I drove into town and found the high end liquor store. I needed bourbon, it was that kind of day. Coyote followed me in and we worked our way back to the appropriate section.

She was looking at the prices as I walked towards the top shelf brands, "Babe, you're seriously going to take shots of $200 bourbon? Isn't that more of a taking time to savor it kind of price?"

"I can savor while I shoot, trust me." I found a bottle of 25 year old Jefferson's Presidential Select, pulled it off the shelf, paid for it and headed back out the door. Coyote stayed quiet, her and I may have hunted before but it wasn't on anything big like this. Back then, I was a lot less calculating about it. I knew she was worried though. "Okay, maybe I'll take one shot then drink it the right way. I'm not all that interested in getting plastered, or waking up tomorrow and realizing I just blew $200 by not appreciating what I was drinking." That took some the concern off her face.

We made it back to the Bunker, parked behind Sam's car and went down the stairs to join the rest of them. Sam was talking to someone on the phone, Oliver and Roy were sitting at the tables checking their phones.

"Any news?" I asked as I set the bottle on the side table where the tumblers and alcohol cabinet was.

Oliver looked up from his phone, "Dig says they're about an hour out, Sam's getting the hotels where your friends are staying at. He's going to deliver shot gun shells filled with that vampire killing brew to them. Felicity says it looks like Shayna's phone is still in the same place and she tracked down three members from the group that you ran into earlier. They are in the same area Shayna's phone is. It appears they are gathering there. Think we should head up there now?"

Sam turned his head and held up his hand asking for me to wait until he was done on the phone. "Let's wait till Sam's done," I said. Oliver nodded. "In the meantime, I got something that's more along your tastes Oliver, $200 bourbon, have some."

Sam stared at me and mouthed, "What the?" with a shocked look on his face while listening to whoever he was on the phone with.

"Hey, I got funds now. I can splurge when I want. You can have some too."

He scowled and turned away, I laughed and poured myself some. "Coyote?"

"Sure."

"I'll have some too," Oliver said.

Roy sighed, "Why not? How the hell do you still have a functioning liver Dean?"

"All right, bye," Sam said as he hung up the phone and shook his head, "It's pickled, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Cas fixes it whenever he heals him. Only way I can explain it."

"Could be," I agreed. I poured glasses for everyone, handed them out and took a sip. Oh man, shooting this was definitely not an option. There wasn't any bite to it, the flavors were so layered I had to roll it around my tongue for a second or two. As it slid down my throat, warming it while clearing out my sinuses in the best way possible, I knew going back to the cheap shit wasn't going to be possible. The heat spread through my chest and stomach, I just wanted to sit and enjoy it. Suddenly all those scenes with the rich guys sitting in the comfy chairs at some high end gentleman's club sipping bourbon and smoking cigars made sense. This was stuff that it was an event to drink, not just a way to numb yourself out. Damn.

Sam's eyes went wide after his drink and he lifted the glass up to eye level so he could watch the light filter through it. "Yeah, my earlier comments, just ignore. Get as much of this as you want Dean. Wow."

Coyote coughed, nodded and took another sip. "What Sam said."

Oliver smiled, "Money may not buy happiness but it definitely gives you options." He'd grown up drinking stuff like this so it didn't get him all excited.

Roy took a few sips, "Well, this definitely makes it much better to be drinking before noon."

We all sat down and took a few more seconds to enjoy the flavors, then I forced my brain back to monsters. "Sam? Think we should leave or wait for actual visual confirmation on Gordon?"

He took another drink, then swished the bourbon around in his glass as he pondered my question, "I think we should wait. Felicity texted, she said no one has accessed Shayna's email since that video, plus Shayna had all our emails tucked into a folder that was titled family stuff. Felicity said there was no sign of them in her inbox or sent folder. Which hopefully means Gordon has no idea about our resources or what Felicity can do. The monsters that are on their way could be going just to see if we show up. If we get there too soon Gordon will know we're tracking him somehow. Of course they could have nothing to do with what Gordon is doing either."

"So, we play dumb and old school hunter for now?"

"Yeah. I think so. Oliver?"

"I agree. I told Felicity to send photos of the new arrivals to Dig. He has three or four doses of nanites with him. If he can tag all of them we'll know more about what's going on."

"About that," Coyote said, "How does he tag people? I know these things are small but does he need to stab them with a needle? I'm not sure he can get close enough to do that."

A sneaky look broke out on Roy's face. He got up, went to his bag, ducked his hand inside. grabbed something, pulled his hand back out, walked to Coyote and set his hand on top of hers. "You've been tagged."

