CHAPTER SIX

Dean

Approximately: 10:03 a.m.

After a quick breakfast of cold pizza and coffee, we headed to the 'guild' and followed our new pals, Aaron & Kai, to the third floor of their sweet ass headquarters. A pub! How awesome was that?

Aaron and Kai led us to, what was definitely, a professional office space, there were desks and everything. There were also a lot more people than we expected, I turned to Sammy, whose wide eyes told me he was thinking the same thing. At the front of the room was a big window with a desk in front

of it, where an older guy, who was giving off 007 vibes with his salt and pepper hair, dark jeans and tailored dress shirt, was standing behind. To his right, a guy who was main lining coffee, with finger raked black hair, (and damn fine chiseled features), dressed in a black leather jacket, form fitting black sweater, dark jeans and combat boots, all the while leaning casually against the desk looking like a grouchy Calvin Klein model.

On 007's left, leaning against the window, was an Abercrombie model. Tall, tanned, muscle-y, with tousled curly brown hair. The only thing slowing down his modeling career were the mismatched eyes, one was deep brown and the other was white with a scar running through it, landing on his cheek bone. But there weren't just dudes here, there was a girl here too. On Abercrombie's left, perched on another desk, was a hot red head girl wearing blue jeans, a form fitting black turtle-neck and thigh high, black leather boots. Note to self: get red head's number.

I snatched a look at Sam who seemed to be thinking the same thing: whoever these people were they were not hunters.

"Hey, guys, come on in," Aaron smiled, and ushered us in from the doorway we'd been frozen in, "everyone, this is Sam and Dean Winchester," we nodded and smiled politely, "Sam, Dean, over there," he pointed to grouchy Calvin Klein, "is Zak, he's –"

"He's a druid?" Sam cut Aaron off and, before I could stop him, he was rushing towards the guy, smiling like an idiot.

"Hi, I'm Sam," he thrust his hand out for a handshake, the guy just looked at it for a while, leaving Sam standing with his hand out like an idiot.

"Zak." He answered stoically, putting his coffee next to him and finally shaking Sam's hand.

"You're really a Druid?" Sam persisted, still not letting go of Zak's hand.

"Last I checked, yes." Zak looked at his hand (which Sam was still holding), looked over Sam's shoulder, to me then, through narrowed eyes at Aaron, who gave a small smile and shrugged.

"I've always wanted to meet a druid! I read about you guys when I was a kid-"

Oh, God. I pinched my eyebrows and sighed. Now, everyone in the room was watching Sammy and they all were staring in various states of amusement, the red-head looked like she was gonna explode in laughter at any second, for God's sake! Even 007 was watching with a small smile.

"Sam." I cleared my throat to try to get his attention, but nothing. He just kept spewing his encyclopedic word vomit on the guy, who had finally

managed to free his hand from Sam's grip. Aaron looked at me with a quirked eyebrow, so I gave him my best apologetic smile.

"-but all the books say that the Druids died out centuries ago, and-"

"Sammy!" I practically shouted, that stopped the word vomit, I walked over and grabbed his shoulder, "Could you please stop fan-girling over the guy? You're embarrassing us!" I made sweeping gesture with my arm.

"But, Dean, he's-"

"Yeah, I got it, Druid. Really awesome. Now could you get over here and leave the guy alone? I'm sure you two can nerd out together later, this place looks like it has a library." I looked at 007 hopefully, who gave a small smile and nodded yes. "There, see?" I slapped Sam on the back and walked him back to the desk nearest to us.

Sam scowled at me, grumbled something I chose to ignore, but went back to smiling at Zak the Druid as soon as he took his place at my back. "And could you stop grinning like that?" I whispered over my shoulder. "You're creeping people out." I rolled my eyes and mouthed 'sorry' to Zak.

"Well, ok then," Aaron cleared his throat, still trying not to laugh I noticed, and gestured to 007. "This is Darius, he's our GM,"

These people had managers? What even was this place?

