I called Sam since I wasn't sure if they'd gone out for food or what.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey, where are you guys?"

"Gerald's room, sleep well?"

"Yeah, kind of. Susan and Teresa there?"

"Yes, not sure where Shayna is though."

"Yeah, about that. She's off this hunt."

There was a beat or two before he said anything, "What happened?"

"I'm on my way down, I'll explain then."

"Okay."

I was halfway to the room when we hung up. Coyote had a point, before we went out and started hacking at things everyone had better be on the same page with why they were here. If the other two were here only to try to take a shot with me I wanted them gone too. Enough shit can go wrong with a hunt without bringing stupid drama into it.

I knocked before I opened the door, never a good idea to just bust into a room full of hunters. Susan and Teresa were sitting on one of the beds, Sam was at the table on his laptop, Joey, Sherm and Gerald were split between the chairs and the other bed. Both the girls were fully dressed in hunting attire, I took that as a good sign. Maybe they'd just come for the job. Susan stands about three inches shorter than me and looks a Viking, blonde braids, buff and no nonsense. Teresa looked like a pixie next to her, I'd never figured out how she hadn't been ripped to shreds on a hunt. She's small boned, short cropped hair that's always dyed weird colors and the same height as Shayna. Never let her draw a blade on you though, you'll be in ribbons in seconds. Her hair looked like a rainbow this time. Both of them were short hookups from way back but we'd stayed in touch, mostly just short texts and some random meet ups for drinks every now and again. I'd never got the vibe from them the last few times we ran into each other than they wanted to hop into bed but then I hadn't expected Shayna to go all stalker bitch on me either.

Neither of them gave me any sex you up looks when I walked in, "All right, let me just clear the air here," I started out. "Shayna's off the hunt. She broke into my room and went full psycho bitch. She apparently thought it'd be fun to test the theory that I'm off the market as far as hookups go. So to put any and all doubts to rest, I'm with someone, have been for the last year. Not interested in anyone else." I pointed at Susan and Teresa, "If either of you showed up just to make some kind of play and aren't here to actually take care of business, just bail. I don't need this hunt to go more sideways than it already has. Clear?"

The guys, with the exception of Sam, cycled through varying degrees of jealous, impressed, then a little uncomfortable when it dawned on them how far Shayna had probably gone to get me this up front about things. Sam pretty much went right to angry, Susan and Teresa on the other hand were downright pissed off.

"She did what?" Susan said. "That selfish little bitch. God, I'm so sick of her crap. I didn't really want to hunt with her anyway."

Teresa rolled her eyes, "Serious drama queen. I ran into her a few weeks back, plastered out of her mind and crying about how her boyfriend cheated on her. I know for a fact she slept with at least two other guys while she was with him. They'd been on and off for months. Whatever. I'm here to hunt, that's it. Glad you have someone Dean, you deserve it."

"Same here," Susan stated. "Yeah, sure it's nice to see you again but this is a hunt, not a date. Seriously."

I didn't think I'd ever be happy to have women say they weren't interested, but I was this time. "Good. Sam, it's taken care of. Don't worry about it. Where are we on the actual hunt?"

Sam ground his teeth a bit, exhaled but refocused on the job at hand. "I brought them all up to speed on what's going on with Jacob and the consensus pretty much is this. You, Gerald and I trail a few when they go out to hunt tonight and take two down. You and I get them back to the Bunker and deal with that. Everyone else will be on gathering intel duty and try to figure out what's going on. Once Jacob's in the clear, I'll see where they're all at and deal with it from there, you and Coyote head back home."

I took a quick look around, no one was giving me any pissy looks or seemed to think like I was expecting special treatment because I was retired. They all seemed just fine with me bailing, which should have made me feel better but it only made me feel awkward. I wasn't used to not being in the life a hundred percent.

Gerald raised his beer bottle towards me, "One and done. That's what you said right? We get it. You're helping a kid and a friend. It's all good."

"Thanks, all of you."

"No worries," Joey said, "Besides, if you came back full time where we would get all our sweet rides?"

I laughed, "Good point. You can't wrench for shit. I saw what you did last time you tried to do your own oil change. Downright disgraceful."

"Why do it yourself when you can take it somewhere else? I'm just a lazy ass Mexican after all."

He was far from lazy, and wasn't even Mexican but we all got the joke. "You guys eat yet?" I asked, "We've got some time to kill since the sun's still up."

Susan and Teresa nodded, "Ate on the way in," Susan said. The guys pointed at the trash cans which I hadn't noticed had takeout bags in them.

"Oh, well guess I'll just go grab something then. Sam?"

"I'll go with, there's some stuff the cameras caught I want to tell you about and they've all heard about it already."

"Cool. Let's jet."

He grabbed the laptop and we left. We hadn't even made it down the stairs before he started apologizing, "Sorry about Shayna. If I'd known she was that loose of a cannon I would have told her not to come."

"Dude, not your fault. It was bound to come up sooner or later. May as well be sooner."

"That's fucked up though," he said as he unlocked the car door.

"Sam, drop it. We both know how I was before Coyote. It's no big deal. What did the cameras catch?"

"More comings and goings, too many. Something's brewing Dean, I can feel it. The HQ house, as you dubbed it had five more visitors, the one I shot the flare at had two and the other one had three of the same cars that went to the HQ house show up. I have no idea how many vamps are actually here but they are all linked somehow. Gerald only found four kills and I get the feeling a lot of these visitors are just passing through."

"Do you think this is a trap of some kind for us or hunters in general?"

