Under a blood red sky

Being the new girl meant that Jo was perpetually on the closing shift at the bar. Nobody in York liked to stay out later than they had to, even the bartenders. This was especially true now that the body of one of the missing bartenders had been found in the woods.

Days had passed since they'd gone to Harry's and gotten the wizard's 'diagnosis' on what had brought her back. Jo was still trying to get it out of her mind. She'd spent her days poring over newspapers, researching in the library and hunting when she could. Nights were spent tending bar and not talking to Dean about the fact that she was still having nightmares and the only thing that helped keep them at bay (sometimes) was sleeping in his arms.

For that matter, she and Dean both hadn't brought up the conversation they'd had about what Phaedra had suggested to each of them, or the fact that Jo had kissed him. She was beginning to wonder if she'd imagined him kissing back. Beginning to wonder if she'd imagined all of it.

She wasn't ready to bring things up. She'd batted the ball into his court and she wasn't sure herself that she was ready to put him in a position where he had to let her down easy. For that matter, she wasn't ready to face those nightmares alone.

So instead, she just kept going at a pace that she knew she wouldn't be able to keep up forever. But for now, it was working just fine.

The night was winding down and Jo did her best to focus on the simple tasks of wiping down the counters, restacking the glasses, making sure the napkins were well stocked for the next night. Music filtered through on the jukebox, giving her mind something to wander to.

There weren't any more customers. It was just about last call and, well, the customers seemed to want to get in earlier these days too.

Now it was just a matter of finding things to keep her busy until she could lock up for the night and head back to the motel.

(shortly after Molly talks to Harry)

Molly had been asleep long enough to suffer two nightmares before Dean called. Harry had been sitting on the bed, one hand over that of his sleeping apprentice when the phone rang. Dean knew the way to Harry's, of course, so the call wasn't much more than a heads up. Harry let him know Molly was here already, and they were welcome anytime.

He was certain everyone would be in and out before the sun set. That was fine by him, but it seemed a bit unfair to Phaedra. It was all pretty ridiculous - if Harry was willing to trust a vampire, she could probably be a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

He put on a fresh pot of coffee, and walked out to the mailbox. Nothing much in there but some stupid advertisements. The point was the walk, though, and when Harry came back inside, the kitchen sparkled, the living room was picked up and neat, and there was a scent of clean pine in the air. Only Phaedra's room and his work room were left untouched. The cleaning crew had instructions to leave the vampire's room alone during daylight hours, for their own safety. The steel shutters and an iron bolt on the door served as strong reminders.

Harry took a shower and changed into some fresh clothes before waking Molly again. Dean and Jo would be along shortly. Time to get ready.

the evening after this, presumably while jo's at work at the bar

Dean really needed a little bit of time to himself after the superfun black magic fiasco the night before. Much as he wanted to keep an eye on Jo, and make sure she was okay, he was glad when she was off to work.

Since arriving in York, he'd met a wizard, got beaten up by a vampire who doubled as a professional killer, found out Jo was alive again, found out Jo was brought back using black magic...

This was a lot, even for Dean.

He hung around the motel until Jo was off to The Darkside of the Moon, doing a little bit of York research on the laptop and a little bit of creative Google-ing here and there on black magic. But he'd never been the researcher, even if he could handle research. Hunting was much harder without Sam.

Dean left around 7, once it was starting to get dark. He thought about going to find Harry, but he really wanted some kind of semi-normal evening. Well, Winchester normal, at least. Which might mean hunting in some capacity. Dean would love to be able to shoot something, just to feel slightly better about how goddamn helpless this situation was making him feel.

He didn't exactly go looking for trouble, but he didn't avoid it. He took the Impala and drove out to the other side of town, closer to the Gates, where he hadn't been yet. He parked, grabbed some supplies, and went for a walk, shotgun loaded with salt in his hand.

There was nothing really going on out here other than creepiness. But there was a path up to the first Gate, and he followed it. He heard sounds coming from further down, growls and fighting. Growls? What the fuck growled?

He ran up the path a little bit just in time to see three... were those vampires? They didn't look right. Not like Lenore, not like Phaedra. There faces were... wrong. Contorted. But they had the teeth. And they were all advancing on one girl.

"Hey!" Dean yelled at them. They stopped and looked right at him. "Don't you guys have a curfew?"

So, it turned out that giving Jo a cell phone was a really good idea. She was off and running before he was in the morning, found herself a job, and apparently also a new friend.

Who didn't like surprises.
Who was staying in the motel.
Who needed food.

Dean sighed looking at the most recent message and sent her one in response: Guessing it's not a puppy.

Alright. Well, he was gonna grab a bite anyway, so he double-checked the room number Jo sent and headed out. He came back with a pizza, and found room 13.

Didn't like surprises. Great. He had a little note on the pizza receipt and slid it under the door before knocking quietly.

