Under a blood red sky

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?"

The symbol that the demon had made her carve into her arm was starting to heal, but it was still there. Jo knew full well that it had to mean something. She had taken a few days off of research mode. She hadn't talked to Dean about the Kleynach demons yet because she honestly just wanted to be for a few days. Especially in light of him admitting his feelings to her. She'd just wanted to enjoy that, before they had to get back to worrying about why exactly she wasn't still worm food.

But, she'd taken her time and now it was time to start researching things. Not to mention that she'd been wanting to call Bobby for awhile. She certainly wasn't as close to him as Dean was, but he'd been Uncle Bobby when she was growing up and she'd always liked him.

Before she called Bobby, she snapped a picture of the symbol with her phone and sent him a picture message with it. Then she picked up the phone and dialed.

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.

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. )