Sam and Cas were hunched over the laptop, Sam's hair was looking more shaggy than usual. One of these days, me and a pair of clippers. Maybe I could drug him using Coyote's teas. "Hey," I said as we walked in.

"Hey," Sam answered without moving, "I noticed the articles you had up. You think?"

"I think. Me and coincidences, you know how I feel about' em."

"Yeah. Great."

Cas turned around, "Are you all right Running Coyote?"

She nodded and smiled, "Yes and just call me Coyote."

I had a random thought, "Hey, question. Cas said you had found that pendant earlier thinking it would protect Coyote but this is the first time we've been here when he's here. How'd you know she'd need it?"

He shrugged while clicking through some more emails, "Made sense, she can see our Warrior Spirits and has visions. It's only logical that seeing an angel would hit her pretty hard. Honestly it was a stray thought I had when I was bored a few months back and went digging. From what Cas said it turned out to be a good thing."

"It did indeed." She said. Her arm dropped away from my waist as she moved towards him to give him a tight hug. "Thanks for thinking ahead."

He finally moved to put his arms around her waist and gave me a smirk, "Well someone has to."

"Yeah, yeah." I pulled a chair out across from him, shifted a lamp so it wasn't in my line of sight and met his eyes, "So let's talk."

"Right, so everyone has hunkered down and is safe for now. I am still having my researchers watch for jobs to see if anything new pops up in the places Felicity has tracked our friends to. I agree with Oliver's idea of bait hunters but we need volunteers for that."

Coyote sat down to my right and Cas moved his chair to the end so he could see all three of us at once, "Let's backtrack," I started. "With my crazy ass dreams, the fight back home and the driving we've been sort of scattered. First off, Coyote brought this up back home, Tom and Sarah, anyone actually get eyes on them to verify this whole thing?"

Sam shook his head, "Not yet."

"Okay, same with Gerald, he was by himself right?"

"Yes."

I didn't know for sure shifters were involved but I wanted to establish a ground zero. "Let's pick a group of hunters we trust, get them all together somewhere and test every last one of them. That way we know, at least for right now, everyone is who they say they are. I want Sarah and Gerald there, Sarah will want to kill something after losing Tom like that."

"Agreed."

"Dean," Cas said, "There is no need to test them, Coyote or I can look at them and tell you."

"Keeping the fact that you're an angel and she's a Shaman under wraps as much as possible Cas. You don't hunt with Sam, he and Roy have been avoiding demons so I'm hoping against hope right now that the monsters don't know what you are." And even more hoping that demons weren't involved. "Some of the hunters know what Coyote is but even at that they don't know what she can do."

Cas's eyes narrowed, I could tell he was trying to come up with some sort of reference to show he understood and was one of the cool humans. "Oh, like in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf throws his cloak off and is wearing white instead of grey? I still don't quite understand why the white cloak and change of name made him more powerful."

I wasn't sure which was more unexpected, that he'd seen Lord of the Rings or how he could miss the obvious similarities between he and Gandalf; long lived, powerful beings who sometimes miss the big hints and make bad choices. Sam was trying to hide a smile so I had a feeling there'd been a Bunker movie night I'd missed. That must have been damn entertaining. "Uh, yeah. Exactly." Which made Cas break out with the "See I do understand you odd humans," look. He always seemed so proud of himself when he made what he thought was an awesome connection to pop culture. I never can bring myself to burst his bubble on that, although he was getting better with them. Coyote faked a cough to cover her laugh and I soldiered on. "Think we can set that up for tomorrow somewhere close by? I want Oliver and the rest hiding in the wings just in case something goes sideways."

The smile left Sam's face, "Yeah, there's that old barn west of here that will work. I'll send out...

"No," I interrupted, "That's the other thing. For now, no mass emails. Call people, talk to them. We don't know who's got a laptop or phone or if someone's hacked in. Let's just ratchet up the paranoia and pretend everyone's after us. You know, like the good ol's days."

That got him from serious to deadly serious in about five seconds, "Shit. Good news is we can use it to send misinformation out though if we think it's compromised."

"Nice touch." Had to give him credit, "Any way Felicity can see if it's been hacked?"

He frowned, "Probably not. With all the burner phones hunters use who knows how many ip addresses hit this thing on a daily basis."

"Crap. Okay. Not sure if you want to go radio silent or just act normal but lay plans in the background, but nothing about what we're doing or where we're going gets out unless we want it to."

"Got it."

