Hey, guys! Surprised to see me update early? Well, to tell y'all the truth, I was excited! And that's the reason why this chapter is long. :D LOL! Maybe some of your questions will be answered here. Just so you all know, the message in the bottle at the last chapter wasn't random—that's all I'm going to say.

Enjoy the chapter! :D

Oh, geez, I almost forgot. Dean and Sammy are not mine. They are Eric Kripke's. And VA is not mine too!


Chapter Twenty-six

Winchester Brothers

It was obvious that they were impersonating some FBI agents because for one, I knew them from yesterday's encounter and they were far from being Federal agents with their weapon of choices like the silver bullets. With the chatter of voices inside the bar, I could hear and taste that they were a bit feared on the humans. It was good that there were no Moroi around at this time.

They were still at the door when I stood from my seat and hurried over to the bartender inside the liquor house. I had heard that her name was Magda from her friend. She was a really pretty girl—she looked absolutely Spanish-beautiful with her long black hair and very dark eyes that looked like they were black.

Now, Magda was crouching over a case of new beers, putting them inside the refrigerator. Her nice long hair was piled into a messy bun, and her bartending clothes showed-off how a merchandise she was.

"Hey, Magda!" I called.

She turned around. "Oh, hey, can I help you?" she asked. I knew that Magda was a friendly girl, but when you mess around with her job, you'd be better off with a rabid dog than her.

"Yeah, I'm here to help. Johnny said you needed help in here." Johnny, I heard, was the bar's owner. He was a Moroi, and I guess his real name wasn't Johnny at all.

Magda's scrutinizing look turned into bright surprise. "Oh, hi!" she stood up from her crouch, wiping her hands on her apron and held out her hand. "Magda Cataluna," she said and I shook her hand.

"Louise Watson," I said, using a random name.

Magda looked extremely happy to see me. "Nice to meet you, Louise. Now," she handed me an apron like hers from somewhere. "Take off your leather jacket and put this on."

I took off my leather jacket, making sure that the tool was inside my jean's pocket, and then thanked Magda. "I'll go tend the front." I told her before taking off toward the front of the bar. I could see Sam and Dean talking, heads close together, in hushed voices.

I stretched out my hearing toward the two of them—avoiding all other sounds except for the boys'. When I could hear their heartbeats now, their voices were clear.

"—unlike the other vampires we encountered. They didn't have any retractable fangs; they were just full on, Sammy." Dean was saying.

Vampires, huh? And what the heck did they mean about "unlike the other vampires we encountered?"

I heard paper rustling. "Hey, Dean, look at this," Sam said, pointing at a paper. "In Romanian mythology there is this thing called Strigoi. It is said that a Strigoi can transform into forms of animals, they can be invisible, and they live through draining vitality of victims via blood loss."

Oh, no, what were these two up to? What were these two and first of all, how did they find they court?

"You actually believe that crap, Sammy?" asked Dean. "I thought you'd have known better than to believe in that European bull."

"Dean," Sam said in an irritated tone. "We have to consider all possibilities here. It could be—"

"Hey, there, you must be new." A girl said. It took me a second or two to see that the girl was in front of me. She was a small blonde with pretty light brown eyes. "I'm Daphne, a fellah bartender." She had a slight Southern accent that made her look more fragile than she already was. I know, Southern accents don't make a person look fragile, but it does for me. I'm just a weird person.

I mentally shook my head, and smiled down at Daphne. "Hey, Daphne," I held out my hand and shook hers. "I'm Louise."

"Hey, Louise. If I didn't know any better, I think you were just checking the FBI agents out." The way she said FBI, it sounded more like eff-bay-aye. It reminded me of other accents.

I mustered a sheepish smile. "I was. They're really cute, you know?" You can add a mental gag there.

She nodded eagerly. "Especially the tall one." She said with a wistful sigh.

"I'd better go see what they want." I told Daphne and I left her there in her own daydream. I approached the guys and they straightened when they saw me coming. Dean gave me a flirty smile, and Sam just…well, smiled.

"What can I get for you, boys?" I asked.

