Under a blood red sky

It'd been over a month.

At first, Dean figured she just needed a little bit of space. It wasn't like being Molly was stress-free, or like the walking dead taking over the town on Halloween night was a barrel of laughs. And then Sam came back. Dean forgot to worry, he was so glad. But once that settled down, Dean tried to track her. He tried checking the GPS in her phone, and looking for her via credit card receipts, and checking motels in an area in York and around.

Jo didn't want to be found.

Cas seemed busy again, too.

So Dean went to Harry.

It was just before noon when he knocked on the door to Harry's house. He didn't want to deal with Phaedra, even if she might be able to help. He was pretty sure her boyfriend was a little bit of a tall glass of crazy, and right now, all he could think about was getting answers about Jo. Maybe she'd checked in with Harry. But if not, he WAS the wizard.

( more )

It was hard for him to leave Sam be for a little while, but Dean did it. Jo wasn't here to tell that his brother was back, Phaedra and Harry already knew...

Bobby. He needed to tell Bobby.

Walking out of the motel, Dean started dialing his phone. Bobby picked it up on the third ring, and there was a sound of clattering.

"Hell," Bobby said, gruffly. "Yeah?"

Dean would've asked, under normal circumstances, if Bobby was starting his Saturday drinking early today. It'd sounded like bottles. Bobby was a functioning drunk just like Dean was. But this wasn't a normal circumstance.

"Bobby I gotta tell you something," Dean said.

"Yeah. I figured. Traditionally, that's why people make phone calls."

Dean stopped walking and dropped his head. Of course Bobby figured that he was calling for something less important. Not that the situation in York wasn't important, but this was Sam. Bobby considered them both family. Family was always more important.

"Bobby, Sam's here. Sam's back."

There was silence on the other end of the phone line. Dean was pretty sure he could hear Bobby swallow. He'd probably knocked back a drink. "How? He okay? You sure it's really him? He didn't bring Lucifer back, too?"

"It's him," Dean said. "Not really sure about the rest."

"Dean, that kid spent a YEAR in a cage with Lucifer and Michael. Even without the Hell part, he's not firing on all cylinders. I wouldn't wanna spend a year with you two ijits in the panic room if you were at each other's throats. And your bastard level is much lower than those guys."

"Cute."

"I'm serious, Dean. You add Hell over top of that, and not just garden-variety sinner Hell but Satan's punishment Hell?"

He stopped and leaned on the Impala, in the parking lot now. He was nodding. "I know." It made his blood cold to think about Sam in that situation. It hurt him that he hadn't been able to get Sam out himself.

"What about Adam?" Bobby asked. "Was it a two-fer?"

"No. No Adam. I don't know if that's good or bad."

"Yeah, neither do I. Look, Dean, I got a... the local sheriff's been callin' me about a buncha weird shit and I'm supposed to go meet her in a few minutes. You see how Sam's REALLY doing, and you call me back."

"Okay."

"And you make him call me, too," Bobby said. "I've seen both of you jerks come back from the dead twice now. I know a thing or two about how you behave."

Dean smirked and hung up, and stopped looking at his boots and the asphalt near the drivers' side of the Impala, intending to open her up and get in.

When he raised his eyes, though, there was someone standing there. It took Dean a second to process that the man in the trench coat was really there, and not just some kind of hallucination.

His demeanor changed entirely, eyebrows drawing together, jaw setting.

"You're fucking kidding me, right?"

[ooc: back dated to before Phaedra's email, a few days before Thanksgiving]

Crap! Crap, crap, crap! She had forgotten her notebook at Harry's. And she really needed it for the potion she was going to try to make tonight! Normally this wouldn't be a problem. She'd just go back to Harry's, get the notebook then head back to the apartment, but she hadn't thought to look for it until after the sun had set. Now she had to go back there while it was dark. While Harry's "bodyguard" was awake.

CRAP!

She stood outside of Harry's looking at the door arguing with herself, her hands in fists at her sides tight enough her knuckles were white. "C'mon, Molly. You can do this. She might not even be there. Probably out...eating...someone." That made her frown and swallow harshly before forcing herself forward towards Harry's front door.

She had a plan. Get through the wards. Slip in. Grab her notebook then flee as if her hair were on fire. The first two parts of that plan went off without a hitch. She crept in quietly, her brows knit down tightly and her lips pressed together. Now all she had to do was creep quietly to where her notebook was on the dining room table.

