"That could have gone better," Dean commented as the huge ornate gates clanged shut scant inches behind the Impala's rear bumper.
"She's loyal to a fatal fault, gotta give her that," Sam commented, reaching for his sunglasses.
"Loyal?" June scoffed from the back seat, wiggling out of her suit jacket. "Try hexed up the hoohah."
"That's unexpected," Dean glanced at her in the rear view.
"What did you pick up?" Sam asked.
"Very peculiar scents. Cherry blossoms, some sort of dried up egg, probably a swan's since I smelled their feathers too-"
"You can not only smell a feather but know what bird it came from?" Sam blurted.
"Well, sure, if I've smelled 'em before. My Mamere kept swans and she'd let me sleep with her when I stayed over. Her pillows were stuffed with swansdown. Anyway, there was something else that smelled maybe like daisies, a few other herbal scents I couldn't pin down, and of course, the usual dried human blood."
"A love charm?" Dean asked.
"Sounds like it," Sam said. "And a strong one, if there was a swan's egg in the mix. They mate for life."
"Well damn, this puts a kink in things. She's not going to believe us even when he puts a gun in her hand, if she's under the influence," Dean said.
"Did you get a fix on where the hex bag might be hidden?" Sam asked.
June kicked off her shoes and pulled a foot up into her lap, rubbing it with a groan. "The air mixes so well in there it would be hard to pin down without sniffing around behind the furniture. It could have been one big hex bag, or a lot of little ones. No way to tell without a treasure hunt."
"And I have a feeling we'd have better luck breaking into the White House right about now," Dean muttered.
"So we go for the shifter," Sam answered, his voice hard. "At least now we know where he's supposed to be working, up in Springfield."
"But no telling what face he uses up there," Dean huffed.
"Wonder if they always smell the same?" June piped up from the back.
Dean glanced at Sam to find Sam looking at him with an equally startled expression.
"Maybe they do," Sam said.
"I'd bet on it," Dean agreed. "They make themselves into perfect physical copies, but it's all stretchy skin-deep. That's all they shed when they change forms."
"So not genetic clones?" June asked.
"Probably not," Sam agreed. "But where are we going to get his scent?"
"I wonder if he's been fitted for his tux yet?" June mused.
"Wouldn't happened to have found out which tailor the grooms-men are using when you hacked into that wedding planner's system, would you?" Dean asked.
"As a matter of fact," Sam grinned. He pulled out his phone and turned on the navigator. "Take the next right."
-oOo-
Forty-five minutes later they were back in their motel room, packing up while June repeated all of Dimona's information and opinions. "Oh, and one other thing- she said his dog just died of cancer, and he's pretty broken up about it. Went the whole satin-lined casket, pet cemetery route.
"That could be a way to get to him," Sam mused.
"Unless his dead pooch was a chihuahua or one of those other little yappers," Dean said.
"Nope, it was a Bernese Mountain Dog. They don't live long, I hear," June said.
"I've been wonderin'," Dean said, as he hefted his duffel to his shoulder, "Just what do you think about dogs? Real ones."
"I'm real."
He gave her a look.
"Ok, ok. PC term is bestial, as if you're ever gonna bother with that. Anyway, personally? They kind of skeeve me out. It's like looking into a person's eyes and seeing that the lights are on but nobody's home."
"Oh, so like when Sam's around clowns."
"And when you're on a plane," Sam muttered and turned to June with open curiosity. "How do bestial dogs react to you?"
"It's a crap-shoot. Usually they avoid me, or ignore me. But some are terrified and some go into instant attack mode. There's no predicting it."
"Ok, so we'll hope he only had the one, so we can try a poor sad-eyed stray routine on him," Sam said. "If we can get you into his apartment, it'll be better than any mechanical surveillance we could plant."
Springfield, MO
Dean lounged on the bed, Magic Fingers purring, pizza box on his chest. "This is the best surveillance scheme ever."
Sam hit the far end of the room again and pivoted to pace back the way he came. Wouldn't be so bad if he could time his TV crossings with the commercial breaks.
"Sure. It's perfection. She puts her ass on the line and we sit on ours and wait for her phone calls."
"She's safer with him than with us. He's crazy about her. She's eating better than we are, too." He licked tomato sauce off his fingers. "Steak's steak, man, even if it's raw and in a dog bowl."
Sam grabbed the pizza box and tossed it onto the floor, sending a few black olives bouncing across the linoleum. "You think it's so great to eat off the floor, there ya go."
"What the hell's the matter with you?" Dean leaned down and retrieved the pizza box as it vibrated across the tile back towards the bed. "I can't say two words to you today without gettin' my head chewed off!"
"I don't know. Maybe because she's late checking in." Sam dropped onto the edge of his bed and raked his hands through his hair, elbows on his knees. "I'm wound so tight my skin's about to crawl off."
"Then take a pill or something. She's fine. You know she is. You'd feel it if she-"
Sam bolted to his feet, hand diving into his pocket for his phone. "Are you ok?" he blurted into it.
"There. Thank gawd," Dean muttered.
June's voice sighed out of the speaker. "I'm sorry I'm late, the stupid maid took forever today. I'm going crazy shut up in here, but I'm fine. Can't I just kill him and be done with it? I miss you. I want to come home..."
"And Lizzy Borden sleeps with you," Dean said under his breath. Sam probably didn't even hear him. Nothing existed for him right now but her voice on the phone. Damn he was so messed up... jonesing all over again, same song, different drug.
"No. We've been over that," Sam was saying. "We can't be certain yet he's the one pulling the scams."
"But his eyes," she whimpered, "In that video and in those morphs."
"It could be an imaging artifact on the video, and when I ran the morph last night with tighter parameters it indicated a very strong similarity instead of a perfect match. Sweetheart, he hasn't made any suspicious moves while we've been watching him. If he doesn't intend to hurt anyone, we can't kill him just because he's not human."
"There's that love-hex," Dean put in loud enough that Sam rolled his eyes at him and June probably heard him too.
"Yeah, what about that? That's proof, right?" she said.
"Not everyone who uses magic deserves the death penalty, either," Sam told them both. "That hex is underhanded and low but it's not life-threatening by itself. Look, I miss you like crazy too, but have you found out anything?"
"No, not even what this appointment is about." she groaned. "You're gonna have to sneak in here, he keeps everything on his laptop and I can't break his password."
"How long before he gets back?"
"Not long enough. I figured he'd be back at least a couple of hours ago. He's very rigid about my feeding and walking schedule and the maid's cynophobic. I've had to sit in a freakin' dog-crate all day with a sheet thrown over it."
"Think you can find a spare key?"
"I'm still looking. He's so anal, he has to have one stashed somewhere. I double-checked the street-door code and his alarm code this morning. I gave them to you right."
"Good. Even if you can't find the key, with the alarm disabled, we may be able to pop the lock when you both go to work tomorrow."
"I'll see if I can fubar the deadbolt, if I can't find the key tonight." She sighed again. "I hate this, and not just because I'm here and you're there. He's like, obsessively regimented, Sam, but he's so nice to everybody and he treats me like gold. He even chipped me today, Sam. He took me to the vet for a bunch of shots and freakin' chipped me! You're gonna have to dig that thing out when we're done or I'll be lo-jacked!"
Ouch. Beer backing up through the nose really burns.
"We'll deal with it. June, the wedding's-"
"He's coming in!" she hissed in a whisper into the phone. "Oh man- he's crying, Sam!"
The connection broke.