Thursday Night

It was one of those things where Mercy wasn't sure how it happened. Yes, she'd been present the entire evening. No, she hadn't be mentally impaired by injury or alcohol. Still. Somehow things had gone from one slightly tense meeting between a coyote and a fae about a Wolf, into a train wreck between a Hunter and a Grey Lord.

Originally, the plan was simple. Mercy and Dean would go into a bar, have a few drinks with a lady, and negotiate for the price of her information. Mercy would do all the talking while Dean lurked behind her looking slightly menacing. Outside, Adam, Sam and Cas waited in the car to provide further backup as needed; that close, the mating bond would tell them when to come in. Mercy hadn't wanted to look like an invading army: too many bodyguards was a sign of weakness.

Before they walked in, Cas did two things. One, he insisted the brothers gift her with a shining silver stiletto. The same kind of blade that killed her personal demon two years ago. Apparently, it was an angel blade and Mercy was now the proud owner of an angel blade. Sam assured her they had extras and she was welcome to keep it. Cas had assured her the celestial metal would burn even an iron-kissed fae.

Second, he wrote some kind of angel script in sharpie marker on Dean's back claiming the enochian spell work would make everyone around him not notice that he didn't belong. It was the weirdest thing. As long as she didn't think about it too closely, Dean felt like another coyote next to her. Cas informed them that he had something similar tattoo on his abdomen to help him escape angelic notice, but that drawing undue attention to his human status would override it.

"Sounds like a Pack magic Look-But-Don't-See spell," Adam had commented. The Wolves used that bit of magic a lot when living in cities.

So Mercy and Dean had gone into a bar to speak with Zee's old frenemy. The meeting went smooth, the troublesome Pack was outed, and Adam would handle it from there. The fae woman was surprisingly cheap: a forfeit of music on stage. The fae liked the idea of Zee's protege and Adam the Alpha's mate performing like a dancing monkey. She was less happy when Mercy was told to merely tap out a beat while Dean plucked power chords from a guitar. But the arrangement satisfied the wording of the agreement, so she could not complain.

"Anything specific we should perform?" Dean had asked.

"The song has to be mildly insulting, to show that we aren't scared of them, but not too over the top or they can take offense and try to kill us," Mercy has whispered back.

"Yeesh, tough crowd." Dean thought about it before a grin broke out on his face. "I got it," he had told her and began tapping his foot for her beat.

It was a song by the band "Clutch," about how, yes they were in a fight, a battle of wills; but no, he was not afraid, and if you really wanted a fight he would bring it.

"Telekinetic, dynamite, Psychic warfare is real. You better believe me brother. X-ray vision!" He had sung. "Last thing I remember, I was covered by the ruins, I don't know who's to blame for that but I know I didn't do it. With everyday that passes, it keeps on getting stranger, but that really doesn't bother me, cause I get off on the danger..."

He had a surprisingly musical voice when he wanted. They would have to have a talk later about his singing so badly with the radio at the shop. The trickster in her told her why, to annoy her, but now that she knew better... Well, they would have words.

The song had been a good choice, especially when accompanied by the playful smirk he kept on his face the whole song. Uncle Mike had laughed loud and long along with most of his bar. Dean had grinned and taken his bows. They had been almost out the door, when Alastair Beauclaire filled the doorway and a hush fell over the room.

Alastiar Beauclaire had presence. Everyone in the room knew who he was: a power. Even the human on the room who had never seen him before knew this. Instinctively, the life-long Hunter stepped back a few paces to give himself more reaction time.

Maybe not so instinctive, Mercy realized. Dean could see through the glamor of the Grey Lord. One glimpse under the magic and the memory of his true face still made her shiver. She couldn't imagine standing straight and tall before the inhuman power and beauty like Dean was. There was a wariness in his stance, a respect for the danger in front of him. But there was also a warning; a demand for returned respect of his abilities.

Beauclaire held up a jumble of string with weights of some kind tied to the ends. Looking closer, Mercy realized the weights were actually spent slugs. As she watched, each of them twitched slightly in Dean's direction. "Foolish, foolish, man, to come back to a place of fae power." The Grey Lord spoke softly, but everyone there heard every word.