"Next on the list, those monster detection pendants you mentioned. How complicated we talking other than time?"

"Not very, the ritual is in Latin, not Enochian or Sumerian so not too hard to say. We have all the ingredients, even the iron, it needs to be as close to 100% iron as possible. Good thing I bought nails a few weeks back."

All of a sudden I felt like I was living a twisted fairy tale, "Iron? What are we doing, chasing fairies?"

"Lore says supernatural things don't like iron. I would have figured silver since that's what kills them but I'm not going to argue the point. I think it's just a broad spectrum thing anyway. Hell, it could go off when Cas is around."

There are a lot of creatures out there and I'd be jumpy enough without something warning me of a Djinn, pagan god or angel when all I really needed to know about was vamps, weres and maybe a shifter. "Skip it then. Cas, Coyote or silver will work I guess. If we're not sure and it attacks, let's just go with cut it's head off and check the teeth later."

He raised an eyebrow and nodded, "Beheading, the all purpose solution to random attacks."

"It's how I survived Purgatory, don't knock it."

"Can't argue with you there."

"Thanks." His eyes lost focus for a second, "What's on your mind?"

"That vamp stuff you found. We could soak bullets in it, or try loading some shotgun shells with it."

"Nice." Now that would come in handy. The tricky part with vamps has always been having to get close to take them out. If we could shoot them and drop them it would make things a helluva a lot easier.

"Hmm," Coyote said, "I saw a vid where people loaded nails into shotgun shells. You put a small amount of that liquid in the shell, put the nails in, then seal it. That way you know it will pierce their skin and go right into the blood stream. It won't mess up your barrel like bullets dipped in it would."

Sam definitely liked that idea, "Perfect."

"All right, let's go with that." I remembered something, "Huh, I think I still have a box of silver .45 bullets under my bed. 9mils are nice and all but I like my gun."

Sam sighed, "Guess quiet's out of the picture."

"Hey, a 45 is intimidating."

"Yeah, to people," he countered.

"And to werewolves."

He gave up, "Whatever."

"Any news on Gordon?"

"No."

I took a good long look at the three of them, one of those random flare ups of anger stirred deep down inside. I really didn't want to cat and mouse this crap for weeks, I've never liked hidden enemies.

Sam recognized the look, "Dean..."

"We need to find a hunt and make a statement. I'm not chasing shadows. If Gordon's involved I want him out in the open as soon as possible. If we're on a list, let's make it real easy for people to find us. Oliver said we need to draw these assholes out, you and I are the quickest way to do that Sam. Gordon's not going to care about the rest if we piss him off enough."

Cas's eyes turned to blue tinted stone, "Dean, while I appreciate the sentiment, is that the wisest course? It seems like you're repeating your previous patterns, I thought you had decided not to continue to do that."

Coyote was studying me, "Babe, not saying you're off base here but check your motives."

"Here's my theory, the longer this goes on, the higher the chance is that we lose more hunters. I give it a week, maybe two, before they start getting restless and go out on their own. These aren't military types that are used to following orders. They listened yesterday because this came out of nowhere but they're all smart and at some point will start making their own plans. I think what you said was right, that we stumbled into something the monsters weren't ready for us to see yet. If we keep moving fast we may catch them off guard. If nothing else, if we take steps, the other hunters may be willing to sit and wait."

The three of them exchanged some pretty intense looks. Cas's eyes lost some of their hardness first, then Sam started nodding and Coyote seemed to relax.

"It's worth running by Oliver and the rest," Sam said. "If they're on board we could do some serious damage fast."

"That's what I'm thinking." I was tired of sitting and talking, "Let's test this whole nails in shotgun shells idea. After that I'm tuning up Baby. You pick about ten hunters we can trust who are close and get them here by tomorrow night."

"On it."

"Cool. Are the nails in that junk drawer or the kitchen?"

"I have them in the armory, I was building some shelves."

"Well that makes it easy. You call, I'll meet you there." I pointed at Cas and Coyote, "You guys make up the vamp killing stuff. Sam can show you the recipe. Make about a gallon of it. We'll need it."

"All right," Coyote said.

I got up and made my way to the armory. I was committed to this now, I could feel it. That restlessness I'd felt for years when I was drifting on the road started taking root again. I had to move, to hunt. I just hoped at the end of it, it wouldn't take me months to settle back down. As I opened the door to the armory and saw the weapons, a shot of adrenaline went through me. Just like old times, damn it.