**yay another disclaimer...sam and dean = not mine but I love 'em just the same**

FIVE

She's so...smart, Sam thought. He wasn't sure if she was aware that he was staring, elbow on the table and his hand holding his head up as he copied the stereotypical stance of a boy sitting at his desk with a schoolboy crush.

He wasn't sure if that was what this was, a crush, but he was certainly impressed with all the knowledge that Claire possessed. He'd had the same feeling for a lot of the girls that he'd met at Stanford, but it wasn't at all what he'd felt for Jessica, it just didn't compare. He'd loved Jessica; he'd been...fascinated with all the really smart girls he'd met.

Guess smart girls just turned his crank, as Dean had so nicely put it.

He loved being challenged intellectually, as geeky as it was, and someone who could make him think. Claire was always doing just that. Ever since he'd met her he'd been trying to figure her out, but, so far, he wasn't succeeding. Every time he saw her, she'd surprise him by showing him a new side of herself.

Today she was all business and that was why Sam was having a hard time paying attention. She was just so...so smart. Dean was sitting on the couch, opposite his brother, looking bored and scared at the same time. Amber had chosen her seat very carefully, basically on Dean's lap, but he was ever-so-slowly edging away from her whenever she looked up to talk to her sister.

Marina was at work, a lifeguard for the local pool, and Rose was out with her boyfriend. Amber had nicely volunteered to help with the hunt and of course Claire had already made it clear that she was in.

"We've never actually hunted anything before; if we had we would've been all over these attacks. We just weren't sure it was witches until you boys came and got so suspicious." Claire smiled playfully at Sam and then Dean, who tried to smile pleasantly back, but ended up with a grimace in place instead.

"Even then I don't think we would've had the balls to go after them ourselves, thank goodness for you two. Our heroes," Amber leaned over Dean's shoulder and attempted to bite his ear, but Dean suddenly had to go to the bathroom and promptly left the room.

Amber laughed to herself and winked at Sam. Sam had to laugh too. Claire wasn't paying any attention. She'd spread out a map on the coffee table before them and was pointing out all the mansions, possible locations for the cults, on the outskirts of town.

"Now, this town is fairly small so everyone pretty much knows everyone. It's only those rich folk up the hill that keep to themselves. Some of them have yachts so they live out on the sea for half the year, so they aren't even home. Still, it's probably worth checking those out if we can."

Sam nodded, although he had no idea how they'd go about searching a yacht out at sea.

"If they're out in a yacht, how on earth are they murdering all these people?" Amber pointed out, "It's kind of hard to carve up someone's head if you're out surrounded by a few hundred miles of water, while they're in a park over here."

Claire frowned, "Fine, burst my bubble, why don't ya? I've always wanted to see the inside of one of those yachts." She smiled sheepishly to Sam and then turned back to her map, "So we can rule out the Lodges and the Christensens. That leaves the Gordons and the Sparks'."

Sam assumed that these were all names of the rich people living up the hill and watched as Claire used a pale finger to point out where the mansions were that they were going to be checking out, belonging to the Gordon family and the Sparks family, apparently. Luckily, they were on the same stretch of country road, so that saved them some time.

"So how do these stake outs work?" Amber asked, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully at Sam, and pulling her bare legs up onto the couch with her, curling them under her. The sun dress she'd chosen to wear was pretty, but it was also pretty short.

"Usually the less people the better, so that it's less likely that we'll get noticed by neighbours or police. Maybe we'll get lucky and go when no one's home and then there's a good chance that we'll be able to break in and snoop around without being caught."

"Why don't we go now?" Amber looked up at Claire, "It's not like we can get anything done sitting around here."

"Are you kidding?" Claire sat down beside her sister on the couch and turned towards her, "Those kinds of people don't have day jobs, they can afford to pay others to do their errands and run their businesses and they get to spend the day at home."

"So we go at night then," Sam clarified, "Wait until they're sleeping and get in then."

"What about the alarm system?" Amber asked.

"We'll deal with that," Sam smiled at them. He felt special when they exchanged a glance that clearly read that they were impressed with him. He didn't usually get that reaction from people.

"Well, won't they hear us walking around?" Amber questioned again after she and Claire were finished marvelling over their new friend.

Claire fielded that one before Sam could say anything, "Marina can deal with that. One good storm and they shouldn't even be able to hear us coming."

"Alright," Amber was not at a loss of questions and comments today, she even seemed remotely normal, "Say we do get inside and no one notices. We look around and find nothing. Then what?"

Sam shrugged, "We wipe our fingerprints and then leave quietly."

"What if we do find something, then what?"

"Dean and I will deal with it then. Hopefully, we'll know everything about the situation by then. I was hoping to find out about the symbol on the victim's foreheads for starters," Sam suggested. He hadn't even finished before Claire stood up and started walking towards the front door.

"I'll take you to the local library. We should be able to find something there. They've got archives and everything, plus internet," She smiled.

Sam nodded and stood as well, but then paused in mid-step, "I should wait and tell Dean where I'm going and what the plan is."

Claire shook her head, but Amber spoke up first, apparently with the same idea, "I'll tell him, don't worry about it." She smiled and when Sam turned back to Claire, she was smiling brightly with a hint of mischievousness as well.

