TWO
Sam felt no choice but to leave the car himself, and sneak quietly to the house behind his brother. He really hoped that they wouldn't have to use their guns, but he saw Dean's hand reach back and carefully take his weapon from his belt strap. Sam tiptoed quickly and quietly as possible until he was at Dean's side and held him back by his shoulder.
Dean gave Sam a "what'd you do that for?" look.
Sam put a finger to his lips and then cupped a hand around his ear. It took him a second, but Dean finally understood that Sam wanted him to listen.
There were voices, at least four distinctive ones, coming from the room beside the front door. The light was on in the window and shadows were moving beyond the peachy curtains, clearly there were more people on this stake out than they'd anticipated.
"Maybe it's a slumber party," Dean shrugged with a grin. All the voices were female after all, so Sam shrugged back. It wasn't impossible.
Even as they inched closer and closer to the window, they could never quite make out what the voices were saying to each other. It was very frustrating, Sam thought. He didn't usually make it a habit to eavesdrop on other people's conversations, but since they were here and trying to figure out if their waitress was a witch or not-
Suddenly, Dean stepped onto the stone steps up to the front door, to get a better view of the window, and was thrown back, by an invisible force, onto the grass. Sam stood stunned for a moment and then ran over. Dean was just lying there with his eyes wide open, confused and with the wind knocked out of him. After a second, he sat up, rubbing the back of his head.
"What on earth-?" Was all he said, before he got back on his feet and marched up to the steps again, without any cautionary pauses this time, and was thrown back once again. He landed right at Sam's feet.
"I think you were right," Sam said, as he helped his older brother get to his feet for the second time.
"They must have some sort of barrier up around the house," Dean squinted around in the dark, as if hoping to see it.
Sam looked too, though he doubted they'd find it if magic was involved, "Maybe it's a protective shield of some sort, against strangers and peeping toms."
"Or maybe there's something in there that they don't want us to see," Dean responded, completely ignoring Sam's half-hearted attempt at lightening the mood.
They stood outside the blue house in silence for a few minutes, listening to the seemingly oblivious chatter of the four females that had been on-going without fail despite the madness going on just outside their window. Finally, Sam turned to his brother slowly.
"What now?"
"We should-" Dean stopped, probably realizing that he knew nothing about magic spells or hexes. Anything outside hex bags and getting rid of them was not within his area of expertise.
Sam was about to speak, when the ground under their feet started to shake. Just a little at first, but then they could hear the earth crackling under their feet, the grass was rippling like waves in an ocean and both brothers grabbed onto the other for support.
Just as quickly as it started however, the shaking stopped.
"What was that?" Dean all but yelled.
Sam shushed him and looked around the neighbourhood. All was peaceful everywhere else; everything was where it was supposed to be.
"I think that you are definitely right," Sam said finally.
Dean huffed, "Of course I'm right."
For a moment they stood, clutching each other's arms, listening. This time, they heard nothing. No chattering, no laughing, no female voices and no shadows in front of the window by the front door of the mysterious house.
"Do you think they know we're here?" Dean whispered finally.
As if in answer to his question, thunder clapped and rain started to pour heavily. The funny thing was that it was only raining over the property of the blue house. Well, it was not funny for the Winchesters, but they could definitely hear four female voices laughing in harmony with each other.
The brothers watched in awe as the peach curtains over the window were drawn back and four women, one of them was Claire, peered out at them standing in the rain and getting drenched. This fact only seemed to fuel their laughter.
Sam and Dean exchanged a glance, but did nothing otherwise.
"I hate witches," Sam heard Dean grumble under his breath.
Finally, the rain subsided and the jeering women disappeared as the curtains fell over the window again. The front door opened and Claire stood there. The other three women stood behind her, crowding to get a good look at their intruders.
"You boys look soaked. Would you like to come in and get dried off?" Her tone was daunting and the grin she wore was even worse.
Sam and Dean exchanged another glance.
"C'mon now. We've had our fun and we promise to behave ourselves," Claire called, holding up two fingers, "Guide's Honour." The other women giggled.
Five minutes later, Dean and Sam were side-by-side on Claire's couch in the living room, the room with the peach curtains. Two of the other three women were sitting on the couch opposite them. They sat in silence before Claire and one other woman came in, both holding a beige towel in hand.