"We'll have two purple nurples. Agent Douglas, you should try one." Dean smacked Sam lightly on Sam's chest. Ooh, they were using some weird code name.

"Make it one." Sam told me. "I don't drink, Agent Jenkins."

I smiled at them and looked back to make Dean his purple nurple.

"You should drink, Sammy." Dean said in a low voice, only meant for Sam's ears. "You think she'd answer our question if you don't order her a drink?"

As I poured triple sec into the shaker, I heard Sam say, "I'll just give her a tip."

"Oh, come on, stop bitching around."

"I will if you stop jerking around."

Brothers, I thought. Fun but annoying.

When I was done with Dean's purple nurple, I turned to Sam. "You should get our special today."

He raised one brow like Dimitri always did. "Special?"

I nodded. "Beer," I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sam looked thoughtful for a moment and then he nodded. I took off to get Sam's beer, and when I got back, Dean's purple nurple martini glass was empty.

"Here," I handed Sam's beer, and then made myself busy wiping the counter-tops.

"Hey, can we ask you something…what's your name?" Sam asked.

I turned to look at him. "Louise is the name, and yes, you can ask me something."

"It is strictly business. We've been investigating the silent massacre of the old Wade manor."

The old Wade manor was the one I had been to yesterday—where I met the Winchester brothers, too. I felt my eyebrows knit together. "Silent massacre?"

"Yes. The corpses were not known to be from this place. We saw the corpses yesterday when my colleague and I were patrolling the area, but when we came back this morning with the report, there were no more bodies, and the place was empty of evidences."

"Oh. So what's your question?" I asked them, putting my face between my hands.

"Okay…" Sam sighed and leaned back on his chair. "We have seen this girl, all in black with a face mask, and pale grey eyes, get out of the manor. We followed her into this place."

Oh, they just confessed that they stalked me. I tapped a finger on my chin. "Then?"

"We asked the people here and they didn't seem to know the girl in black—even the murders too."

"Oh, I didn't know anything about the murders, too." I told them and noted that they weren't interrogating me. "Neither do I know the girl in black. Tell me what she looked like. Maybe I could do a little investigating today in this place."

Both Sam and Dean raised their brows. "And how'd you do that?" asked Dean, his mouth full of fries.

"There's a shindig later tonight, maybe I could find this girl in black."

They exchanged looks. "No, thanks, we'd better do this mission on own." said Dean.

"Thanks for the offer though." said Sam nicely.

"Okay, if you need my help, all you can do is say my name and I'll be there." I told them and took off to being a bartender that I was pretending. I passed by Dean for a second, and the next thing I knew, something squeaky was sounding from the inside of his tux.

Both Sam and Dean looked at it, and Dean took out a box with flashing red lights. Its antenna was, somehow, pointed at me. I shook off that thin as weird, and then I started to play waitress again.

A few minutes later, I was getting bored playing waitress and there was nothing I could hear as useful from Sam and Dean. I took off the pretty apron, grabbed my leather jacket and walked into the sunny afternoon with my tips. It was really sunny out that I needed to cover myself with the shades the buildings gave, which meant that I had to pass at the back of the Moroi guest rooms and to the workers so-called barracks.

I was just on the reception near the parking lot when I saw Mason huddled over at a bench. He was trying to look inconspicuous but when you were a carrot-top, you're famous to the world.

I stood at the back of Mason's bench when I said in a scary voice, "I know what you did last night."

Mason jerked in surprise and turned to look at me, putting down his glasses to the bridge of his nose. "Rose, you scared me."

"That was my point—scare you. And I know what you did last night." I said and pinched his shoulder. "You pervert!" I said in an accusing tone. "Moroi? Seriously? You guys couldn't do anything more fun? You just watched Moroi girls do skinny-dipping back at the spa?"

Mason blushed. "It was a dare."

"Dare my ass, Mase, I know why you did it." Just when I said that, I heard the squeaky thing again. I looked back at me and saw that Sam and Dean are on their merry way to the parking lot. They stopped and looked around the place, and then looked like they couldn't care less, took off toward their car.

"Were those the Men in Black?" Mason asked, standing up from the chair he was sitting at.