He continued, and pointed at Abercrombie "-that is Ezra, aeromage,"

"I'm sorry, hold up…" I put my hands up to stop Aaron talking.

"What's wrong?"

"What does 'aeromage' even mean?" Aaron canted his head "You've thrown so many acronyms and new words at us in the last eight hours, I'm having a hard time keeping track."

"Aeromage means I can control the air around me." Ezra/Abercrombie answered and when he waved his hand, there was a sudden breeze that made some of the papers fly off the desk.

"Wait, wait, wait," Sammy looked at Ezra, "You can manipulate air," he pointed at Aaron, "You can control fire," Aaron nodded, "and he," Sammy pointed at Kai, who seemed to be in competition with Zak on 'who can be the better Vulcan', "can control electricity?"

"That's right." Kai nodded.

"Oh my God, I can't believe this!" his eyes were huge and he was smiling like an idiot again, "I've never read ANYTHING about you guys!"

Darius cleared his throat.

"Right, sorry." Sam shrunk a little.

Aaron pointed to the hot red-head, "This is Tori, witch," she smiled at us cheerfully.

Sam managed to keep a straight face and nodded politely, I, on the other hand, grimaced and made a 'blech' sound. Witches were so gross. She was pretty hot though, and I gave her another once over. When Abercrombie saw where my eyes were, he pushed off the sill, gave me a steely glance, then strode over to the desk and wrapped his arm possessively around her waist. I cleared my throat, embarrassed, and quickly went back to focusing on Aaron. Message received: red head is off limits.

"Sam, Dean, it's nice to meet you," Darius said, standing with his fingertips lightly placed on the desk, "and now that we are all properly acquainted, we can get down to why you're here." He took a seat, leaned back slightly and rested his elbows on the armrests. The dude emanated calm, with a heaping scoop of 'you're welcome here, but don't mess with me.' Like Dad, but less, well, angry.

"So," Darius continued, "Aaron and Kai tell me that after you walked through an illegal portal, you assisted them, rather professionally I'm told, in their vampire extermination?"

"Yes, sir we did." We answered in unison. Sam must have gotten the Dad vibe too, because we both straightened and dropped our arms sharply to the side, our 'report' stance. Darius must have noticed, because he was assessing us with a new consideration.

He leaned forward in his chair so that he was upright and both feet were on the ground, "And how did you come to walk through this portal? Did you make it yourselves?" He steepled his fingers, still relaxed.

My eyebrows shot up in shock, "Make it ourselves?" I stared at the guy in disbelief. Who did he think we were?

"No, no sir," Sammy jumped in and took a step closer to me, "we don't know how to do that." He chuckled, and gestured between us. "We, uh, we were tracking a creature up the west coast that was racking up a pretty big body count. We thought it was a demon at first, but on top of the fact that there were no signs, the type of victims it chose were also weird, and the way-"

"What type of victim did it choose?" Darius asked calmly.

"Um, well," Sam's eyes darted around the room.

"Anyone who had connections with magic or the occult." I stepped in, "Witches, psychics, mediums." I ticked the categories off on my fingers, "Basically whatever you guys are." I tossed my hand up to the room and shrugged. At that revelation, Sammy's unwilling new bestie, Zak, spoke up.

"How were they killed?"

"They had their hearts ripped out and were," I snapped my fingers, "what's that word Sammy?"

"Exsanguinated." He whispered, looking at his feet.

"Right," I snapped my fingers and pointed at Zak, "They had their hearts ripped out and were completely 'exsanguinated'." I nodded, a small proud side smile on my face and looked around the room. And, nothing. Tough crowd.

At the 'death description' though, the guy's casually bored look disappeared and was replaced with an intense new focus on us.

"Does that…mean something?" Sam asked, eyes flitting between Darius and Zak.

"Not necessarily." Darius gave us another reassuring smile. But, based on how he'd been gauging Zak's reaction I'd say that was a load of bullshit. I looked back to Sammy who grimaced and shook his head. He wasn't buying it either.