"Huh?"

He pulled his hand off of hers, there were no marks on her skin.

"I didn't feel a thing," She said.

Roy smiled, flipped his hand over and I noticed a black and silver ring on his ring finger that hadn't been there before.

"Incredibly small needles," Oliver explained, "We know someone who has put a lot of time and money into robotics and miniaturization. He took my existing tech and made it a lot more efficient. The black band holds the nanites, we twist the band to prime the needles. All it takes is a light touch on bare skin and the nanites deploy into the skin."

"That's it," I said, "You're officially Batman now."

"Or James Bond," Sam added.

Roy laughed, "Both work. He has the money, toys and the looks."

Oliver scowled, "Really?"

"Well you do," Roy answered.

Oliver took the opportunity to include me in his scowling, "Now that you mention it," I said, "Bond works better. Felicity's like a female version of Q." I was going to add that she had the looks to be a Bond girl but since they usually end up dead I figured that'd be pushing it too far.

My phone rang, it was Gerald. "Hey, what's up?"

"A slaughter, that's what. Susan found it on the net, texting you and Sam the links. Tell us what the plan is after you see it." He hung up.

"Who..." Sam started to ask just as our phones both went off. "Oh."

We clicked on the link and I immediately knew two things. First, we'd be lucky if every hunter within a two hundred mile radius didn't jump on this and fight us tooth and nail when we told them to stay home. Second, the stakes had just skyrocketed, they weren't even being subtle. Five bodies, three of which were kids, completely drained of blood, complete with holes in the neck had been found about two hours from the Bunker. Which made me wonder if somehow they knew where we were. Which would not me good at all. Although I couldn't see how, Sam never brought hunters here. Maybe they were just trying to capitalize on us having been spotted in Oklahoma.

"Mother fuckers!" Sam snarled, "That's Matt and his family."

"What? There's no pics on this link."

"I searched after I saw the headline."

I thought the stakes were going to jump because of the kids and they were obvious fresh kills, a hunter family was a million times worse. Sam got on his laptop.

Oliver, Roy and Coyote had all set their glasses down and the humor drained from the room.

"Look." He pulled up an article with pics.

"He's been out of the game for what? Two years now?" I asked.

"Three," Sam confirmed, "Completely off the hunter grid."

"How the hell did they find him?"

"Fill me in," Oliver ordered.

"Those are vampire kills," Roy snarled. "Fresh ones too."

"Hold on," I called Gerald back.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know who that was?" I asked, "Your link didn't have pics.

"Yeah, I saw the kills, just searched and saw it was Matt. This is fucked up."

Sam's laptop started binging like crazy and his phone blew up with alerts.

"Anyone know Matt well? Still talk to him?" I asked.

"Not sure."

"Find out. We need to figure out how they found him. Give Sam and I twenty minutes, we'll call you back."

"Got it."

Sam was typing up a storm. "Stop," I told him, "Close that thing up and let's think this through. Any ideas Oliver?" This was way out of our league.

Sam wasn't happy about it but he pushed the laptop away and focused on us, not the screen.

I've seen Oliver cold, I've seen him kill, I have a pretty damn good idea what lurks underneath his surface, but I'd never seen him this calculating. Sam and my's past has pretty much been running around and putting out fires, saving the world or whatever. We've never had someone actively targeting us, not like this. Oliver had, but even then, the set of his face, the emptiness of his eyes was nothing like I'd ever seen from him before. I got the feeling I was looking at an assassin calmly plotting how to take out his next target. "They are trying to instill panic, fear, or irrational attacks," he said, "I can almost promise you that a group of them are there waiting for whoever shows up. The fact that they found a hunter who's not active was not an accident. They want you to think that they are already within your network, they know all about you and you have no chance against them."

"Maybe Gordon knew him from before," Coyote suggested, "And tracked him down somehow. If he's still thinking like a hunter he could pull the FBI person of interest thing, run searches with different departments until he came across him."

"Maybe, or just search the net. Who knows how long Gordon's been topside gathering intel." Sam pointed out.

"Gordon was damn good back in the day," I reminded them, "We need to stop thinking of him as a vamp and think of him as a hunter. Not that many hunters know we killed him, if he showed up out of the blue at the old haunts and started asking questions no one would think anything was out of the ordinary. Remember, hunters can go years at a time without running into each other. He could have patched together enough info to know Sam and I were based out of Kansas."

Oliver took that in, "Which means you have no idea what he knows. You're playing catch up."

"Yeah."