"Really, Mase, you watch TV too much." I noted.

"I haven't seen those two guardians before. Maybe they were new, or maybe they were Royal Moroi Guards, but they're too tan to be one."

Royal Moroi Guards were Moroi who made an oath of fealty to fight for the Moroi and dhampir race with their elements—they were only constituted as legal about five years ago when I started slaying.

"Maybe there's a tan Moroi." I told Mason.

"Maybe." He sighed and looked around. "I gotta go; the guardians are going to send me back to the cell when they catch me here. Bye!" Mason took off running like a stark-raving mad carrot on loose.

I started walking to the back of the guest rooms again in a slower pace. I greeted every human I passed by, but when I stepped into the slightly dark alley of buildings, I was left alone. I could hear my footsteps echo and water drips. Every step I took was measured with my heartbeat, and my heartbeat was measured by the water drips. I was halfway across the back of the guest rooms, when I was blocked. Literally blocked. Nothing was in front of me, but I couldn't take a step further.

I kept my calm and touched the space in front of me. It felt like glass, and I punched it but nothing happened. I dropped my hands to my sides and looked around me. Sure enough, I was standing on a huge circle with weird symbols. The hell with vandalisms.

Just before I started to pound on the invisible glass that locked me in my place, two men appeared out of nowhere. The space before me was empty before, but two very familiar men practically stepped out with a silver bottle in hand.

"Agent Douglas, Jenkins…what are you guys doing here?" I asked skeptically.

"Oh," Dean said with feigned sheepish smile. "Us? What we're doing here?" His smile disappeared and then he turned serious all of a sudden. He looked at me like I was a child of Satan or something. "We should ask you the same question, Louise. Or should I call you Alastair? In a girl's body now?"

I felt my face scrunch up. "What are you talking about?"

Sam was quiet, but the way it looked at me, I could feel that he was seeing through my soul.

"Guys, what's wrong? Who's Alastair?"

"Oh, just a demon who tortures souls!" Dean practically yelled and splashed the liquid from the silver bottle to me. I yelped and stepped back from him, unnerved that he has wet my leather jacket.

I looked at Dean angrily, and he looked back at me in a way that I found surprising. He looked surprised too.

"Water?" I asked him and then turned to Sam. "Who are you really?"

Sam looked at me. "You tell us—who are you?"

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "I'm Louise, the bartender."

"No, that's not the question." Said Dean. "The real question is, what are you?"

I stared at Dean. "I told you—I'm a bartender."

"Oh, can a bartender hypnotize people?" asked Dean sarcastically. He walked slowly around the circle of symbols. "And can a normal bartender be trapped in a devil's trap?"

I looked down at me. The symbols—they didn't look familiar to me, but I should have felt its power to entrap everything dark. I crouched down, took a small whiff on the drawings, and looked up at Sam. "Devil's trap," I said in disbelief. "What are you guys?"

"Same thing we'd like to ask you." said Sam calmly.

I stood up from my crouch and gave him my full glare, but not shifting my eyes. "I don't know what I am, but I know this—I am no demon that you are accusing me of being." I turned to Dean. "And let me ask you, Dean." I have felt something different from Dean. Something…dark. "How was it in the dark side?"

He sneered at me. "Better than yours, I think. I thought you'd know earlier. You got the eyes of a high-positioned demon in hell."

I glowered at him, my face turning into stone. "Let me go, Dean." I compelled. I didn't have any other choice; I was trapped here forever if they're all going to leave me in this symbolized hell hole. Dean's eyes glazed for a moment, but then he shook his head and smiled at me in a way that most mortals would find scary.

"You are not going to order me around that easily." Said Dean and splashed me the water from the silver bottle again. I had just noticed that it was holy water.

I glared at Dean. "You mother-fu—" I stopped myself before I could speak the words.

Dean smiled again. "Yeah, go ahead, call me whatever you like to call me. I'm sending you back to hell. Immune to holy water or not, you're going back down there."

I listened to Dean speak Latin words that I understood as a chant for exorcising demons out of humans. I just put my hands on my hips and glared at Dean. He looked back at me, and then he stopped chanting and looked at Sam. The exchanged looks and turned away from me. They conversed in hushed tones.

