Not overly pleased with how this one worked out; Ruby seems more Meg-like, Bobby is a bit ooc and making up rules for magic when you live in a muggle world is confusing so I'm not sure how that came across. Still, I wanted to at least give you guys something after how much time it's taken me to even get this done. Hopefully the next chapter will be better and maybe I'll go back and edit this chapter at some point.
Waffling rant over.
Disclaimer: I own no hot witches, demons or hunters, mores the pity.
"Who was that?"
Ruby jumped and spun around to face the hunter. "Just a contact. Doesn't know where Sam or the girl are, but he has a friend of Lilith's in his basement."
"That the lead you wanted to see Sam about?" Dean asked, peeling himself away from where he was leaning against the door frame. He still looked suspicious, but as that was his default setting when it came to Ruby, she didn't worry about it too much.
"Yeah. No more progress as of yet, but that's where Sam was going to come in before he went M.I.A." She made a pissed off face and flounced off to find her new favourite witch, ignoring the glare directed at her back. Just because he didn't know her involvement with Sam going missing, didn't mean he didn't blame her for it.
Willow looked up as soon as Ruby entered the room. Gas station toilets were hardly the best place to perform complex spells, but it was the only place with enough privacy for her to do them uninterrupted. Or at least, she was meant to be uninterrupted, apparently Ruby didn't get the memo. Or more likely ignored it. She blanked her while keeping a careful eye out for any dangerous attention seeking the demon might try.
Ruby pulled out some hand towels, laid them on the ground and sat crossed legged on them, watching as Willow chanted and breathed. "You know, I used to be a witch. Not quite the same as you, I was more into Hell worship than Wicca, but you can't choose what avenues to power you stumble across." At Willow's lack of reply, she continued. "I mean, sure I could've just not used demons to get power and success for myself, but how was I meant to know how it would all turn out?"
Willow's words were starting to come through gritted teeth as she chanted. Ruby wouldn't be the first witch-gone-bad she'd met. Minus the going to hell and becoming a demon part she'd even been there herself. Even had the creepy black eyes according to the gang. There wasn't going to be any pity from her.
"You're such a great listener." Ruby grinned in victory at Willow's set jaw and shuffled a little closer. "Cute too."
Willow took a small breath in surprise, not expecting that approach.
"You do like girls, don't you? I mean, I've never seen a straight girl stay around the Winchesters so long without at least trying to get into their pants." Ruby laughed delightedly.
Willow took a deeper breath as she started the next chant.
"Mind you, Dean with that pretty mouth of his... Bet you've spent some time looking at that no matter what genitals you normally prefer." Ruby grinned lasciviously when Willow's gaze shot up to glare at her. "Unless you've had other things on your mind. Exactly what is dear old Dawnie to you?"
The power Willow had gathered for the finding spell crackled in the air, sending blue sparks out and lifting both their hair with the static. Willow cursed at her lack of control. Things were different here and she should have been concentrating better; sparks and static were nothing compared to what could have happened. "Get out."
Ruby did her best to look put out. "That's not very nice."
"I'm not going to repeat myself." Willow let a little more power slip, this time purposefully, until Ruby was being peppered with static shocks that increased in strength the longer she stayed in the room.
"Kinky!" Ruby said, standing despite trying to look unbothered. "I like it! But you should probably be saving all that power for the finding spells. See you later." She left with a wink.
Willow breathed out and got the power back under control.
Control that nearly snapped when the door was flung open a few seconds later by Dean, who paused at the electric feeling in the air and the slight frizz to Willow's hair before chucking his phone at her with little more than a 'heads up'.
There was a call in progress and she raised the cell to her ear. "Hello?"
"I got a few ideas on making the finding spells work. You got a pen?" Bobby's voice carried through the phone, cutting straight to the point.
Willow could barely hear him through the static interference, so she left the room with the phone pressed to her ear; a notepad in her hand ready to jot down the specifics. "Yeah?"
"Hex bags are designed to ward off unwanted attention. If someone already knows where ya are then they ain't gonna hide you from prying eyes, but if you're looking for someone you'll glance right off of 'em." Bobby started to explain.
"Okay, but how does that help us?"
Bobby breathed a heavy sigh that crackled uncomfortably in her ears. "Way I see it, we gotta trick the hex bags into thinking we already know where they are and we're just checkin' in."