Oliver got up and started pacing, "That video, he was arrogant. He thinks he has the upper hand. I doubt he expected you to share that video with other hunters. You two have always been tight lipped about your history in the past. He is most likely expecting you to tear ass there and try to catch him. He may or may not be there, either way more than likely there are several of his allies waiting for you or whoever shows up."

"Dean," Sam said, "Dig will be there in less than an hour. We need to know where Gordon is first."

"No, we really don't." I finished off my drink, "We split the difference and throw a wrench into his game plan. He's made his statement, now we do. It could take hours for them to find Gordon, the hunters won't wait. We claim this hunt over the email so that if he is watching he knows we took the bait. You and I act like the old days, Fed threads, Baby, whole nine. Oliver, Roy and Coyote follow in a rental. It blends better than your car. We talk to the cops while they hang out close by and Coyote scopes out monsters. If we find any, we lead them to some out of the way place, kill them, grab their phones and see if we can talk to the monster in charge. If we get a hold of Gordon, we call him out and set him up."

Oliver shook his head, "No, not that last part. You grab their phones, find Gordon, catch him and have a nice long talk. You set up a show down we'll be outnumbered when it happens. This needs stealth. Remember, Gordon may not be the one in charge. We need to find out who is. This could all be a distraction from something else."

"We're assuming Gordon is even involved with this slaughter," Coyote pointed out. "He could of gone off book with Shayna. Maybe running out of patience."

I knew planning was important, I really did, but I was rapidly sliding past the point where I cared why or who. Gordon or someone was coming after my people, this made seven deaths in less three days. "Bodies are stacking up, the longer we sit here and throw ideas around the more people he's going to kill. We move, now."

Sam nodded and pulled his laptop back towards him, "I'll claim the hunt and tell everyone else to stay put."

"I'll hook up a rental," Coyote offered, "Oliver's already paid for one. I hope we made enough vamp killing shells. We should give some of the brew to the others on the way out so they can start making some too."

"You three go do that," I said, "Sam and I will go the other way, get a jump start on the drive. Meet up there. We'll be heading straight to the police station, text you the address when we get there in case they have more than one. Oliver, Roy, you guard Coyote. Any sign of anything not human, let us know."

"I'll grab the earpieces," Sam added.

I thought about that for a second, "You wear it, your hair will cover it up. Vamps have sharp eyes."

"Got it. I'll grab one for you anyway, just in case."

"Ten minutes?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, I'll be ready. I call Gerald too."

I looked over at Roy and Oliver, "Sound good?"

They exchanged a quick glance then Oliver nodded, "Yes. We don't have shotguns though."

"Sure you still know how to use one?" I needled him, "It's been a few years since you and I took out those demons."

"Point it at the bad guy, pull the trigger thingy?" He played along.

"Well done. We'll get you using modern technology yet." The irony in that statement didn't escape anyone there. "We'll hook you up before we take off. I'm going to go pack my stuff." I got up and walked down the hall, I heard footsteps behind me. I knew who they belonged to without even turning around. She waited until we got into the room and shut the door behind us. I turned to face her, she didn't say a word as her arms wrapped around me and her lips met mine. I pulled my arms tight around her and let the kiss take as long as she wanted it to. We both knew that once we hit the road more than likely we wouldn't be sharing a room or be showing any kind of affection. I had to reset things back to when Sam and I hunted to pull this off. At least for this trip, and probably until we took care of whoever was in charge of this.

She finally pulled away, she wasn't hiding anything from me. I saw her fear, her anger at Gordon, her disgust at the kills and sorrow about Shayna, Tom and a family of hunters she didn't even know. I let the walls slide away, let her see what was going on inside my mind as well. I knew she could see some of it with her Shaman skills but I wanted to make the effort not to run from it, not bury it like I always had. Show it to someone, anyone before I had to turn back into that man that hid everything, hid it till it nearly destroyed him.

Her hands cupped my face as she leaned her forehead against mine, "I wonder if they'll have that brand of bourbon on the ship."

God I love her. "We can always sneak it on board."

I saw the corners of her lips curl into a smile before, "We'll have to stuff that bag with bubble wrap or we'll reek."

"Darlin' it's a cruise, from what I hear everyone's plastered."

She forced out a laugh but there wasn't much happiness behind it. "Be careful, please. Don't let him get too much farther under your skin. It's happening already, I can see it."

I wanted to tell her that I wouldn't but that would be a lie, "I'll try to keep a leash on it." I knew myself too well to think he wouldn't push my buttons on some level. I just had to keep him from pushing all of them.