Tír na nÓg 2/5

[bellatemple]

Chapter Two: Braedens' Heroes

The fae had been called last time by the father of the first person to go missing, so the family of the first missing kid was the obvious place to start looking for how they'd gotten in, this time. Bobby grabbed himself a shower in Lisa's guest bathroom, indulging for a moment in her fancy, shell-shaped soaps, then changed into his suit. Sam waited for him at the bottom of the stairs, adjusting his own tie.

"FBI?" he guessed, pulling out his fake badge. Bobby nodded.

"Missing kids," he said. "Right up the feds' alley. I'm surprised this place isn't crawling with them, already."

"Local cops figure they're runaways," Sam said. "They're all in the same grade, all run with the same crowd. They think the kids made some kind of pact."

Bobby frowned. "That include Ben?" he asked.

Sam nodded. "Why?"

"Hell of a coincidence, ain't it? Fae showing up, grabbing friends of the kid Dean likes to call his own. You said yourself you thought they might have some special interest in your brother."

"He's the one that got away," Sam said. "You think this was a trap."

"And Dean walked right into it, without even waitin' to find out what was really going on."

"He really cares about Ben and Lisa," Sam said. "I don't remember him acting this way about anyone else."

"Anyone 'sides you, you mean. And Dean's track record ain't exactly stellar when it comes to those he loves." Bobby pulled open the door. "Let's get on with it, then. I'll drive."

"Uh, Bobby," Sam said, looking from Bobby's half-junked Chevy to the Impala. "Let me drive."

Right. The junk-yard chic look didn't exactly scream "federal official". Neither did the Impala, but she, at least, had a better paint job.

The family of the first kid taken lived only a few streets down from the Braedens, maybe half a mile from the edge of the park. The utility pole at the end of the street was covered in "missing" posters, both for the kids and for a large number of local pets. A sleek silver rental was parked out front of the house, and as Sam pulled up, Bobby saw a familiar figure climbing into the car.

"Aw hell," he said. "Rufus."

Rufus looked up as Sam cut the engine, then climbed back out of the rental. He looked about as glad to see them as Bobby was to see him.

"Bobby," he said. "Didn't expect to see you outside Sioux Falls, any time soon."

Bobby stepped out onto the curb and leaned his arms against the roof of the Impala. "Rufus," he said. "The missing kids?"

"Well, it ain't the tourist trap," Rufus said. "You seen one historic homestead, you seen 'em all." He peered through the windshield of the Impala. "That Sam? Where's the other one?"

"Added himself to the list. You talked to the family?"

"Yeah. They don't know shit. Was headed for the next one, now."

"How clean was their house?" Sam asked. Rufus blinked.

"'Scuse me?"

"How clean was their house?" Sam asked again, slowing the question down a bit, as though Rufus might be losing his hearing. "Both parents work. It look like they have help?"

"Nah," Rufus said, still looking baffled. "Why, you hoping for a maid service referral?"

"The kids were taken by fairies," Sam explained. "Historically, some of them were known for doing housework."

"Right," Rufus said. "Historically. Guess maybe I'll want a look at that homestead, after all."

"You got an idea?" Bobby asked.

"Maybe," Rufus said. "I've read things. We'll wanna finish up with the families first, though."

"We should split up," Sam suggested. "Cover more ground."

"Sure," Bobby agreed. "Rufus can take family number two, and we'll head for family number three."

Sam opened his mouth as though to protest, but shut it again at Bobby's hard look. For all that they'd talked about it last night, Bobby still didn't trust Sam to go at this one on his own. He hadn't missed the book-shaped bulge in Sam's jacket, and he wasn't about to give the kid the chance to jump the gun on the banishing.

"We'll meet up at the Braedens', then," Sam said instead. "Compare notes."

"The Braedens'?" Rufus asked.

"Family number seven," Bobby said. "Kid apparently got it into his head to try some hunting of his own."

Rufus stared at them for a moment, rocking his head back. "Well hell. You people sure know how to pick 'em."

*

Dean pressed his head back against the bark behind him, his eyes squeezed shut as he ran the whole thing through his head over and over again. Humans who ate fairy food couldn't leave Fairy Land, or whatever the hell this place was. Dean had eaten a fairy pear. He was hungry enough that, if he had it in front of him, he'd probably do it again, even knowing the consequences. Ben had been in Fairy Land or wherever at least two real-world days longer than Dean had. Ben was a growing kid who ate something like four meals a day or more, when Dean was living with him. There was no way Ben hadn't had to eat something since he'd gotten here.

Ben and Dean were both stuck in Fairy Land.

There had to be a loophole. There were always loopholes in these things. People in the old days dealt with fairies all the time; someone had to have figured out some kind of loophole along the way. Dean just had to find it. He had to find Ben, find a loophole, and get them both back to the real world where they belonged, likely fighting off a hoard of Black Annises and redcaps to do it, armed with a decorative sword, a hyperactive pixie, and an asshole tree.

Well. If anyone would be able to do it, it'd probably be a Winchester.

"Hey," he said, opening his eyes and looking up to where Bark-Face stood with his back to him, fussing with the moss bed. "Tree guy. What are the rules?"

Bark-Face turned. "What?"

"The rules. You know, the ones you're all appalled I don't already know. What are they?"

Bark-Face looked over at Lola, who sat crosslegged on the floor not far from Dean. She looked at her fingernails, then stuck one long thumb into her mouth and started chewing. Bark-Face looked back at Dean.

"Right," he said. "Because clearly it's my job to teach you everything you didn't bother to learn for yourself about my world." He turned back to his bed.

Dean set his teeth and narrowed his eyes, pushing himself carefully up to his feet. "Come on, you jackass --" Lola reached up, wrapped the hand not attached to the thumb in her mouth around Dean's elbow, and yanked, dragging him back down to sit with her on the floor.