The note read "I come in peace. With pizza. Jo sent me."

Jo had gotten up late. Very late. It was strange to wake up in the afternoon and realize she'd missed half the day. Then again, she never had been a morning person. Working in a bar and of course hunting were both more night time activities.

She wasn't entirely surprised when Dean wasn't there, though there was the slightest twinge of annoyance that he'd been so big on making sure she was still around when he woke up and he hadn't tried to wake her or stuck around until she was awake. It faded when she found his note. So, at least he hadn't just up and left her.

She hadn't minded the chance to explore the town on her own, and to just organize her own thoughts after the craziness that had been the previous day. Jo wasn't one to stay idle and she didn't like the idea of trying to live off the small amount of money left for her upon her waking up, nor did she want Dean to feel like he had to pay for her living too. So she had decided to work on securing employment. It looked like she was going to be here for awhile, if everything they'd found out the previous day was any indication.

So her afternoon had been spent filling out applications and even doing one interview where she'd had an awkward moment when trying to explain the gap in her employment over the last year.

Awkwardness aside, she hoped that she might receive a call from somewhere soon. She didn't like the idea of sitting around and stewing in all of the unanswered questions over her resurrection and this Hellmouth. Not to mention that getting set up at a local bar would hopefully put her in a position where she could hear about some of the things going down in this town first hand. Once the drinks started flowing, tongues generally started wagging-even about all the crazy things that people would never discuss while sober.

Night had already fallen by the time Jo returned to her motel room. She wasn't quite sure what she was going to do next, or where Dean might be. It would probably be smarter to wait for him before she went out hunting, given all of the unknown that was out there. So she set about going through the supplies he'd shared with her and familiarizing herself with some of the weapons, picking out those that would be best to conceal and carry at all times. Just in case.

At the first touch of sunset, Phaedra was awake.

The wards were in place, now, she knew. There was some comfort in that thought. At least no surprise visitors could come by, like last night.

She got dressed (up to and including the daggers on her hips), all of her clothing again black and form-fitting, laced her boots, and made sure the door was shut and locked as she headed out. Phaedra didn't know where Harry was, but she had some rounds to make on her own. Local vampires never talked when a human was there. She was doing the job she was hired to do.

The second she stepped outside, she knew someone was there. She thought about going back inside and getting a gun, but really there were few things that a gun would take down that she and her knives could not. There was a noise, a throat-clearing sound, and she looked up to see a man standing there, leaning on the hood of a classic black car. He waved at her.

What the...?

( Read more )

The following is a note left on Jo's night table, prior to his leaving to call Bobby and meet up with Harry.


Jo-

Didn't want to wake you. You really looked like you needed the sleep.

Out to grab a few things.

Left about 11. You're still here. ;)


-Dean

P.S.: I did not touch you.

The day after this.

Magic was fluid, not fixed. Sunrise was a time of new beginnings, and the first rays of dawn could wipe away any spells left out in the open. It was one of the reasons Harry keyed his wards into a home's threshold, since by their very nature, a threshold was fixed. But for the alarm spells that would let him know if someone (or something) was approaching his home with ill intent? Those required a bit more effort.

Harry had encountered this issue in Chicago, and the way he worked it out there seemed fine for working it out here. Rings of sea glass, with runes carefully etches into their smooth sides, were hung on iron nails, which in turn were hammered into the telephone poles and trees in a two-block radius around the house. Anyone taking a route that would bring the to Harry's door would activate the spells, which in turn would activate his defenses.

The wards were permanent once they went up... well, at least until they were burned away, taken down by Harry or a stronger wizard, or had enough bodies thrown at them to burn out the spells. That last had happened to his first generation of wards, thanks to the zombie hordes at the disposal of a few necromancers. Harry had learned a few tricks after that, and the second generation wards would last long enough for that not to be an issue.

He stopped to take a break just after midday. The police had so far only asked him about a permit once for climbing a phone pole. Harry didn't want to attract attention from the local authorities just yet, so he opted for sticking to trees here on out. For now, he perched on the hood of his Jeep, munching on some Burger King.

The phone call with Bobby had been... interesting. No idea why Jo was back. Shame. But a direction to point Dean in, at least.

"It's easy to find 'im," Bobby said. "Y'know how we couldn't find Bin Laden? A giant Arab on dialysis? It's kinda like that."

Dean really didn't get the joke until he pulled up in the driveway at Harry Dresden's house.

He joked that Sam was a Sasquatch. This guy was a Yeti, or something, then. Dean already knew Harry was a wizard. He didn't really get what that meant, per se, but that was probably better, since he really wasn't a fan of witches. People were scarier than demons.

Once he was out of the Impala, Dean did his best to look friendly. "Hey, are you Harry?" he asked, walking up to the Jeep, and the Redwood sitting on top of it.

