Chapter Three
They went up to the house quietly, with Dean and Ivy tailing behind. Charlie held the door open for Sam and Cas, and looked at Ivy, who nodded. Charlie disappeared into the house, leaving Dean and Ivy on the porch.
"Dean."
He looked at her, mildly surprised. "Yeah?"
"I'm really sorry for us making you feel uncomfortable," she said, biting her lip.
"Charlie and I…we're really territorial. This whole town is."
Now it was Dean's turn to raise an eyebrow. "And your point is..?"
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Ivy raked her hands through her hair. "I'm not sure," she confessed sheepishly. "I just want you to know it's nothing personal. Around these parts, you kind of have to earn your stripes with everyone." She frowned. "I should know…anyway. Let's get inside. The rain'll start any minute now."
Cas was set to hold court in the living room when Dean and Ivy made it inside. Sure enough, the rain had arrived: it was already pelting against the window panes. Charlie had stoked the fire and it was roaring on the hearth, and Ivy made her way over to an impressively-carved cabinet across the room. The clink of heavy-bottomed whiskey tumblers declared the purpose of the cabinet.
"Anyone want something?" she asked.
"No thanks, girl," Charlie said.
Sam shook his head.
"What have you got?" Dean inquired.
"Take your pick." Ivy strode over to an armchair near the fire and sank into it, a tumbler of whiskey in hand.
Castiel looked at Dean in a disapproving manner as the older Winchester made his way over to the Griffins' well-stocked liquor cabinet. "We have urgent business to attend to," the Angel said, his voice edgy.
"Let the man have a drink," Charlie quipped, twirling a lock of hair around her finger absentmindedly. She was lounging in a chair similar to Ivy's, her long legs slung over one of the arms.
Castiel huffed impatiently but waited until Dean was seated on the couch next to Sam before he spoke again. This time, though, he directed his question to the girls. "You've been having some trouble with the dire-creatures lately, haven't you?" he asked bluntly.
Charlie and Ivy exchanged a look before Charlie replied. "Yeah," she said. "It's still a bit early on in the season, but we've had to hunt down a couple already. The dire-cougar today was number five."
Ivy nodded in agreement. "We normally don't have to go after any dire-creature until just before summer," she added. "Throughout springtime we're usually keeping the Fey in line."
Dean's interest was immediately piqued. The Fey – he and Sam had handled those before; Dean himself was once abducted by them.
Charlie was staring at him intently, he realised suddenly. Immediately he felt on-edge, and he tried to shake it off.
"I thought they didn't really run around much over here," he said, referring to the Fey.
"Well, there was Elwood," Sam said.
"Yeah, but think about it, Sam," Dean argued. "Out of all this time that we've been hunting, we've only encountered them a few times…I mean, they usually just stick to their home turf in Ireland and Scotland, don't they?"
Ivy shook her head. "Not always. Some of the Gentry made it across the Atlantic, as you know already. But just because you don't encounter them on your hunts doesn't mean they don't run wild here in America."
Cas nodded in agreement. "You two would know better than anyone," he said mysteriously.
Charlie cast her narrow-eyed stare on him, her brow soon knitting in a frown. She said nothing, however, and looked away soon after.
Ivy swirled the whiskey in her tumbler, staring into it. The firelight pierced the liquid through the glass, making it glow. She looked up after a moment. "So, Castiel," she said, "what is it about the Fey that have you sending other hunters to our territory?"
"Look, sister," Dean snapped before Cas could respond, "there's no such thing as 'territory' between hunters. You might have your own specialties and we might have ours, but last time I checked nobody has an actual geographic claim to any of them."
"We do," Charlie practically snarled. "Pine Valley is our responsibility."
"You two have got to be the weirdest – " Dean began.
Charlie cut him off. "Weirdest? What about yourself? Did you think a freakin' squirrel had that dire cougar's attention?!"
"How the hell do you even – "
Castiel frowned and raised his hands. Making the universal hand motion for "shut up," he smiled a small, satisfied smile as Charlie and Dean suddenly found themselves voiceless, their mouths gaping and moving like those of fish.
"That's better," he said.
Ivy and Sam exchanged a wry grin.
"The veil here is very thin," Cas began, "but it's even thinner now. The openings of the various pathways to Hell have weakened the veil between worlds."
"What does that mean, exactly?" Sam wanted to know.
"It means," Cas said gravely, "that the creatures and beings who are normally confined to the Fey-World except on certain days of the year can pass through more easily at their leisure."
Ivy set her glass on the small table beside her armchair and leaned forward. "The veil between worlds separates our world from the Fey-World," she explained. "Very few people have been across the veil; those who have crossed it can now see through it. But like Castiel said, it normally can only be crossed at certain times of the year – at the Solstices and the Equinoxes." She looked at Cas, worry furrowing her brow. "We knew already that the veil was weakened, but we didn't fully comprehend what that could mean for us."
Cas gave her a somewhat compassionate look. "That is understandable," he reassured her. "Even you could not know the extent of this. The veil still holds, though, but barely."
"Yeah, you said that they're passing through freely now?" Sam asked Castiel.
"Yes." The Angel's voice was grave. "The weakening of the veil has resulted in the weakening of the magic that binds the Fey to their world and keeps them out of ours. And now, some of them are angry."
He snapped his finger suddenly, and Dean and Charlie sputtered and coughed their voices back into commission.
"So what you're saying," Dean said, somewhat hoarsely, "is that we've got a whole bunch of faeries running around Pine Valley?"
"That's very simplistic of you, Dean, but yes," Cas confirmed. "And it's only going to get worse."