"Don't," she said around her mouthful of thumbnail.

"That one of the rules?" Dean couldn't keep the anger and frustration from his voice. "Don't yell at the trees?"

"No," she said. "It's just rude." She pulled her thumb from her mouth with an audible pop and wiped it on her pants. "He's already saved your life. So show a little respect."

"Saved my life," Dean repeated. "By dragging me back to his little bower."

"By offering you asylum. And pulling Black Annis' taint out of your wounds."

"Taint?" Dean reached up to run a careful hand over the still-stinging scratches along his shoulder. "You didn't say anything about a taint."

"There he goes again," Bark-Face said. "As though our purpose is to instruct him."

"Hush." Lola shot him a dirty look, then turned back to Dean. "I didn't think of it. But he did, and you're alive, so just say 'thank you' already, okay?"

Dean yanked his arm out of her grasp and went back to sitting against the wall. Bark-Face and Lola watched him, Lola expectant, Bark-Face smug. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

"Don't expect it a second time," Bark-Face said, and turned back to fussing with his moss.

"Good," Lola said. She slapped her hands down onto her thighs and popped up into a crouch. "Now. You've got a boy to rescue and the Hunt on your tail --"

"The Hunt?"

Bark-Face groaned. Lola flicked a hand at him over her shoulder. "The Wild Hunt. Dogs, horses, hunters. Pretty much the best you'll get Underhill for tracking via overkill. I got them pixie-led --" She flicked the hand at Dean when he opened his mouth. "Don't ask, just know it worked. For now. They can pick up the trail again the minute you're out of Old Man's territory, which is pretty much as soon as you hit the ground out there, and they're not gonna fall for this pixie's tricks a second time."

Right. Supernaturally powerful hunters. And a decorative sword and a pixie. Dean wished Sam were here -- not only would he probably already know all the 'rules' Bark-Face kept harping on, but he'd probably riddle his way out of this Hunt's way, to boot. Assuming he didn't just say "well, you're screwed" and leave Dean to become a servant of the Lord Oberon for eternity.

Scratch that. It was probably better that Sam wasn't here. Dean didn't need to be playing conscience for his soulless brother on top of everything else, right now.

"This Hunt," Dean said. "They evil fairies?"

Lola sighed. "Not fairies. But they were generally considered Seelie before the Reformation."

Dean rubbed his eyes. He really didn't need fairy history on top of everything else, but he didn't have much of a choice at this point. "Okay, smaller, less fair -- fae-y -- words."

Bark-Face snorted. Dean flicked him off without looking. Lola sat back and held up a finger.

"Seelie Court. I think your people considered them the 'good' fae. They were the ones who were less 'hurray, let's eat human babies' and more 'let's wear elegant dresses and hold fancy parties'. Unseelie Court were -- well, they did eat human babies. Still do. The Seelie were always all 'oh, you guys are so undignified, leave those human babies alone' and the Unseelie were all 'but they're tender and juicy and we're kinda nasty' and the people who weren't that into eating babies or going to fancy dress parties were all 'whatever, check out this gold I got -- whoops, it's actually a leaf!'"

Lola snickered at that one, and Dean figured he knew which side of the fence she fell on. Which, he supposed, was good to know. It was probably the side he'd end up on, if he had to add it all up. The Seelie folks sounded a bit like the stuck-up-iest angels he'd met, while the Unseelie clearly had a thing or two in common with demons and monsters. And the rest . . . well, those were just the people. The shmoes who went to work every day and didn't always pay their taxes.

The people Dean had spent his entire life fighting for.

"Right," he said. "Parties, babies, leaves." Lola grinned at him, and he tried not to flinch at the shape of her fangs.

"Exactly. So, you know, it's like, the dawn of time, and the Seelie and Unseelie are all messing with each other and the rest of us are doing our thing, and that, that messing, that keeps going and going and going and going and going --"

"I get it," Dean said. Lola snapped up a hand.

"-- and going and going and going and going until suddenly, the human world that we got such a kick out of suddenly went 'check us out, we've got these big gasping machines! We don't need to leave out cream to get things done, any more! Nyeah!' and the Seelie were all 'but your eldest sons make such good slave labor!' and the Unseelie are all 'and they're super tasty!' and the humans were all 'we don't care, we're gonna dump salt around and not respect you any more', so the supply lines dried up, and the economy collapsed."

Dean blinked. Fairies had an economy?

"So the Seelie and the Unseelie realized they both pretty much needed the same things for their parties and their baby eating, and they decided they could totally let bygones go and work together. Poof!" Lola spread both hands, fingers stretched out. "Reformation. The Seelie and Unseelie courts dissolved into one big old unit, and the rest of us get to scrounge up whatever we can get on the side."

Dean nodded slowly. "So . . . which ones can be killed by silver, then?"

Lola sighed. "Not the Hunt."

"But iron's nasty for all of you, right?"

That got a sneer, Lola's upper lip curling impressively. "Yes," she said. "It's a horrible, nasty, kinda burny thing that makes our magic fizzle, and if you ever get anywhere near me with any, I'll make you think you're a shrub and leave you out in the fields for the Hunt's dogs."

Bark-Face cleared his throat. "A shrub?"

Lola shrugged. "Fine, a dormouse."

Dean wondered if maybe it was time he struck out on his own. "Look," he said. "If I'm going to get Ben back, I'm going to need some kind of real weapon. Not just a glorified butter knife."

Lola nodded. "Right." She bounced up onto the balls of her feet and offered Dean a hand. "For that, I'm thinking we need to go find us a Hero."