"Sorry about that," Claire apologized finally, though not without a sly smile as she sat down on the arm of the couch opposite the Winchesters.
All four women sat and stared at the brothers for at least a minute, in which time Sam and Dean towelled off awkwardly to avoid dripping all over the place.
Finally, Dean gathered up the courage to speak.
"So, witches?"
Claire smiled, "And the million dollars goes to - I'm sorry. I forget your names."
"I'm Dean and this is my brother Sam. Winchester."
"I'm Claire Martin, and these are my sisters," She gestured to each one as she named them off without even glancing their way.
Rose was the girl next to Claire on the couch, she was also blonde haired and green eyed (like all of them) but she was wearing a green cocktail dress and an orange headband in her hair. She smiled warmly to them when introduced.
The next sister was Marina. She was the most casually dressed in sea blue pajama pants and a fitted black t-shirt. She nodded in their general direction and lifted a hand for a fraction of a second in acknowledgement of her name. Other than that she just kept staring at them.
The last sister in the room was Amber. She was the only one in the room who made the staring increasingly awkward. She looked at them as if she wanted to jump their bones that instant, if only her sisters weren't in the room. Was it just them, or did she actually just lip her lips at them? She was wearing extremely short shorts and a tantalizingly scant tank top in a daring shade of purple.
Dean had to keep himself from running from the room in fright when she slowly drew a line with one of her pale fingers up her leg while giving him a look he could've lived a very long, generally happy life without seeing.
Sam swallowed.
Frightening as some of them were, just sitting there staring, they weren't like the other witches that Sam and Dean had encountered, which only made Dean more suspicious.
When the brothers stayed silent, Claire cleared her throat and stood up, "So, what are you two then? Warlocks?"
Dean burst into laughter, but Sam gave him a stern look that made him stop and turn his gaze to the carpeted floor, dragging his socked feet along the patterns.
"No, we're not. We're – uh, actually demon hunters," Sam winced, anticipating the laughter or for one of them to tell him that they were crazy. Instead all four of them nodded in unison. It was even freakier than if they had said that Sam and Dean were insane.
"I figured you two were part of this," Claire smiled playfully. "Usually I only use my powers against the occasional man that follows me home from work. Like you two, it happens, although they usually come to my house for other reasons, which I'm sure you can imagine. We like to have a little fun from time to time. That was the first clue."
"First clue?" Dean asked.
"The first clue that you were part of our world. Normal guys get freaked out after being thrown a few times from the door step, but you two kept coming," Claire's smile never faltered as she explained.
"Well, we certainly didn't come for those other reasons," Dean clarified, looking at Claire suspiciously.
Claire looked into his unwavering eyes for a long moment before her smile finally faded into a line, but it was her sister, Marina, that spoke.
"If you're going to blame us for the deaths around town, you can leave right now." She said.
"Because we'd be wrong or because you don't want us finding you out?" Dean turned his suspicious glance from Claire to Marina.
"Because you'd be very wrong and very stupid to accuse us of such things in our own house, where we clearly have the higher ground," Marina lifted a hand and Dean's stern lips tweaked up at the edges into a half-smile.
"I'm pretty sure you'd have the higher ground pretty much anywhere I'd accuse you."
"We're not the witches that you're looking for if you're here about those deaths," Claire cut in finally.
"So it is witches causing those deaths, then?" Sam asked.
"Yes, but not us. We're not the spell casting type," All four women cast glances at each other, all with sly smiles splayed out on their unblemished pale faces.
"I don't understand," Sam leaned forward in his seat, intrigued, "What type are you then? I assume you're not the sell-your-soul-to-the-devil kind."
Claire looked taken aback, "No, certainly not. We were born with our powers. Our mother had them too, and her grandmother before that. We're not ordinary witches either, we're elementals."
"Elementals?" Dean repeated.
Sam's eyebrows raised and he nodded, clearly impressed. Dean saw this out of the corner of his eyes and turned to him, "How do you know what that means and I don't?"
"I read."
"You read, okay. Got it. Someone tell me what an elemental is then? Preferably someone who isn't going to look at me like I'm the stupidest person in this room...or like I'm a cheap jiggalo or something," Dean eyed Amber warily with a wrinkled nose.
Claire turned to Sam, "Do you want to explain, or shall I?"