewhat, as all he could hear in the headphones was the steady sound of Tony's breathing. He offered Dean the other headset. "This is Ziva's. You keep an ear on her, I'll watch DiNozzo."

"You're a saint," he said, placing the headset over his ears. "Agent David? Can you hear me?" There was a short pause. "How're things looking in there?" Dean nodded as Ziva spoke. "Just don't act too classy, alright? A chick like you in a bar like that's already sticking out, you need to blend in."

That much was true. Dominic's was about as low brow as they came - the kind that the alcohol distribution license on the wall was eight years expired and there were generally a hundred flies for every person there. Not a place you would find a woman who looked like Ziva.

The next few hours passed by in a blur of the two of them alternating between occasional talk about the demon, or what the Winchester brothers had been up to for the past few years. Dean told Gibbs about his father's death in more detail, about how he died at the hands of Yellow Eyes. Once that was explained, the two men resigned themselves to a mostly consistent silence, something that neither of them had much of a problem with. It was only interrupted by sporadic reports from Tony and Ziva.

Ziva had unsurprisingly been hit on by every man with a pulse since she had walked into the bar, since as Dean had so deftly pointed out 'a chick like her in a bar like that' was bound to draw some attention. Tony chimed in every now and then to report on one of the passing by vagrants or complain about his current situation. Gibbs would just growl something threatening enough to shut the agent up for a little bit, then roll his eyes. Tony was one of, if not the best agent he had ever worked with - but good lord, did he whine.

Finally, at midnight, Tony let them know that he was going to head inside of the shelter to grab a mattress, scope out the inside, and catch some sleep. "Do I get to keep the change I got today? I think I've made a solid six or seven dollars..." Gibbs didn't reply for a long period of time, and then he heard a sharp slap on the other end. "This one's on me, boss."

"Sweet dreams, DiNozzo," Gibbs said as he watched the disguised man slink inside the homeless shelter, which was suffused with warm yellow light, and a sign that proclaimed 'open all night'.

He leaned back into his seat in the van, letting out a small sigh as he listened to Dean checking in with Ziva, whom he was now on a first name basis with. They seemed to be getting on fairly well, actually, in the moments where Ziva wasn't occupied by one of the unpleasant men in the bar. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, fighting off his growing fatigue. It was going to be a long night.

McGee soon found out that for a 6' 4" giant who spent his time killing monsters, Sam Winchester was stunningly... normal. He wasn't how he thought he would be. He thought he'd be surly, probably a bit paranoid, and overall silent, but the younger Winchester actually provided pleasant conversation over the course of the day. Honestly, he liked Sam. It also helped to know that Sam and his brother would be very motivated to save he and Gibbs, since they had been put in exactly the same boat when they themselves were bitten by the Orochi.

Speaking of, he was beginning to feel some of the side effects of the Orochi's venom. When they arrived at Gibbs's fishing cabin, he had unintentionally slammed the door to the Impala too hard and ended up shattering the passenger seat window. "Oh my God," he said, backing away from the shattered glass on the ground. "I - I didn't mean to do that, I swear!"

Sam's eyes widened at the damaged window, but he assured McGee that it was no harm, no foul. "I think under the circumstances, Dean will understand," he informed him. However, the look on Sam's face told McGee that what he had just said was more of a comforting lie. "Don't feel bad. When I used the bathroom back at NCIS I accidentally ripped one of the stall doors off of its hinges when I tried to open it."

"Guess we're just going to have to adjust to the new strength until we get rid of this thing," McGee said, flexing his hand with a worried frown. What if he went to hug Abby, and he ended up breaking one of her ribs? He didn't like the idea that he could do so much damage without meaning to.

They had made their way inside, carrying in the groceries that they had picked up to stock the safe house on the way. After the fridge was loaded, they settled into a dinner of ramen noodles and warm Pepsi, sitting on the lone couch in the small cabin. He was curious about how Sam and Dean went about their chosen profession, and Sam answered his questions, for the most part, as long as they didn't stray into anything terribly personal. He could tell that the hunter's past wasn't his favorite subject.

"So you and your brother... this is your life? You go around the country and investigate cases that have something paranormal about them?" McGee asked through a mouthful of noodles.

"Pretty much," Sam responded. "What we do is a lot like you do, really, without the resources and the, you know, legally sanctioned aspect of it."

"Do you have a permanent home, or are you just always on the road? Hotels, motels..."