It was a gathering that had not been seen in recorded history. Every council leader, every being of power was gathered in the clearing that had been declared Accorded Neutral Territory for the duration of the meeting. Leaders from various nations, packs, clans, courts. Some Harry could recognize immediately. Others, he had only known through rumor. The clearing swelled with power, and Harry himself was distinctly uncomfortable. As the representative of the Unseelie Court, it was his job to ensure the Accords were followed, as well as representing his Queen in this matter. Mab might have had the power to control this lot, but Harry wasn't entirely certain of his own ability to do so.

Still, he took down the names of all those present. And when Fix, the Summer Knight, arrived and stood beside him, Harry was relieved. Fix had been the Summer Knight for several years now, and had more knowledge than Harry would admit. Winter and Summer were perpetually at war, but in this matter, they were united. It was enough of a shock to everyone that Harry suspected many here now had come simply to see what would make the Queens of the Sidhe set aside their eternal struggle and work together.

Arthur Langtry, the Merlin of the White Council, gave Harry a dirty look. He'd never liked Dresden, and fully believed the young wizard to be a time bomb waiting to explode and destroy them all. The fact that this upstart youth had maneuvered his way into power as the Winter Knight did not pass his attention, nor his suspicion. He filed the information away, giving the Knight a barely respectful nod. This answered the question of where Dresden had been the last several months, after being presumed dead.

Mavra, the eldest vampire of the Black Court, avoided Dresden. She loathed the wizard and was determined to see him dead. But at this meeting, he was untouchable. She scowled as he was approached by Lara Raith, who had arrived in proxy for her father, the King of the White Court. Raith flirted openly with Dresden, but the wizard resisted her charms and she moved on through the crowd to take her place.

Harry waited until all the dignitaries were in place, keeping his expression neutral. This was the very last place in the world he wanted to be, but it was his Queen's order. Well, his Queen and Fix's. At least the changeling was in the same boat as him. Before anyone could start to get impatient (and for immortal and semi-immortal beings, they could be damn impatient), Harry nodded to Fix. The changeling quickly drew up his will and closed the circle. Trees surrounding the clearing groaned and shifted, closing the physical circle at the same time a magical barrier was erected. The air immediately began to swell with the pressure of those contained within.

There were plenty of beings who could easily break it and leave. But the matter was ceremonial, traditional. The circle ensured privacy, and no magical communications or scrying could penetrate it. Any technology to do so would have burned out by now, given the magical energies moving about.

"Thank you all for coming," Harry announced, his stern baritone ringing clearly through the clearing. "On behalf of Mab, Queen of Winter, I bid you all welcome. This conclave has been called to address an issue of utmost importance, and one that has attracted the attentions of both Summer and Winter alike." That said, he turned to face a woman in a crisp, cream-colored business suit. "I now open the floor to the representative of the Senior Partners, the Wolf, Ram, and Hart, to give us this most pressing news."

"Thank you, Mr. Dresden," the woman said, her voice very pleasant, like nothing at all was wrong. She rose from her spot at the U-shaped table and began to pace, high heels clicking on the floor.

"Ladies and gentlemen, higher beings," she began, with a nod to a section of the table where, sandwiched between an angel and a demon, a hunter from South Dakota sat. The hunter was incredibly uncomfortable. He scowled.

"I realize that this meeting is... unorthodox at best, but it's to the advantage of everyone here to discuss something that's come to the attention of both the Senior Partners of my firm and Queen Mab. Lights, if you please?"

At the back of the room, a young man in a suit--another lawyer from Wolfram and Hart--hit the lights. The woman turned on a lap top, and a screen on the back wall sprang to life.

"I know we're all familiar with the Hellmouth in Sunnydale," she said. "Some more than others." She offered a smile to Rupert Giles, who sat at the end of the table, nearest the door, just next to a vampire named Nan Flannigan, head of the American Vampire League. "In all of my time at Wolfram and Hart, in all the meetings we have held, all of our plans, not a single employee was aware," she said, clicking a button, "that this existed."

Behind her on the screen, there was an aerial image of an expanse of land.

"Now, I know that looks like just a piece of land in the middle of nowhere," she said, offering everyone a beautiful smile. "And it is. You'd be right to think that." She waited a beat.

( Until it opens. )