"Why isn't it working?" asked Dean.

"Maybe she's telling the truth. It's obvious she's not a demon. Maybe she's something else."

"I can hear you." I told them and yawned. They looked back at me. "If I'm not a demon, why won't you let me go?"

Sam stepped toward me with his hands raised. "Louise, we're just going to ask you a question." I nodded for him to continue. "Do you use dark magic?"

"What kind of question is that?"

He sighed and dropped his hands. "Do you have something that involves Wicca in you?"

"Wicca, let me think…" I tapped a finger on my chin. "I'll answer that one for two conditions."

The brothers exchanged looks and nodded—not looking too happy making a bargain with me.

"Name them,"

"First, you'll let me out."

"After you answer us." said Dean.

"Of course. And second, you'll tell me what you two are. Right now."

The brothers exchanged glances again and they nodded. "You'll just think we're crazy." said Sam Winchester.

"Oh, believe me. I being trapped in a circle with symbols is just beyond me. I can handle anything crazy at this moment."

"In the Supernatural world, we are called hunters." said Dean in a low voice.

"Supernatural?" I asked, disbelief leaking out of my voice.

"Yes, Supernatural." Dean told me and I could see him softening on me. "With the demons, ghosts, vampires, fairies, werewolves, shifters, dragons…even fairy tales are true."

"So, you two are like an advanced version of Ghostbusters?" I asked, letting out my TV-junky personality.

"No," said Dean quickly. "We don't use vacuum to destroy ghosts, but in general …yeah."

I looked at the brothers. "I think you guys are insane for thinking such creatures as dragons are true." I said in a blank voice.

"So, we answered your question—answer ours. What do you have inside your leather jacket?"

"A tool," I said and got the pouch out of my pocket and dangled it in front of them. The same squeaky sound sounded again. Sam took out the square box with flashing red lights again. "And what's that?"

"It's called an EMF meter. It measures the electro-magnetic field and it screeches when there's something strange about one thing or place." Sam said and looked back and forth from my pouch and the EMF meter.

"And you say this crappy piece of metal slab is something strange?" I took out the tool from the pouch and showed it to them.

The EMF meter screeched more. The brothers looked at the metal slab I held in apprehension. It was at least an hour later when they managed to find their vocals. "Where'd you get that?" asked Sam.

"Oh, this? I got this from my trinket box."

Their faces darkened. "What kind of trinket box? Was it silver or platinum or something?" asked Dean in an all-serious voice.

I stared at them for a minute. "Yeah, it was platinum. It wasn't really a box but it was an oval trinket box…if you know what I mean."

The brothers (again) exchanged looks. Sam rifled through a brown leather notebook and started scanning while Dean erased one symbol from the devil's trap and gestured me out. I sighed when I stepped away from the trap, giving Dean one last glare and wiped off the holy water away from my jacket.

"Louise, do you know what that tool is?" asked Sam, his face frozen on the page where he was scanning on.

I shook my head. "My sensei didn't tell me anything about it."

"You have a sensei? You don't look Asian." said Dean.

"Dean, stop it." Sam warned in a chastising tone.

"Bitch," Dean mumbled.

"Jerk," Sam replied in a similar tone.

"Okay, you guys, stop that!" I yelled and they stopped bickering. "Sam, tell me what this tool is."

"Alright. It's called The Tool of Baal." Sam said in a grave tone. "It is said that the Tool was created the same time Lucifer fell. The Tool was last seen during the late 1700s when Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Austrians." He looked up at me and I could see that his eyes were bright with excitement.

"Um, I think you mean Australia, not Austria." I told Sam.

He shook his head. "Austria was the other name for Czech Republic."

"Czech Republic," I repeated. "What the hell's wrong with Czech Republic?"

Sam gave me a weird look and then he continued lecturing me. "There is a myth that said Satan—Hell personified—had locked the Tool with something that was bound with silver or platinum."

I couldn't stop my jaw from dropping. "The myth was true." I told them and paced around, thinking about what the hell was wrong with my life. Could things get even more complicated?

