Previously: Sam drags Dean from Sparrow's bar before he can get in a fight with Rat.

The Birds
installment 2

"This better be good, Sam, because I swear to God, I was gonna punch that sonuvabitch's lights out!" The drive from the bar to the hotel hadn't been long enough to cool Dean's temper. He smacked a fist into his palm and proceeded to stomp back and forth across the room.

Sam smirked, "Why? Because a guy with one eye can get a girl you can't?" He flipped open his laptop, noticed the flickering low battery icon in the corner of the screen, and dug out the cord to plug it in. "Or because he kicked your ass at pool?"

"No!" Dean immediately denied. "For messin' with my little brother."

Sam snorted. "Okay." He let Dean continue to fume while he searched the web.

"Here we go." He scooted the screen so Dean could look over his shoulder. "When we showed up, we knew Landrick was dead, and a lot of people had disappeared from this town including a hunter about three years ago."

Dean nodded. "And now we got Sparrow's dead sister."

Sam made an uncertain noise. "That's the thing…" Sam expanded a few windows with newspaper clippings about the disappearances, "Thirteen people have gone missing in the last seven years, all men, none local, and none of them younger than thirty. I was thinking we had some kind of cursed Native American artifact, with all that stuff on the bar walls, but cursed objects don't suddenly decide to start killing young girls when they've been killing middle aged guys for years. She doesn't fit…"

"So? Rat said she died in a car accident, didn't he? Maybe she doesn't have anything to do with Landrick's death."

Sam frowned and opened more web browser windows.

"You think Rat lied?"

"Had to." He turned the computer all the way toward Dean, "Check this article out. There haven't been any automobile related fatalities in this area in ten years." Dean had read maybe a paragraph, and then computer screen went black. "The hell? It's plugged in!" Sam ducked under the desk to look at the outlet and saw one frayed end of his cable dangling from the wall, the other lying on the floor.

"Holy shit! What the hell is that?" Dean jerked one foot off the floor, then hopped onto the other.

Sam almost cracked his skull trying to get out from under the desk in time to see the sinewy black and white rodent scamper across the carpet, around the leg of one of the beds, and past the bathroom door, Dean stomping after it. The furry spectacled face glanced back just once before the creature wriggled under the door. Dean flung it open to check the hall, but the little monster was nowhere to be seen.

"Sam," Dean closed the door more gently than he had opened it, "Why the fuck was there a weasel in our hotel room?"

Sam blinked twice. "It wasn't a weasel… it was a black footed ferret."

"The hell do I care? Weasel, ferret, guinea pig, I'm so not okay with rodents runnin' around where I'm sleeping."

"Dean…"

"What, Sam? I mean, really, could you at least pretend you're pissed that this hotel has – "

"That ferret was missing an eye."

Dean froze in mid tirade. "What're you sayin'?

"I dunno yet… Get me the other power cord from my bag, will ya?"

"Uh, Sam…" Dean held up the requested object. It looked like a demented Christmas bow. The twist tie Sam had employed to keep the cord from tangling into knots now held together a dozen three inch, chewed through wires. Sam's mouth gaped. Dean tossed the destroyed cable into the garbage bin and sat on the bed nearest his brother. He clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder. "It's all good. We don't need th'internet. What all you know about cursed objects, boy wonder?"

Sam dropped his head in his hands and tangled his fingers in his hair. "That one artifact doesn't slit a guy's throat, make another thirteen disappear, or randomly change it's m.o. to girls…" he groaned.

"More than one?" Dean offered, "Different curse for a different artifact? You said it yourself, she's got a ton."

Sam turned his head without lifting it out of his palm. "And one of those curses is attack by one eyed ferrets?" His voice dripped sarcasm.

"Eh… true that." Dean leaned back on his hands and stared at the ceiling. "That guy Rat told you to mind your own business about that girl Parakeet's death, right?"

Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother. "In a few more words than that, yeah."

"Well, that was clearly because he was lyin' about it."

"Sure looks that way."

"And a rodent that suspiciously resembles him just invaded our room and wrecked your computer so we can't check it out." He cocked his head at Sam, "You tryin' to get me to say shapeshifter so you don't have to?"

"I'd kinda thought about it… I mean it's not like there's no stories about them. They're all over cultures worldwide, the Nhang and Shahapet in Armenia, the kitsune in Japan, the huli jing in China, the aswang in the Phillipines, but those are mostly snakes and foxes, and besides we've never seen one before, and other than werewolves and skin-walkers, there's nothing about shapeshifters in Dad's journal."

"Alright then… it's probably not a shapeshifter, just an ugly critter someone sent to bother us. Either way, I think we need to have a chat with Mr. Rat."

Someone knocked on the door.

"You boys sure picked a weird ass motel… There's about ten guys at the front desk complaining to that poor schmuk Randy, who by the way is eating a raw leg of deer, about a weasel problem."

Sam held up his munched computer charger. "Yep, Bobby, we need to talk to you about that."

"Oh, Jesus…"