*

Rufus was right. The families of the missing boys didn't know anything, though they seemed more than willing to talk about the nothing that they knew at great length. It seemed most of them rather resented the police's conclusion that their children had simply run away, and were falling over themselves trying to give Sam and Bobby information that might lead to the kids being found. One thing quickly became apparent: all of the boys' last known whereabouts were in or around the park. Two had gone missing after a baseball game, one while collecting nature samples for a science project, one from a boy scout meeting, and two, it seemed, on their walks home from the school on the other side of community.

Why the hell the parents hadn't figured this out sooner and kept their boys away from the place, Bobby didn't ask. He'd learned long ago that there were certain things you just couldn't question, not without feeling like you were going to lose your mind.

Their next destination was obvious: they headed to the park themselves, hoping to pick up a trail.

The park was a sprawling thing, taking up a good 500 acres or more, with Lisa's neighborhood only circling the Mahaffie Homestead corner of it. There was a boat house offering rentals for the lake, closed down for the winter, and a skating rink just opening up. One section was given over to lighted tennis and basketball courts, another divided into tiny little camp grounds. Sam spread a map of the place he picked up from the visitor's center over the hood of the Impala and immediately started marking it with a red pen.

"The route the kids take home from school is here," he said, marking off one of the shorter trails running through an open, undeveloped field marked for "active recreation". "Nature boy told his parents he was headed over here." Sam circled a section of trees at the Homestead end of the lake. "And the baseball diamonds are here." This circle was in yet another location on the other side of the Homestead grounds, closer to the tennis and basketball courts. "I think we can mostly concentrate on the free-to-the-public areas on this end of the park. None of the disappearances were south of the boat house."

"Assuming the kids didn't wander off," Rufus said. "Or lie." Sam and Bobby looked up at him and he stared back. "What? You can't tell me kids never lie. They do it all the time."

"That'd be a helluva wander," Bobby pointed out. "I'm with Sam on this one. There weren't any reports of missing kids from the neighborhoods on the other side of the park. Which cuts things down to only about 250 acres."

"Oh," said Rufus. "Is that all."

"Here, look at this," Sam said. He drew bisecting lines across both his circles, connecting them to the ends of the line marking the path from the school, then up until they linked together just north of the boat house. It formed -- unsurprisingly -- a triangle, though not a very neat one.

"We've got three locations, Sam," Bobby said. "You're pretty much always gonna get either a triangle or a line."

"Yeah, but look what's in the middle of it?" Sam tapped the pen down in what Bobby approximated was the exact center of triangle he formed, then tilted it to the side so they could see what he marked. Bobby and Rufus leaned in. Rufus cursed.

"Tell me that ain't what I think it is."

"The Homestead," Sam said. "To be precise, the 'and Gardens' part. That right there is the 'traditional English garden' section."

"Old English gardens were pretty big on their decorative shrines," Rufus said.

Bobby raised an eyebrow. "To fairies?"

"Wouldn't be the stupidest thing I've seen in one of these places. We gonna check it out?"

"Not seeing any other option," said Sam.

"Wait a moment." Bobby held up a hand. "We've got six boys going AWOL in this park. I'm betting it's where Ben and Dean ended up, too. Sam, any idea which sections they mighta been in?"

Sam shook his head. "All I know is, Dean walked out here."

"From that Braeden house?" Rufus asked.. "That's a fair distance."

"So he probably didn't go in too deep," Bobby said. He took the pen from Sam, pinpointing the approximate location of Lisa's place, then looking around for the most likely spot Dean would have headed for to enter the park proper. "This picnic area's pretty close to the road, plenty of open ground around."

"First time, he was taken out of a cornfield. I don't think they care all that much about 'open'." Sam straightened up, looking out over the field behind them toward a small pavilion labeled with a blue letter "B". "He would have come in this way, probably headed straight in." He started walking, not looking back to see if Rufus or Bobby was following. Bobby glanced at Rufus and saw him looking back. Rufus shrugged.

"He's the expert on Dean," he said.

"Hell," said Bobby. "I'm not dressed for this much walking."

*

Bark-Face gave Dean a pair of boots made out of some sort of soft, tightly woven plant fiber, with thick, surprisingly supple soles. When Dean made impressed noises, Bark-Face glared at him and said something like "where do you think rubber comes from, dumb ass?" only in more snooty, tree words. Dean got the feeling the boots were just to get him out of there faster.

Getting down from Bark-Face's bower was about as fun as going up, only with sun-lit, vertigo inducing visuals. Dean counted it as a personal victory that he didn't pass out, this time.

Lola led the way as soon as it was clear Dean was going to be able to remain upright, loping forward with long, quick strides, pausing occasionally and glancing back. After the first half hour -- a very approximate measure -- Dean realized she was sizing him up, making sure he could get through the holes she picked in the vegetation. It was a nice gesture, though imperfect. She seemed to have trouble grasping the concept that he had shoulders, while she was able to slip through any space bigger than her head.

Dean waited until they'd settled into a kind of rhythm, her darting up ahead, turning back to make sure he could follow, then darting ahead again before he decided to strike up a conversation again.

"Right, so. The Hunt."

Lola made an affirming noise as she pushed aside a branch as thick as her arm, then gestured him through. Dean gave it a wary look -- the branch was just at the right height to come swinging back at his crotch if her grip slipped -- and edged through sideways.

"You said they have dogs?" he asked, stepping aside so she could take the lead again.

"And horses," she said. "But they only really hunt at night. We've got a little while."

"Great." They hiked along a few more feet, Dean ducking under a branch too tall for Lola to have even noticed. "What kind of dogs?"

Lola shrugged. "Big ones."

Even better. "Yeah, but -- I mean, are they normal dogs, or, like, supernatural dogs?"

Lola looked back at him and frowned. "They're dogs."

Dean shook his head. "But what are they like? What do they do?"

Another shrug. "Dog things. You know, they sniff and they howl and they get really annoyed when you poke them in the nose with something sharp."