She motioned to the door, now open in front of her, "Shall we?"

Sam nodded again and then waved over his shoulder to Amber before leaving the house.

Dean emerged from the washroom a second later, having heard the door close behind his brother and Claire, although he didn't know it. He thought maybe Amber had gone to work or away with a boyfriend that she hadn't mentioned, but when he went back into the living room only Amber remained. He cursed Sam in his head for leaving him alone with this woman.

She batted her eyelashes at him sweetly, almost innocently, but at the same time he could see her hot pink underwear from underneath her dress.

"Guess it's just you and me,"

Dean forced a laugh and checked the window in time to see Claire's Volvo drive off down the street. He pointed, "Where'd they go?"

"To the library. Let the geeks have their books, I say, we've got something more important to do," Amber stood and walked to Dean's side, taking his arm, "I want to show you someplace."

Dean didn't like the sound of that. "Actually, I was thinking that I'd go back to the-"

"Oh, you don't want to spend the whole day cooped up in a motel, do you? I happen to know something that may help you boys too. Claire's not the only resourceful one," Now Amber looked offended, so Dean tried to relax and stop himself from wincing whenever he looked her in the face.

"Where do you want to go?"

"The church,"

"The church?"

"Yes. Let's go, we'll take my car. They'll recognize me there, but if you ask no one's going to tell you anything."

Dean nodded, that did make sense. "Alright, you take me to the church and...what are you expecting to find there?"

"It's not what we'll find there, it's what happened there. Maybe you'll find something that I missed," Amber tugged his arm in the direction of the door. She managed to pull him all the way there, but they stopped in the door frame.

Suddenly she just dropped his arm and took a step back in the house. Dean turned around to see why and saw Tana on the second last stair. She was staring at Dean, expressionless. Amber stood between them and eyed Tana with concern on her face, like yesterday.

"Tana," She said at first, startled, then collected herself and started again, "Tana, what are you doing here?"

Tana narrowed her eyes as if saying 'this is my house too'.

Amber shook her head quickly, "I meant to say, what are you doing down here? Now? Did you want something, sweetie?"

Tana just stared at her. Amber stared back and then turned to Dean, over her shoulder and whispered sheepishly, "Sometimes it's hard to understand just what she wants."

Dean didn't say a word, but looked back to Tana, who was staring at him again. Green to green.

"I think she wants to come along." He said finally.

Amber looked surprised and turned back to her sister, "You want to come, Tana? We're going to the church, you might be bored." She was even more surprised when her youngest sister finished off the steps and walked to the door, slipped on her shoes and ducked under Amber's arm to get out of the house.

She smiled to Dean on her way by, but walked past him to the driveway where she stood and waited for the others.

Amber stood stunned for a moment and then sighed, closed the door behind them and motioned for Dean to follow her sister, "She's strange that kid, I don't know how you even knew that."

"Let's just say I might understand where she's coming from."

Amber looked frightened for a fraction of a second before she pushed away the emotion and smiled tightly. She opened the garage manually to reveal a pale pink Volkswagen beetle and Dean's jaw dropped. The girls went to the car, Amber to the driver's seat and Tana to sit in the back, but Dean hung back on the stone walkway of the house and stared.

"What?" Amber finally asked, half in the car, half still outside, "You don't like pink?" There was that teasing tone again. Just when he was finally getting used to her. She slid into the car, started the engine and then honked the horn.

There was no way he was getting into that car.

Sam and Claire walked into the library without saying a word to each other. It was the same way it had been in the car on the way over. The whole drive here he'd been trying to think of something to say, about the hunt, about the cult, about witches, but instead he sat there like an idiot fiddling with his hands.

He'd even thought for a moment that he'd misinterpreted his initial feelings for her, but all that was forgotten the moment the large wood doors closed behind them and Claire led Sam inside.

"Okay, we've got your silly books of love spells, your curses, hexes and get back at your boss spells, your typical book of shadows, a wide range of Charmed books – I love that show. Did you ever watch it?"

Sam shook his head, he'd heard of it, he even knew that Dean found the sisters on the show hot, but other than that he knew nothing about it except that its demons and facts were completely made up.

"Not really," he replied.

"Well, it doesn't matter. Anyway, down here we've got books on early witchcraft, the Salem Witch Trials, another Charmed book – oh, I haven't read this one," Claire pulled that book from the shelf and kept walking. Sam followed dutifully.

"Ah ha," Claire exclaimed as they rounded a corner and reached a tiny shelf of old looking books at the back of the occult section, "This is where we'd find anything cultish and old, as you can probably tell by some of the titles and the cobwebs on the corners."

Sam smiled and knelt down to get a better look at the books. They did look ancient, some of them were even worn and fading, but there was dust on this particular shelf that suggested that no one had been here and checked out these particular books in a while.

"They were used frivolously in their day I guess, but nowadays I guess the witchcraft novelty has worn off," Claire grinned, "Get it? Worn off? Like some of the titles?"

Sam grinned back. He loved a girl that could use the word 'frivolously' in the same sentence as a joke.

"Let's get started," He said and pulled the biggest, thickest book he could see of the shelf.