"The closest thing Dean and I have to a home is Bobby's place and the Impala. We didn't even really have a home growing up, after..." he trailed off, taking a sip of his drink and diverting his eyes.

"After what?" McGee asked carefully, not wanting to push the matter.

"After our mother died," he replied finally.

"I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. "I didn't mean to pry."

"It's fine, I mean... I was only a baby. I don't really remember her," Sam said quietly.

"And your brother?"

"Dean remembers. I'll leave it at that."

The rest of the evening passed by without event. Sam showed him around one of the shotguns with bullets designed to work against demons, and gave him a quick tutorial on how to go about fighting a demon, if they were to encounter one other than Orochi, which was likely.

"Sam, what will happen..." McGee trailed off as he fired off another shot with the sawed-off shotgun, getting a feel for the recoil. "If... if the demon gets me? I mean, I was the first one marked after Lance Corporal Belisarius, so he - it, whatever - will go after me first, probably."

Sam gave him a grave look before passing him a handful of shotgun shells. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."

Uplifting.

McGee and Sam went to bed early, knowing that they'd have to be up around four thirty to have enough time to get ready and make it to Dominic's at six, when they were due to start their surveillance shift. They would trade off with Gibbs and Dean, who would take the Impala and head back to the fishing cabin to sleep while he and Sam watched over Ziva and Tony.

When they arrived, Gibbs and Dean both looked rather the worse for wear, eyes barely open, several dozen cups of coffee discarded in the surveillance van among fast food wrappers. "Quiet night, boss?"

"What do you think, McGee?" Gibbs muttered as he brushed past him. "DiNozzo's asleep still, Ziva's talking to the bartender now that the crowd's petered out. Call us if anything happens."

"Got it, boss," McGee said with a dutiful nod.

"Sammy, if I get back and people are dead, I'm gonna kick your ass," Dean said, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes in a way that made the man look much younger than McGee assumed him to be. Sam rolled his eyes and playfully shoulder-checked his brother as they switched vehicles. Sam closed the doors to the surveillance van just as he heard Dean's anguished shout when he saw the shattered window of the Impala.

McGee and Sam settled in, preparing themselves for the next twelve hours.

The morning was mostly uneventful. Activity picked up on Ziva's end as the third shift factory workers finished for the day and made their way to the bar. Ziva said that she believed the homeless shelter was being used as a hunting ground, not the bar, because she had so far seen very few females other than herself there, and none of them struck her as being particularly witch-y.

Tony woke up at ten, chatting animatedly into his thick faux beard as he made his way back outside, taking up his seat on the curb and resuming his begging. "Well, I made it through the night without being witch-napped. There were a few girls in the shelter, young runaways. There were a few female social workers running the place, too. One of them could be Irena."

By the time noon rolled around, Ziva was forced to depart the bar since it closed, and she made her way to the surveillance van, discretely slipping between the back double doors. "That was the single longest night of my entire life, and I have spent a night in a sewage ditch with a sweaty Arabic man armed with only a toothpick."

"What?" Sam asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

"She's ex-Mossad," McGee said, by way of explanation. "Israeli special forces."

"Ah," Sam said slowly. "So, no sign of anyone that could be Irena?" Ziva shook her head in response.

"Most of the women in the bar were rather... unsightly. I do not see why a witch would let herself appear as such."

"Tony thinks one of the social workers could be Irena, so at least the night wasn't completely useless," McGee said as Ziva leaned against the side of the van, eyes fluttering. "Ziva, I've got a thick jacket in my duffel bag. You can curl up under that if you want to catch some shuteye. The two of us can handle Tony."

"That sounds incredibly nice," Ziva said, punctuating the sentence by yawning noisily. She removed McGee's jacket from his bag, then used the duffel bag as a pillow as she curled up underneath his coat. She fell asleep almost instantly, her snores that sounded much like a chainsaw filling the surveillance van. Sam's eyes widened comically.

"Is that coming from her?" he asked incredulously. McGee nodded with a slight smile.

"Oh yeah. That's Ziva - stealthy and silent by day, obvious and obnoxious by night." Sam laughed in response. McGee smiled, but his expression grew worried as he realized there was literally no noise coming from Tony on their connection - he couldn't hear his friend's breathing any longer.

"Tony? You there?" No answer. "DiNozzo!" Nothing.

He and Sam both looked simultaneously to the curb where Tony had been 'begging', and were horrified to see that he was nowhere in sight.