Dean wondered if there were things here that didn't get annoyed when you poked them in the nose with something sharp, then decided that, unless he was going to be going up against one, he really didn't want to know.

"So. They're just dogs."

"Yes," said Lola. She gave him one of those 'humans are so weird' looks that Dean was slowly getting used to. "Dogs."

"Then we should find a stream or something," Dean said. "Walk in the water for awhile. That throws dogs off the scent."

Lola stopped and looked up at him, her hands on her hips. She pursed her lips. "How do you know that?"

It was Dean's turn to shrug. "It's a pretty standard trick," he said. "They can tell where we went into the water, and would eventually find where we came back out, but they won't know which way we went. It might buy us some time."

"Okay," said Lola, starting off through the trees again. "There's a river up ahead. But it's fairly open. They'd be able to spot us."

Dean looked up at the trees, pressing in on all sides. "Not until they're on the river, too. You know, unless they can fly."

Lola stopped and turned again, her eyes narrowed. Dean groaned.

"The dogs can fly."

"Well, yeah. They're dogs."

It occurred to Dean that Lola might have a very different idea of what constituted a standard dog than he did.

"Still," Lola continued. "It's worth a shot. And like I said, the river's pretty clear." She reached up a hand to smack one of the low branches that just about every tree other than Bark-Face's seemed to have. "We'll be able to move a lot faster. Just, you know, watch out for the salmon."

"The salmon." Dean was afraid to actually ask.

"Yeah, you let 'em get going, they'll talk your ears off. Tell you all kinds of things you just don't want to know."

Right. Of course. Because even a fish here couldn't just be a fish.

It took another half hour or so to reach the river. The trees ended so abruptly that even though Lola stepped aside and called out a warning, Dean still nearly ended up tumbling down the steep embankment. She let out a bright bark of laughter before reaching out to take his arm and steady him. "You look like you could use a break," she said.

Dean bristled. A couple of hours hiking in the woods was nothing to a seasoned hunter, and he sure as hell didn't need some upstart creature telling him to stop and rest. Even if he was exhausted, still starving, and getting desperately thirsty. He wondered if the talkative salmon would taste good smoked over an open fire, then shook himself. It was still possible that his automatic reaction to finding out what fairy food meant for a human had gotten the pear out of his system. Really unlikely, but possible. Besides, maybe he could swing a Greek myth kind of deal. He thought maybe he could handle wintering in Fairy Land, if it meant Lisa and Ben would be okay.

So, no food for him. No water, either, at least not going down his throat. He didn't seem to actually be dying of thirst or hunger, so all he had to do was keep holding out, right?

He looked down the embankment, then out across the wide, slow moving river stretching as straight as a canal as far as the eye could see in both directions and felt his stomach cramp.

Yeah. Okay. Maybe he could use a break.

"I'd rather get some distance in the water, first," he decided, then began slowly lowering himself down the cliff-like face of the embankment, grabbing onto roots as he went and hoping the river was as shallow here as it looked. He dropped down with a splash. The water level came up to about his mid-thigh, with a stronger current than he expected, and it was cold, but nothing he couldn't deal with, as long as he kept moving. He looked back up to Lola, who was watching him with narrow-eyed focus, clinging to the very top of the bank with her toes. "How much longer do we have until nightfall, anyway?"

Lola looked up, studying the sky for a moment, then shrugged. "Oh, you know. Awhile."

Dean had a feeling he wasn't going to get a better answer than that.

Lola scrambled down to the water's edge as easily as most people would walk down a city sidewalk, then leaned out, still clinging to the wall of dirt and roots, her nose inches from the water. She sniffed, grimaced, then gingerly lowered herself in, lifting the hem of her sweater clear as she sank in past her waist. She looked up at Dean, her nose twitching, then turned and started off, following the flow of the current.

She looked ridiculous, bobbing faintly up and down, holding her sweater out almost a full foot to either side of her like it was a fancy skirt, the fabric pinched between thumb and forefinger, with the other fingers splayed out into the air. He wondered how long she planned to keep it up, then started off after her.

The bed of the river was alternately rocky or slimy, changing just often enough to keep Dean from being able to move along with much in the way of speed. He wondered if it evened out further in, but when he tried moving closer to the center of the river, he discovered the current there was much faster, making it just as hard to keep his balance. So he shuffled along in the shallows, more grateful than ever for Bark-Face's tree-boots.

They stopped maybe an hour later, when the river took a sharp turn to the right and the bank hollowed out into a short, silty beach. Dean took off his boots to dump them out in the mud, while Lola, whose sweater had remained perfectly dry, brushed out the fur on her feet with a tiny comb she'd pulled from some pocket or other. Dean spotted a nice looking, smooth, flat rock by the water's edge, just about the right size to fit into his palm and picked it up, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

"You gonna throw that?" Lola asked. Dean frowned over at her, and she hunched her shoulders in. "Isn't that what people do when they're hanging out by the water? Throw rocks into it?"

Dean looked back down at the rock, then out at the water. "Some people, I guess." He hefted the rock in his hand, then bent forward to dip it into the water. "You still got one of those swords?"

Lola nodded, reaching into her sweater to pull it out. The blade was just short enough that Dean could almost believe it actually fit in there, but he'd come to the conclusion that Lola's pockets had to be portals to a secret other dimension. She kept way too much stuff in there. By rights, she should look like the Michelin Man. "I thought it might work to scare some folk off. You know, the ones who weren't hired to hunt you down."