"Did you happen to see this thing?" Zak prodded.

"Yeah," I laughed, "right before it hopped through the Stargate."

"And?" he waved the hand that had previously been propping up his face in an impatient 'c'mon' way. "What did it look like?"

"Well, it sure as hell wasn't human, it was way too,"

"Hot." Sam finished, staring blankly across the room.

"Ugh, do you have any other adjectives besides 'hot' that you can contribute?" Zak growled at us, massaging his forehead in obvious annoyance.

I leaned back a little and looked at Sammy, "Geez, someone's grouchy."

Thwap! "Ow!" I rubbed the shoulder Sam had just smacked, "Dude! That hurt!"

"Dean!" Sam hissed.

Aaron was chuckling on my right, but it quickly turned into a cough as I noticed that grouchy Calvin Klein, a.k.a Zak, was shooting death glares between Aaron and me. If looks could kill, this would be the one.

"Ahem," I cleared my throat, gave my head a quick shake and tried my best to not make eye-contact with the very annoyed Druid standing five feet in front of me. "It, uh, it looked like a hot-viking." I swallowed nervously.

"A hot…viking?" Tori, the definitely off limits witch, repeated slowly.

"Yeah, hot Viking is a pretty good description." Sam piped in, "It looked human, but it's eyes and ears were weird."

"Right," I turned to look at Sam, then quickly back to Darius and Zak, "it had, like, elf ears and really bright amber eyes." Sam nodded in agreement. "Oh, oh, oh" I snapped my fingers and pointed at Zak, "and it had like, an old school harp slung on its back."

"A harp?" Zak looked at the both of us with an arched eyebrow, now seeming mildly interested. "What about a staff?"

"Uh, no. No staff." Sam said calmly shaking his head no.

ZAK

A harp but no staff? That's odd…

"Does that mean something to you Zak?" Darius asked smoothly, leaning in to get a better look at my face, while the rest of the room watched, waiting expectantly for my answer.

I looked over to Darius and rubbed a hand over my jaw, I need to shave… "I'm not sure. I have to talk to a few people first." I uncrossed my arms, pushed off the desk, and strode to the door, but just before I was about to grab the handle, I stopped and turned back to Darius who nodded and waved me off. I gave a curt nod in return. Asking for permission for menial things like dismissal was still proving to be a difficult thing for me, but after

what he'd done for Saber and I, he deserved all the respect I knew how to give, and if that meant asking for permission to leave a meeting, I'd do it.

I pulled the door open, "Tori?" I called over my shoulder.

"Oh, yeah, right." She hopped off the desk and walked out the door I'd been holding for her, I gave a quick nod to the rest of the room and followed her downstairs to the kitchen.

"So, I take it Saber's still not sleeping well?" she glanced over her shoulder at me as we walked into the kitchen.

"What gave it away?"

She smirked as she opened the door to the dry storage, "Maybe because you used vitality potion as creamer for your three shots of espresso this morning. Here ya go." She grunted with effort and handed me a bulk

container of 'Restaurant Style Dill Pickle Spears'. "I ordered the biggest one I could find for her this time." She sighed and wiped her hands on her jeans.

"Thank you very much." Nodding in appreciation, I turned to leave.

"Oh, hey, wait, I almost forgot,"

I turned around to face her again and was met with a very diabolical smile.

"Amalia made this for Saber." She giggled, reached into her back pocket and pulled out a photo. Amalia had been editing Zylas into photos for Robin, but Saber and I didn't have any pictures with her.

My eyebrows shot up as I snatched the photo out of her hand, "You guys took pictures?" I snapped.

She just stared at me, hands on her hips, like I was an idiot for even asking such a question.

"Pff," she huffed cheerfully, "Of course we did! We all figured this," she tapped the photo in my hand, "was a once in a lifetime event." She smiled and winked, which made me think that I wasn't the only one with a copy of this photo.