( read more )

Jo's lungs ached. The air was harsh against her dry throat. And yet, she was breathing. Her eyes flew open and she gasped.

She sat up quickly, looking down at her clothes, which were not soaked in blood as she'd remembered them being. Her hands fumbled for the wound that should have been there. As she touched her stomach and lifted up her shirt slightly, she saw no hint of the blood, or the gigantic hole where the hell hounds had taken a bite out of her.

In some ways, it seemed like merely minutes ago that she'd been in pain and sure she was going to die. That she'd rested her head on her mother's shoulder, taking comfort in the fact that her mom was there at the end. In others, it all seemed like a very strange, distant dream. A dream that had been followed by parts of her life flashing before her eyes-all of the happy memories parading before her one by one.

Where was she?

Jo's eyes slowly traveled upwards from her dirty skin and clothes to the room she was in. Her brain very slowly began to process her surroundings, putting the pieces together. It looked like a motel room. A slightly seedy, definitely cheap... motel room. Her throat still burned as though she'd been wandering a desert for... god, forever, it felt like. A bottle of water sat on the nightstand. Jo didn't stop to think that it might have been odd, but instead reached for it.

Once she'd taken down the entire water bottle, she slowly stood. Her stomach felt emptier than it had ever been. She was surprised to find a bag of beef jerky on the nightstand right next to the water bottle. Without question, she took down half the bag.

Once her basic needs were taken care of, Jo's brain started to speed up. There were far more questions and not nearly enough answers. She searched the room first, as if there would be some clue to where she was and more importantly, why and how. Motel stationary revealed that she was in York, Pennsylvania.

York? Something niggled at her brain. Maybe some urban legend she'd heard at some point during her time at the Roadhouse. There were always hunters swapping stories and rumors. But for the life of her, she couldn't remember the significance of York.

It was time to get out of the motel room. She'd found all the answers she could in there. Or not found the answers to the most important questions anyway.

Jo fumbled with the doorknob for just a moment, her hands still feeling odd, as though she hadn't used them in years. Or possibly just as if her brain hadn't forgotten how to use them.

She opened the door and stepped outside, turning around to look at the motel building, as if that might somehow clear things up.

A shower had done wonders to lift her mood, and the clean clothes felt good on her skin. Now that those two things had been set to rights, her stomach grumbled for attention, and Juliet slipped boots back on in order to go in search of something to eat. She'd walked past a few fast food places, as well as a bar or two - the bars might be a better option, just to glean a little information about the area. Find out who the local pack leader was, maybe a little bit of what circles they traveled in and where to avoid. Same with the vampires; any information would be helpful in keeping her skin alive one more night.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, her head swiveled to glance at the phone on the night stand - and for the umpteenth time since she'd been away from Henderson, she thought about calling her family. It would be at least a two hour time difference; they would have already eaten dinner, the thought making her stomach grumble even more. Maybe Dad would have pulled out a board game, or Mom would be sewing one of his shirts. Almost a vomit-inducing picture of a stereotypical American family, but it was what Juliet had grown up with.

Heaving a sigh, she brought herself to her feet and reached for her jacket. She always felt too hot with it on, since lycanthropes naturally ran a little warmer than humans, but it felt necessary in order to cover up her tattoos. The elegant layout of artwork was a source of pride for her, but it was also a dangerous marker that set her apart from any crowd. She let fingers trace over the outline of the Vitruvian Man on her forearm, feeling the scarred flesh underneath. That sent a disgusted shiver down her back, but she left the jacket off, instead choosing to carry it until she reached the end of the hallway. She'd give herself a little freedom before needing to hide once she hit the cool night air once more.

Padding silently to the door, she opened and slipped out easily, pulling it shut behind her. Making sure that it was closed entirely, she bundled the jacket to her chest, a hand unconsciously moving up to her still damp hair that was tied up in a loose bun as though to remove a loose hair. She turned to start walking down the hall of the motel, unaware of any other tenants, but also uncaring.

Research complete, Bobby only had one thing left to do. He put the bottle of whiskey down on his cluttered desk and fished for the phone. He wished he didn't have to bother the kid with this, not now. He'd just come back to hunting, for Chrissakes.

But that wasn't how the job worked. And Dean knew that better than anyone.

He waited for Dean to pick up.

"Yeah?"

"I hope you're sittin' down," Bobby said.

"Driving count?"

"Pull over."

"Bobby, now is not the time for safety lecture. I'm after a demon that's got a line on--"

"Pull over. Now. I'm not gonna tell ya again."

Dean sighed into the phone, but he listened. He cut the engine and sat with his hands on the wheel of the Impala. "This is fun," he said sarcastically.

"Yeah. Know what's less fun? A pow-wow with every badass thing you can think of and some you can't in some mystical weirdo holding thing."

"Are you drunk?"

"Drunk's more fun," Bobby said.