Dean held out his hand for it, and Lola gave it a light toss. Dean caught it and examined the edge. He couldn't quite make out what type of metal it was made out of. Fairies' allergy to iron made steel somewhat unlikely, but it didn't look like it was silver, either. It had definitely been made to be decorative. He saw none of the nicks or irregularities that he'd expect from a sword that had actually been sharp and used in battle, only a smooth, dull edge. He hefted the rock again, decided his idea certainly couldn't hurt, and dunked it once more in the river water before carefully running the edge of the sword against it. The shushing sound of metal over rock was soothing, and he did it again with the opposite edge, then checked both the blade and the rock for damage. It wasn't like this thing came labeled with a grit size. He spotted a few deeper scratches when he angled the blade in the light and shrugged. Sharpening the sword this way would be inelegant, but it would at least be fairly fast.

He glanced up and noticed Lola watching him with interest. "What?"

"Where'd you learn to do that?"

Dean shifted around in the silty mud until he found something resembling a comfortable position, and set to work with earnest. "My dad taught me. A good hunter doesn't let his tools go dull."

"I thought none of you hunted, any more. Figured by now you people would have a big, gasping metal machine that made all your food for you."

"I don't hunt for food." Dean caught a small flinch out of the corner of his eye, and wondered if Lola realized that, in his world, she'd be one of the things he'd be hunting.

She didn't say another word to him until he decided he was ready to go, and he thought that maybe she did.

*

They found Dean's duffel bag washed up among the reeds at the edge of the lake closest to the road. Sam splashed right up to it, seeming oblivious to what had to be frigid water soaking the cuffs of his jeans. He dragged the bag up into the mud and worked the zipper open, pulling out a crowbar, one of Dean's machetes, and a canister of salt, which he upended, pouring water out the top.

"Empty," he said.

"That cannot be good for the fishes," said Rufus.

"Looks like we found the spot," said Bobby, turning to look up the shallow incline toward the Homestead. "It ain't in your triangle, Sam, but it's definitely close to the gardens."

Sam didn't answer, his eyes aimed down at the water. He splashed deeper, up to his knees, and leaned down to pick up something on the bottom. "Bobby," he said. "What if Dean never made it to the fairy realm?"

He was holding Dean's favorite gun, the pearl handled Colt 1911. Water dripped out the barrel.

Bobby felt himself go cold.

"We've been assuming they lay the trap to catch him," Sam said. "What if it was to kill him?"

Bobby swallowed, then shook his head. "We can't think that way, Sam. If Dean was dead, we'd know about it."

"How, exactly?" asked Rufus. "You got psychic powers you ain't tellin' us about, Bobby?"

"No. But Dean's got himself a guardian angel of sorts."

"Cas has been busy," Sam said. "He might not bring Dean back again."

"He'd at least check in, right?" Bobby refused to believe otherwise. "Dean ain't dead."

"We'll find out eventually," Rufus said. "His body'd wash up at some point. Well, unless the fairies gave him cement shoes."

Sam tucked the gun carefully into the duffel, then swung it up on his shoulder, looking past Rufus down the bank of the lake. It was bizarre to see him so calm about the idea that Dean might've been drowned. Dean had said that Sam didn't care about anything, these days, but Bobby had never seen such a clear example of that.

Sam frowned. "I don't remember seeing pony rides on the map."

Rufus spun, and Bobby followed Sam's gaze past his friend's shoulder.

The horse wasn't exactly what Bobby'd call a pony. It stood at least fifteen hands high, its body an almost blinding white. It had its head down, drinking the muddy water at the edge of the lake.

"Its mane's wet." Rufus said, and he took a few steps backward, as did Bobby. Sam, on the other hand, started splashing toward it.

"Don't get too close, Sam," Bobby warned. "I'd lay good money on that bein' a kelpie."

Sam hefted the crowbar he'd pulled from Dean's duffel. "I'm okay with that," he said, then set his jaw, raised the crowbar, and charged.

*

Lola went under so fast that, for a moment, Dean thought she'd just vanished on him again. One moment she was walking along in the river, her sweater held out primly like it was her best petticoat -- Dean didn't actually know what a petticoat was, but he thought it had to be some kind of skirt -- and the next she was gone, leaving only a long trail of bubbles in her wake.

Even after he realized what happened, Dean had a moment of hesitation, wondering if he should just leave her there, let it be one less fairy to harass humanity.

It wasn't his proudest moment.

He strode forward, hefting the sword he'd only managed to get about halfway sharpened, peering into the murky water of the river as he went. His foot struck something softer than a river rock, sending up another surge of angry bubbles, and he took a deep breath and dropped down to see what he could find.

The visibility was crap and the water stung his eyes, but he made out a struggling, spiny form clinging to the rocks on the bottom. Something was trying to drag Lola sideways, into the deeper, swifter water. Dean looked over, but wasn't able to make out what it was. He lashed out with his sword anyway, hoping he didn't catch Lola in the leg. The angle was all wrong for him to get the leverage to actually sever anything, but he got the feeling she'd be pretty pissed at him if he managed to cut her, and he was relying pretty heavily on her guidance, here.

That was a mistake, he knew. It was one thing to hook up with a local when it was the deep woods of Colorado, but the fact was, he had no idea what sort of motivations Lola had. She could be leading him straight into a trap. But without her, he'd still be stuck in that dungeon, trying to wriggle his way out of the cuffs so he could stuff himself on stale bread. She was the only real hope he had, even if she was planning on turning on him at some point, and that meant he couldn't let her be drowned by . . . whatever the hell was trying to drown her.

The sword struck something fleshy and caught, nearly getting yanked out of his hand before he managed to wrench it back. Whatever it was let out a bubbly, underwater howl and let Lola go.

They both surfaced almost simultaneously, like the world's crappiest synchronized swimmers -- and synchronized swimmers were pretty full of crap. Dean gasped in another breath and brandished his sword, but saw nothing more than a thin, greenish swirl on the surface where the thing he'd struck had been. He backed away, anyway, offering Lola an arm to cling to as she thrashed in the water, hissing and coughing like a pissed off cat. She grabbed onto him and proceeded to scale his arm, straight up until she had her legs wrapped around his biceps, just below his uninjured shoulder, her hands on either side of his head. Dean held as still as he could, not sure where her quills were pointed, and not wanting to get any tiny, pinprick stabs. He held his sword out in the direction of the thing that had pulled her under until the water settled down again and seemed to be running clear, then let his hand drop.