"So... Some kind of scrying spell?" Willow half questioned, half suggested, thoughts already forming in her head and being dismissed or put to the side to look at better in a minute.
"Yeah, pretty much. It'll need modifying but I have a list of the basics in this universe and I figure you know a few from where you're from and we can work from those." There was a sandpaper sound that Willow suspected was Bobby scratching his beard. "I'd grab a cup of coffee and a comfy seat if I were you. This is gonna take a while."
Five minutes later Willow was nearly pulling her hair out arguing down the phone with the stubborn old (not really that old to be honest, but he acted like it) man about how without knowing where to look in the first place, all scrying would get them was a close up whatever picture of Sam and or Dawn they used that gave them nothing. If that. When she'd suggested scrying, present tense wasn't really what she'd had in mind.
Scrying allowed the spell caster to observe the object of the spell. You could set it to a person, place or object and then watch it through a reflective surface or a crystal. It was the original purpose of crystal balls. What Bobby, who for all his hunting knowledge had stayed away from most magic unless it pertained directly to a case, failed to understand is that an element of finding is needed in the first place unless you already know where a person is and who that person is. However a time could also be set and that could be useful to them.
As they'd discussed before getting into the workings of scrying spells, the hex bags wouldn't let them find where Dawn and Sam were. It was a fair guess that this would apply to predicting their movements too, although it was still something she was planning on giving a go just in case. This meant that even if they went to the trouble of modifying the spell to finding and viewing, they would be no better off. But, as she was trying to explain-
"We can do a modified version of the spell that works in past tense."
"What good would that do? We need to know where they are, not where they've been." Bobby grouched.
"No, you're not getting it! We'd know were they were, what direction they were moving in, what turning signs they looked at and when, is anyone is with them, if they're okay..." Willow tried to keep her tone enthused instead of frustrated, but it was a mean feat when there was a grumpy hunter on the other end of the line who kept trying to cut her off whenever she started to explain her point. "We wouldn't even have to merge the spells that much. All we'd need to do is set if the finding spell to feed directly into the scrying spell. If we find where they were, then we can feed it into the scrying spell and get as close as the hex bags will let us. The finding spell probably won't go so far, but because the scrying will still be connected when the finding spell shorts out, there's a chance we could get images of locations with only a few minutes lag."
The line went quiet for a moment before Bobby spoke again. "Run that by me again."
"Because scrying spells are continuous, all we'd have to do is get as close behind them as possible and keep the scrying spell running. The scrying spell will know where they were and what to look at and follow from the finding spell, so the hex bags will think there's no finding magic going on and won't stop it from following them or short it out when it gets close to real time. Because the-"
"You're gonna have to break it down." Bobby said in a highly exasperated but also a little amused tone.
"By linking the finding and scrying spells together, we'll basically have a tracking spell that doesn't feel like a tracking spell." Willow explained after a moment's thought.
"'Cause the finding spell will find where they were and start to track them, and by altering the scrying spell to fix on the same points of interest as the finding spell it'll be able to track them?" Bobby muddled through slowly.
"Yeah, like a live camera feed, and because the scrying spell already knows what it's watching rather than finding from scratch, and because all the spell is doing is watching and not sending back and information like whereabouts in a map or warmer colder signals, the hex bags won't try to stop it. We won't be able to get completely live, but we should get pretty close."
"Can't say I understood all o' that, but from what I got it sounds like it could work." Bobby sounded unduly impressed. In all honesty Willow was a little offended. She prided herself on her knowledge and ability with magic, and to hear him so surprised that she actually knew what she was talking about was kind of insulting.
"Impressive."
Willow spun around to face the unwanted eavesdropper.
"But I sincerely doubt it will work." Ruby smirked.
"And why is that?" Willow asked, unable to stop herself.
Ruby rolled her eyes. "How about the fact that no one is going to design a hiding spell or charm that doesn't cover it's tracks."
Willow gave a small breath of amusement. "Which is why the finding spell won't be able to get too close and the scrying won't be live. But we'll know every road they go on, every turning they take and at what time they took those turnings. We'll be able to follow them one step behind."
"Who're you talking to?" Bobby's voice drew her attention back to the phone.
"Just Ruby." She turned away from the demon to start jotting ideas on how to modify the spells.
"You sure you should be telling her any of this?"
"Not really." Willow glanced up just in time to see Ruby smirk at the phone like she knew exactly what Bobby was saying. "So, what should I bear in mind with tracking and scrying magic over here?"