"So we have assumed." Sam said, his expression sympathetic. "How did you open the box where the Tool was locked in?"

"I broke the damn trinket box." I said and continued to pace. I heard their heartbeat run faster.

"I remembered something I read that if the person could break open the box, they were—"

"Proscribed," I said.

"How did you know that?"

"That was the only useful thing my sensei told me."

"This sensei of yours," Dean started. "What's his job?"

"Mythologist, if there's such a job." I laughed bitterly. "No, my sensei works with me."

"You? Why?" asked Sam.

I looked at them and mentally damned myself for trusting such dicks. "As hunters, I think you should know something about me." I said in a quiet tone.

They looked like they were trustworthy enough to keep my secret. I needed some answers too, and they probably have them. And then a thought hit me. I was about to confide my secrets to Sam and Dean. Maybe they were my…confidants.

"Being a know-it-all in the supernatural world, have you heard about the Slayer?" I asked them.

"We've heard hunter whispers about the Slayer. Why?" asked Dean.

"Tell me what you know about the Slayer." I told them and wrung my hands together. I've been doing that an awful lot lately.

"He is the great hunter of vampires." said Sam in a sure voice. "Do you know anything about the Slayer?"

Even hunters—they didn't know whether the Slayer was a girl or not.

"The Slayer is not a he. The Slayer is a she."

"So, you really are Marie back at the Wade manor?" They didn't sound too surprised.

"Yeah," I said and sighed, putting my head between my hands.

"And let me guess, you're name is not really Marie or Louise." said Dean perceptively.

"You can say it like that." I told them and gave them a rueful smile. "My name's Rose."

"It's very nice to meet you Rose, the Slayer." said Dean in a voice that was trying to cheer me up.

I didn't know what Sam was up to, but he was taking down notes. "Rose, can I ask you something…um, personal?" Sam asked tentatively.

"That depends on the degree of the question." I told him and inclined my head for him to ask me.

"What's your surname?"

"That's not even close to personal, Sam." I said. "It's Hathaway."

"How old are you?"

"I just turned eighteen about a month ago. Why?" I asked, walking up to where Sam stood scribbling. "You're not going to turn me in, are you?" I stepped away from Sam, wary.

He stopped scribbling and looked at me. "Of course not. Rose, I'm taking down these notes because I think I just remembered something that involves something about the Slayer and proscription."

I stepped toward him. "What about it?" I asked, eager to hear what he had to say.

"I still don't know everything about it, but I'm sure Bobby got the books we need."

"Who's Bobby?"

"Another hunter," Dean answered me.

"Listen, Rose, we gotta take your number and we'll stay in touch." said Sam as if he was hurrying.

"Yeah, sure," I said and gave them my number.

"Rose, something tells me that this proscription of yours is huge business. We'll find some information about it, and I'll just contact you. Last question: what did your sensei tell you about Czech Republic?"

"He first said that I will travel through water, across the Goddess's womb, and then I will cross paths with the one who has my answers. What the heck does that mean?"

"Simple. Your sensei wants you to go to Czech by boat or in any thing that goes through water." answered Sam in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Oh, well then. I'm going to Czech…Republic." I said with a loony laugh. "Oh, wow, going abroad—again."

Before I could say anything else that would embarrass me, Sam spoke. "Rose, you have to move quickly. The proscription only lasts for a month, and the symptoms of it usually show up late. Proscriptions usually end on full moons."

"What happens when I don't get a cure or something?" I asked Sam when he and Dean hurried to the back of the barracks. Maybe they had climbed back inside here.

"You get permanently damned. A proscription is just a sign." Dean surprised me by answering. "And if you don't want to be damned forever, I suggest you move now!" Dean growled and I could see that the brothers were scared. Scared for me.

"Yes, Rose, move now. Going to Czech by boat will take a while. The next full moon is in ten days." said Sam.

I took a deep breath and escorted them out of the wards.

"I'll call you if I get anything, okay?" Sam said before he and Dean sped off.


So…got some answers in this chapter?

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Love lots,

Kate :D

xx