Lola finally let her hisses peter out as she caught her breath, until she fairly hung from his arm, her chin resting against his clavicle.

"Dammit, Peg," she muttered. Then, reluctantly, "Thanks."

Dean tilted his head away from hers, far too aware of the prickly bits she had in lieu of hair. "Guess this means we're down to two, huh?"

He thought maybe she'd deny it, or at least deny knowing what he meant. Instead, she held quiet, quivering faintly against his shoulder. She weighed practically nothing, even soaking wet as she was, but she was awkwardly placed, and Dean could feel her dragging him sideways.

"You heard that?" she asked.

"Yep." Dean waited as she pushed herself up off his shoulder and dropped back into the water with a splash. "Out of curiosity, which one was the freebie?"

"Helping you find your boy," she said, not looking up at him. She raised her hands to the hem of her sweater, then seemed to realize all her hard work at keeping the thing dry was totally wasted and let them drop. "Which, you know, pretty much includes all the others."

Dean nudged her with his elbow, then nodded down the river, before starting forward himself. She followed suit, walking more alongside him, this time, than leading. "So you're saying we're even?"

She glanced over out of the corner of her eye, then directed her gaze firmly back on the surface of the river. Whether she was looking for further attackers or just avoiding his gaze, he couldn't be sure. Probably a mix of both. "Yeah. I didn't really mean any of that back there, anyway, you know?"

"Then why did you tell Bark-Face you were collecting favors?"

"He's a tree." Lola seemed to think this explained the whole thing. Dean grunted, and she glanced over again, heaving a sigh. "Trees don't -- he wouldn't have understood, you know? About your boy. Trees don't nurse their young. They don't raise them and teach them everything they need to know to survive in the world. Old Man doesn't understand family. He just understands duty. Like owing someone."

Dean ducked his head, absorbing all of this. "So, when he helped me. . . ."

"He was paying back favors he owed me. That's usually how it works Underhill." Lola looked up then, catching Dean's eye. "I guess it all works differently where you're from."

Dean looked back, holding her gaze for a long moment before looking back at the surface of the water, trying to spot any tell-tale bubbles that might warn of another attack. The river seemed to be just like it had always been, though, quick, fresh, and empty.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked at length. "What's the real reason?"

Lola was quiet for so long that he thought she would refuse to answer the question. When she spoke, it was soft, not much louder than the sound of the river itself.

"I know how you feel," she said. She picked her way gingerly through the rocks for a few more steps. "I had a kid."

Dean noted the past tense, and decided not to press for details.

Once they were well past the area where Lola had been dragged under, Dean started to relax a bit. They'd made it a good ways down the river without problems before. The attacker -- Peg Powler, Lola explained, another hag like Black Annis, only green and watery -- had been injured, and besides that, Dean figured she probably kept to the same area of the river. Lola couldn't know everything about this place. She'd probably just forgotten about Peg's hiding spot. Still, he kept a firm eye on Lola, who was marching determinedly along, now. Dean realized she'd lost some of her childish glow with the admission of having been a mother. She was still small and just as absurd, but he noticed a certain ferocity to her behavior now that he'd missed before. He wondered what happened to her kid.

They passed a small clearing on the left, a grassy meadow where the river slowed and swirled into a pool, and Dean considered asking to take another break so he could finish sharpening his sword. He opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, a creature like a giant, horned snake came sliding out of the pool, mouth gaping, displaying a vicious set of fangs at least half as long as Dean's sword. It topped off at least ten feet above the water level, a reddish brown thing with tiny, useless looking wings and clawed hands held close to its thin chest. It loomed over them, hissing and swaying faintly back and forth like a cobra.

"Kill it!" Lola shouted. "Kill it, kill it, kill it!"

Dean raised his sword -- only to have his feet yanked out from underneath him, sending him splashing down under the water and dragged straight toward the deepest part of the pool.

The current here was slow enough for the water to take on a glassy green tone, allowing Dean to make out what had a hold of him. It wasn't, as he might have guessed, the dragon-y thing, though he could see the rest of its body coiled up against the center of the pool. Instead, he found himself face to face with a wide, shark-toothed grin and narrow, filmy white eyes. He wondered how many of these hags there were hanging out in Fairy Land, then caught sight of a jagged, still oozing slash in the creature's arm. Peg Powler, it seemed, had been biding her time, looking for the perfect opportunity for revenge. And she'd brought a friend.

He lashed out with his feet as best he could, wishing that Bark-Face had thought to make the boots with steel toes, but he wasn't able to break Peg's grip. The pool was deep enough that even when he tried pulling the rest of his body straight up, he couldn't break the surface with more than the tips of a few fingers, and he was rapidly running out of air. He'd lost the sword when she'd pulled him under, so he bent double, aiming for Peg's marble-like eyes with his thumbs.

The tail of the dragon uncoiled around them, thrashing under the water and sending both Peg and Dean tumbling. Peg's fingers lost their clamping grip on Dean's ankles and he flailed his legs, hoping to get a few good kicks in before he started floundering for the surface. The dragon thrashed again, sending what felt like a large rock smashing into Dean's knee, even as its tail smacked him in the head, and for a dizzying moment, Dean was sure he was going to lose consciousness and drown, right then and there.

Peg screeched into the water again, and Dean started to realize that they were being bombarded. A series of small rocks, the largest no bigger than a tennis ball, were raining down into the pool from above. The water slowed their momentum, but they had more than enough force to bruise, and neither Peg nor the dragon seemed to be big fans. Dean did his best to ignore them -- the water was slowing him down, too, making them difficult to dodge -- and kicked toward the surface of the pool.