"No, I don't think they know we're here and the kills were pretty well hidden. They're not trying to attract attention, Gerald is just a damn good hunter and spotted the signs."

"Looking more and more like the monsters aren't liking the new improved way you're doing things now. Didn't Oliver run into that too? Once he got on the scene the bad guys started upping the ante?'

He frowned as he turned into a Red Robin, finally some decent food, "Yes. I just find it hard to believe monsters could work together. I mean, most werewolves don't even know they're monsters. All the shapeshifters we've come across are seriously disturbed and vamps tend to be selfish as all hell."

"Common enemy can make people put up with a lot crap, look at how often we've teamed up with Crowley. He may be an ass but he's the ass we know."

Sam winced and looked like he was about to be sick, "Really Dean? You couldn't come up with better phrasing on that?"

"Sorry. If the wolves are purebloods they know what they are and it's not like bittens don't figure it out eventually. It's just a thought Sam, it could just be a big ass nest, like the Alpha had going."

"I guess." He wasn't really sold on the idea, I wasn't either but it wasn't my concern.

We got inside, ordered, mulled over various new and disturbing theories on the possible monster coalition that he could be facing and went back to the hotel. It was getting dark, which meant we needed to get our stakeout on. We got back to the motel, Sam pulled up the camera feeds and looked over the last hour or so. "Flare house has two cars in front of it, HQ house seems quiet and the third house seems to be the place to be. Lots of activity there."

My brain kicked into plan mode, "Gerald, you take flare house, Sam and I will watch the party house. Trail whoever leaves and try to catch them in the act. Let's make sure they're vamps before we take off heads and take silver bullets and blades just in case." I realized I had just sort of stepped all over Sam's toes and taken charge, "That's if you're up for that Sam."

He gave me a quick smile and nodded. "Sounds good."

Joey and Sherm stood up, "Gerald should back you Dean, two cars will work better for trailing these guys. We'll take the other house and the girls are going to watch HQ house," Sherm said, "We talked some more after you left. Too many variables, we want to cover all the bases. You got enough of those fancy ear things for that Sam?"

You never expect to hear a word like variable come out of Sherm's mouth, but, like most of us, there was a lot more to him than most people picked up on.

"Sure," Sam answered. "I'll go grab them, be right back."

Sherm gave me a pretty intense look after Sam left, "What's on your mind Sherm?"

"Silver bullets? What are you ponderin' here Dean?"

"Like I said earlier, monsters may be taking notice that less hunters are dying and more of them are. That many vamps moving around in broad daylight? Not buying it. Something's up, guaranteed. So we go in loaded for everything, not just vamps."

The whole room seemed to pause, if I had to guess I'd say they were all re-evaluating things that had happened over the last few months, taking the new theory into account and thinking ahead as to what that could mean.

"Shit, not good," Teresa said.

"Not at all," I agreed. Sam came back in, noticed the mood shift but didn't comment. He handed an earpiece to Gerald, one to Sherm and one to the girls then gave me one and put the last one in his ear. "Test them."

We all clicked them on and went one by one, they all worked.

"Good," Sam said, "Let's go. Keep a decent distance from the houses, with that much traffic going to in and out they might notice a car parked right outside."

They all nodded and filed out, Sam and I waited till they all left and he looked at me, "Ready for this?" he asked.

"Yeah. Let's save a kid."

Sam and I piled into the car, pulled out then my phone rang, it was Gerald. "Put me on speaker, gotta to talk to Sam."

"You could have just called him." I pointed out as I pushed the speaker button. "Go."

"Wanted you to hear this too. Sweet fucking car Sam! I'm hella jealous! Dean, I want an upgrade."

Sam was just about glowing, "Thanks man. It was my birthday present from him."

"Really? When was your birthday?"

"Couple of days ago," Sam answered.

"Well, happy birthday Sam. Dean? When we're done here we're talking about new wheels for me."

I laughed, "You can't afford to pay for all the work I put into this one."

"Oh we'll work something out, I promise."

"We'll see."

He got serious. "You two hang out around that intersection west of the house. I'll sit a bit closer in and let you know when a car heads your way. Less likely to attract attention that way. Sound good?"

"Yeah," I answered, "Got it."

"Good. Talk later." He hung up, Sam was still smiling.

"So, since you've got the killer ass car now, you'd better up your chick getting game." I told him, "Don't let all this horsepower and sexiness go to waste."

Then Sam managed to surprise me, "Oh it won't, trust me." He didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable with the thought, usually he'd look away or just change the topic. Now, I never exactly wanted him to be like me when it came to that whole part of life, I had my reasons for being the one night stand guy and he had his for being how he was. Riding shotgun with him and taking that step back I'c could see just how much he'd changed over the last year. I cast a big shadow over him all his life, I hadn't ever planned it that way but it was all tied up with being the older one. Coyote had made the comment that everyone grows up at some point. Our lives were so far from normal we never did the whole move out and build your own life away from the family that most people do. He'd tried but it hadn't been in the cards. Sam had never lacked self confidence but he had usually always deferred to me, whether or not I was right or wrong. He'd been free of that since I'd quit and I saw just how much I'd held him back without meaning to. I felt this odd sense of accomplishment, even with all the stupid mistakes I'd made and the jacked up things I'd done he'd still managed to grow up into a damn fine man. I wasn't sure if it was truly my place to feel like I raised him right but since I'd done more than my fair share of being the responsible one in this fucked up family of ours, I'd earned some of the right to be proud of him. I really didn't need to worry about him anymore, didn't need to protect him. I still would, but I didn't need to. Maybe riding shotgun wasn't all that bad after all.