Bar patrons cleared the floor to hug the walls, to not stand between those words and the source of his ire.

For his part, Dean merely cocked his head and asked, "Have we met?"

"Almost five years ago, a doorway to UnderHill collapsed. There are far too few to loose even one. I went to discover why. I found these." Beauclaire held the string and slug jumble for all to see. "Cold iron left behind in UnderHill, poisoning her."

Dean sighed. "I take it you blame me?"

"It is not easy to spell iron, to command it to reveal its secrets." The terrifying fae continued as though nothing had been asked. "It would not betray you to me until you were foolish enough to return to a fae stronghold. Only then, only now, are you discovered, mortal."

Calmly, the mortal in question responded. "Okay, you're pissed. I get it. If some asshat blew up my back door, I'd be pissed too. But you can't seriously blame me for that. Your kind was kidnapping human kids. When I 'went to discover' why kids were going missing, your kind tried to kidnap me too. You really gonna give me crap for protecting a bunch of kids? What kind of douchebag does that make you?"

All around her, various denizens drew a harsh breath. Mercy knew how cherished children were among fae, how hard it was for them to reproduce. Many there would laud the man's protectiveness of a stranger's child. No one quite knew what to think of a mortal who dared insult a Grey Lord.

"Insect!" Beauclaire hissed. "You will show proper deference to the one whose home had been damaged!" His voice dropped to even more dangerous levels. "To one who could cause storms and tidal wave and flood to destroy this city and all mankind who call it home."

Anger flashed in Dean's eye as the threat was thrown into his face. "You don't want to do that." Dean's voice deepened and roughened with his own rage. "Raphael, the archangel not the ninja turtle, threatened the eastern seaboard with a storm because I trapped him. He's dead now. Death, the Horseman, threatened to destroy Chicago by storm. He's dead now, too. You do not want to threaten this city. You got a beef with me? We can dance. But you will leave innocent men, women and children out of it. So help me."

The growl in the Hunter's voice sent a new wave of shivers through the room. Every fae there knew he spoke nothing but truth. Mercy could almost see many of the lesser fae reclassify the 'mere human' into 'Power.'

"Who are you?" Beauclaire demanded. It looked like he was doing a little reconsidering himself.

"I am Dean Freaking Winchester." The fae began to murmur, they knew that name. "And my family is waiting just outside."

Now that she thought about it, she could feel Adam outside. He was upset and trying to get but the door had been sealed by magic. At her word, the Wolf relayed that Cas would blow the wall off the building if Dean needed him to. She sent back a mental reassurance that things hadn't gone that far yet.

"Winchester," Beauclaire seemed to hesitate. "It is said that you and yours prevented agents of the White God from completing the Apocalypse."

"Shock and awe," Mercy whispered barely loud enough for Dean to hear her words. "Don't lie. Tell them all the scariest things you have done. Make them know a fight isn't worth it."

Dean glanced at her, then straightened to his full height and lifted his chin. "That's me. Me and my brothers have caged archangels. We killed the King of Hell and all of hell's Knights. We tricked Eve, Mother of All Monsters into poisoning herself. We assassinated the leader of the Leviathan when he tried to invade. We stopped God's sister, the Darkness from obliterating all of Creation." After a dramatic pause, he stepped forward into the battle space. "Who are you?"

No one in the room moved for a full minute. Some of them seemed to have stopped breathing. If Mercy's nose wasn't wrong, at least one of them wet his or her pants in fear.

"I am called Alastair Beauclaire." Even after his opponent gave his True Name from his own lips, the Grey Lord would not do the same. He had too many other polite enemies in the room that would take full advantage of it.

"Alastair," Dean repeated. "My little brother killed the last Alastair dumb enough to lay a finger on me. He was a demon. Well, Alastair Beauclaire. Do you really want to declare war or me and my family over this?"

No, no he did not. But no Grey Lord could afford the loss of face of backing down from a human man. Even one as unique as Dean Winchester. "I will have reparations for UnderHill," he warned. "One way or another."

Dean nodded slowly. "Fair enough. How about a beer? Let's talk."