Lola grabbed him around the chest, and Dean was once again reminded of her unusual strength as she pulled him up onto the bank of the pool. Dean did his best to help as soon as his feet hit solid ground, and between them, they managed to scramble their way up onto the grass. He stared back at the pool, watching as the tail end of the dragon disappeared back under water with an angry flick, then flopped his head down and groaned.

"Right," he said. "Guess I'm back to owing you, now."

Lola shook her head, staring up the bank at something in the meadow. Dean swallowed before following her gaze, inwardly praying that it wasn't another hag or monster out to get them.

A hooded figure stood in the middle of the meadow, silhouetted in the sunlight. It wore a long cloak that just brushed the tips of the blades of grass and carried a large, lumpy bag over one shoulder, with something long and very thin over the other. The wind picked up as Dean watched, sending the ends of the cloak flapping and pressing it tight against the figure's side. It was impossible to make out the person's face, but Dean would recognize that figure anywhere. He sat up.

"I think," said Lola, "that we found our hero."

"Oh my god," said Dean. He shoved himself awkwardly to his feet, only just able to keep from going down again when his battered knee protested. The hero reached out a hand and caught his elbow until he regained his balance. Dean ducked his head to look under the edge of the cloak. "Oh my god," he said again, shock dropping his voice to a whisper. "Lisa."

*

Lisa's towels were never going to be the same again. Bobby handed Sam a third one as he tried to rub the mud out of his hair.

"Should have tried the shampoo," Bobby said. "She's stocked up on some good stuff."

"We told you not to get too close," said Rufus.

"You said it was a kelpie." Sam glared at them through sopping wet bangs. "That wasn't a kelpie."

"Each uisge," Rufus said. He held up one of Lisa's books, showing a picture of a fish-man-horse thing. "Says here it's more dangerous than a kelpie and prefers sea water or lakes. Kelpies prefer rivers." He looked over at Bobby. "Good thing you didn't actually lay that bet."

"At least I got it," Sam said. He tossed the towel aside, apparently giving up on his hair. "It's dead, or back in the fairy world."

"And do you feel better now?" Rufus asked. "You gonna actually listen to your elders?" Sam gritted his teeth, and Rufus grinned.

"So," Bobby said, looking to break the moment. "I'm guessing the Mahaffie Homestead is our next stop."

"Right." Sam started toward the door. "Let's go, then."

"Now hang on a second." Rufus put out his hand as if to grab Sam's arm, but stopped when the boy turned to stare at him. "I don't know about you two, but I'd rather get a bit more information about this place before we start breaking in."

Sam sighed. "We've already wasted a lot of time. We need to stop the fairies."

"We need to know what we're up against." Bobby gave Sam's muddy hair a pointed look. "Doesn't do us or Dean any good to go off half-cocked."

Sam relented, but not without giving Bobby a cold stare. "Fine," he said. "I'll look into the history of the house. I guess you two probably need some sleep."

"What," said Rufus. "And you don't?"

Sam's stare transferred to Rufus. "No," he said. "I don't."

Rufus shot Bobby a look, and Bobby could only shrug. "Well," Rufus said at length. "Less research for me, at least."

*

Lisa froze, her hand tightening on the end of what Dean now realized was a golf club, maybe a nine-iron. She ducked her head, glancing past Dean toward where Lola waited.

"Around here," she said, "they mostly call me 'Hero'."

Dean frowned, for a moment wondering if this was some sort of spirit or doppelganger, and not really Lisa at all. If so, it was accurate down to the least detail, from the slight cant of her hips to the battered, embroidered yoga bag she carried over her shoulder. And the golf club, of course. He couldn't say for certain, but he had a feeling those were pretty rare in Fairy Land.

She caught his eye, then, and he knew he could eliminate amnesia from the list of possibilities, too. He frowned, and she tilted her head, eyes flicking to Lola and back, and it finally clicked. He blamed his general state of desperately needing a burger for it taking as long as it did.

Names had power. It wasn't a power most humans knew how to exploit, but it was there nonetheless, and if anything would latch onto a name and use it to screw the hell out of a person, it was going to be a fairy. Lisa wanted to make sure that Lola didn't know her real name.

Which meant he was stuck calling her "Hero" and feeling like a tool.

"Right." He swallowed and nodded back. "Hero."

Lola appeared at his side, staring bright eyed up at Lisa, then turning to look at Dean. "I take it you two know each other?"

Dean kept his eyes on Lisa, lifting his eyebrow to let her know he'd follow her lead on this. Lisa flashed him a tight smile. "You could say that," she told Lola. "He's my ex."

"Groucho, you dog." Lola elbowed him in the hip, then looked up at Lisa again. "You're here for the boy, too?"

"Yes." Lisa's voice was tight but firm, and she gave Dean a challenging look, as though Dean was going to start arguing with her then and there. Not that Dean didn't consider it. It was bad enough he was probably going to be stuck here. He didn't want Lisa enslaved to some sidhe bastard, to boot.

There'd be time enough for that, later. Right now, there was still the dragon-infested river behind them to consider. "We should probably get going," he said, turning to shoot a quick look back. "Over land, this time."

"Yeah," Lola agreed. "I'm thinking Peg's pretty pissed at us."

Lisa swung the club down from her shoulder, dropping the head down behind a rock the size of a ping pong ball. Not a nine iron, Dean saw, but a pitching wedge. He grabbed Lola by the back of her sweater and pulled her out of the way. Lisa took a swing -- she'd always been better at the power shots than putts -- and sent the rock shooting down into the water.

And the Campbell clan had made fun of his golf clubs. Those things were seriously useful, even if this one was likely never going to be any good on an actual green again.

"Just so it doesn't think it should follow us," Lisa said, shouldering the club again.

"I like her, Groucho." Lola beamed up at Lisa, tiny fangs glinting. "What'd you do to screw it up?"

"Yeah, we're really not going to talk about that." Dean pushed her toward the edge of the meadow, shooting a long suffering look back at Lisa. Lisa smirked, mouthing 'Groucho?' and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Yeah," he muttered. "'Cause 'Hero' is way better."

"I like it," Lisa said. "It's very Shakespearean." She looked him over as they fell into step behind Lola, heading back toward the trees. "You okay? You look like crap."

"It's been a long --" Dean broke off as he realized he had no idea how much time had passed since he'd gotten himself jumped in the park. "-- while. Tell me you brought more than just a golf club with you."

"Of course. I just wanted to try sticking with something I have practice using." Lisa swung her yoga bag down, opened it up, and pulled out one of Dean's spare sawed-offs. Dean absolutely could have kissed her, especially when he spotted several energy bars among the bag's contents. His stomach growled loudly, and Lisa offered him both the shotgun and a peanut butter Clif bar.

They passed the next several minutes in silence, Lola leading the way several paces ahead, Lisa following along, smacking branches out of the way with her golf club, and Dean eating his way slowly through two Clif bars and sipping absolutely the most amazing bottled water he'd ever had.

Yeah, Lisa coming after Ben was really, really dumb. She wasn't a hunter, wasn't much of a fighter at all -- golf skills notwithstanding -- and she was one more person in this world for Dean to worry about getting back home with as few injuries and traumas as possible, but right then, he was really, really glad she was here.

*

"And if you'll follow me this way, we'll take a look at the newly restored English garden." The Mahaffie Homestead docent walked backwards as she spoke, smiling widely at her small tour group, which included two older women and a bored looking young man in his late teens, as well as Bobby, Sam, and Rufus. Bobby had been surprised to see that the docent was a young woman herself, no older than Sam was. Like Rufus, he'd been on any number of these tours throughout his years hunting, and the volunteers at historical houses were much more likely to be women in their sixties or older.

The docent turned as they stepped through an opening in the low stone wall that separated the gardens from the park proper and held her hands out to either side, inviting the group to admire the greenery. "This garden has been very exciting for us here at the Mahaffie Homestead. We first discovered the remains of the original garden about ten years ago, and it's taken a lot of hours of hard research to recreate Mary Francis' vision. Now, as I mentioned back in the front parlor, Mary Francis was the fifth lady of the Mahaffie Homestead. While all her predecessors had been farmers, like their husbands, Mary's family were servants, having worked for an English noble family before immigrating to the United States in 1899, and she found she had no talent for large scale crops or livestock. So she decided to spend her time creating a traditional garden, like those she'd seen on the rich estates in her home country. The garden made her very popular among the other ladies in the area, and helped turn the Mahaffie farm into a household name, which in turn provided the funds for keeping up the beautiful house we've just left. . . ."

And the docent continued. It seemed she couldn't get enough of describing the daily lives of the women who'd lived in the area a hundred years ago. Bobby tuned her out after awhile, turning his attention to the garden itself, looking for any signs that it really was the center of the fairy invasion. The interior of the garden wall was lined in willow trees and flower beds full of bright, vibrant blooms that Bobby was certain had to be out of season. He leaned over a tall stalk of bluebells. He was no gardener, himself, but it seemed to be doing pretty well, despite the cold.

"Please don't touch the flowers," the docent said. "I know it seems like it should go without saying, but we had someone pick several of our primroses just the other night, and we want our garden to be enjoyable to everyone who comes here."

"These are all the plants that that Mary woman had planted here, then?" Bobby asked. The docent -- he couldn't for the life of him remember her name, or if she'd even given them one -- nodded.

"We have several of her diaries in our library, and she kept detailed notes on her garden. That, combined with the excavation work of our archeology department, and we can be quite certain of what sorts of plants she used where." She smiled. "We had to cheat a little bit here and there -- we didn't want to plant foxglove so near where children would be playing, for instance, so we switched it out with the comfrey you see over there -- but it's as close to the original garden as we could make it. These flower beds are all laid out in a spiral pattern around the central entertaining area, which is right down this way."

The little old ladies "ooo"ed, and one of them flashed Bobby a bright smile. He guessed she approved of his apparent interest in flora. He nodded back as pleasantly as he could before turning toward Rufus and Sam.

"Bluebells, primroses, foxglove," he said. "Am I remembering wrong, or were those all big time fairy plants?"

"You're right," said Sam, keeping his voice low. "Same with the trees."

"People keep flowers around all the time, though," Rufus pointed out. "Ain't like we're getting greenhouses all turned into child-trafficking depots."

"Maybe it's got to do with the pattern of it. Greenhouses don't tend to be set up in a spiral." Bobby walked as they talked, following along behind the tour at a bit of a distance as they made their way inward. The spiral was lined on both sides with the flower beds and trees, as well as a low, thick ornamental hedge, carefully trimmed down into the traditional box shape. They reached the center after a couple of twists, and Bobby cursed.

The "entertaining area", as the docent had called it, was a little round clearing at the center of the garden. Instead of the cast iron or wicker patio furniture Bobby had been expected, the seating was made up of large, rough-hewn stone benches and tables arranged in a circle.

It looked, more than anything else, like a miniature Stonehenge.

"Uh, ma'am," Sam said, raising his hand slightly. "When was the restoration of the garden finished?"

The docent's bright smile went three shades brighter and she fairly rocked forward on her toes. "We set the last stone here just about two weeks ago."

Bobby bit back another curse. Two weeks ago was when the first child had disappeared.

"Well," Rufus said, his eyebrows high and his lips pursed bemusedly. "That'd sure as hell do it."

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