"Two rooms." Bobby told the man behind the desk. When the Bobby pulled out his wallet Dean was quicker.

"I'll be paying for one." he said quickly. Bobby gave him a confused look, but Dean gave him a quick smile. His father had been worried about him staying 'in the car' after all, so when he checked Dean's records next time he would see that Dean stayed in a motel. Dean could also call him from the motel room and it would solve two problems with one stay. The man looked between Dean and Bobby before carefully taking Dean's card. Bobby scoffed and pulled out a few bills to pay for the other room. The two hunters took the receipts and headed back outside.

"Go give Tara her key, I'll move the car." Bobby said. Dean nodded. He went to find the female hunter to see her at the soda machine.

"Tara, I got the key for your room." Dean said. Tara was sitting on the hood of her car, looking at the motel. Dean couldn't tell if she was annoyed after the long drive or just at the state of the motel in general. The motel was pretty run down, something no Man of Letter's Dean ever knew would touch with a ten foot poll.

"I got the key for your room." Dean said, holding up the key. Tara looked at him in surprise as if she hadn't heard or seen him approach.

"Thanks kid." she said. Dean felt a twinge of annoyance but ignored it. Despite all circumstances, he was beginning to like Tara. She seemed pretty cool, not that he had many hunters to compare her too. She seemed a little extreme but like she also knew what she was doing. Bobby wouldn't have brought him with them if he didn't trust her. "I'll unpack and be over to see you and Bobby in a bit." she said, taking the key from his hand and moving toward her trunk. Dean moved back to where their room was to see Bobby had already parked in front of it and had the trunk open. Dean pulled out his duffel bag as Bobby got his.

"We'll go to the library when Tara's ready." Bobby said as he moved toward the room. Dean followed him, giving him a confused look.

"Why? I thought Tara already knew what was going on?" Dean said. Bobby gave him a hard look.

"Dean I want you to listen to me and listen well. Even if you think you know everythin' you need to double check. Things aren't always as they seem. And if you go into this unprepared then you can end up dead or worse." Bobby said. Dean froze, surprised. Despite himself, he nodded. Bobby had a point. "I'm not sayin' I don't trust Tara, I'm saying it's always important to double check everythin'." Bobby said. Bobby opened the door and Dean followed him into the motel room.

"Is that why you made me navigate?" Dean asked. Dean had not known where Riverside California was but Tara had clearly known. Instead of following her, Bobby had pulled out a road atlas, dropped it into Dean's lap, and told him the plan the trip. Dean had to plan the route, select the rest stops and food breaks, and where they would stop for the night on the day long trip. Dean figured it was only as stressful as it had because Bobby played the same Kenny Roger's tape on repeat the whole way. Dean liked country music as much as the next guy, especially when it was played in cowboy movies, but there was only so many times he could listen to 'The Gambler' before he needed another music choice. Unfortunately no sooner had he voiced that concern had Bobby shot it down by informing him in no uncertain terms that only the driver gets any say in the music.

"Yes." Bobby said as he tossed a bag on the bed closer to the door. Dean moved to the other bed and put down his bag.

"So what exactly are we looking for?" Dean asked. Bobby gave him a hard look.

"That's what you gotta find out." Bobby said. Dean grimaced. "Don't give me that look. First step of any hunt is figurin' out what yer workin' with. When a hunter takes a case, it's because they see somethin' that gives them a clue that somethin' is goin' on that ain't natural. When they get there they start doing research, checking into the local history, weather patterns, talkin' to witnesses and reading incident reports to try an' figure out what is goin' on. Even if you already think you know what yer dealin' with, you need to be sure." Bobby said. Dean nodded.

"I understand." he said. He knew Bobby had a point and while Dean had been excited and ready to take Tara's word for it, he didn't know Tara well enough to risk his life on her word alone. He had no idea what he would be looking for either. "So, library…" Dean started and a knock came to the door. Bobby moved over to it and opened the door. Tara stood waiting.

"We ready to go find the hideout?" she asked as she walked in.

"Not yet. We're headed to the library." Bobby said. Tara gave him an offended look.

"What? I told you what it was." Tara said, crossing her arms. Bobby scoffed at that and Dean found himself sitting on the edge of the bed to watch. He had his money on Bobby winning this confrontation.

"No, you said it was monsters and demons. Any idea what kind of monsters?" he asked, crossing his arms. Tara opened her mouth to speak but paused, clearly deciding that Bobby was right. She snapped his mouth closed and looked away, suddenly finding the dirty grey carpet much more interesting than she had moments ago.

"No." she admitted after a few moments. Bobby nodded.

"Good" he said. Dean tried to hide his smirk but from the dark glare Tara suddenly shot his way he knew he failed. He offered her a small shrug in place of an apology. Bobby rifted through his duffel, pulling out a few books and headed to the door. "Well let's go." he said when neither of them moved. Dean scrambled after him while Tara followed a little slower.

Xxx

Dean pushed the newspaper articles away from him and leaned back in his chair. He had decided to start with looking into the weather reports, seeing if there were any thunderstorms in the area that could be attributed to demonic presence. After all, spirits of any type tended to create large electrical disturbances and out of season thunderstorms were a good indicator. He didn't find anything so he looked into cattle mutilations. Usually any animal dying and being drained in strange ways was a good indication of the supernatural too. Some creatures like chupacabra tended to drain animals of blood but again Dean found nothing that stood out on that front either. The only thing he did find was that there was a strange uptick in missing persons. For the last month the missing persons had gone up nearly three times the right it had any right to be.

"What'd you find?" Bobby asked coming up to him. Dean glared up at the man before turning back to the stack. He crossed his arms, content to blame his failures on the older hunter for the moment.

"Nothing." Dean said sourly. Bobby sat down beside him, picking up the top paper on the stack.

"There's never nothin'. Try again." he said, using a firm tone Dean was used to getting from John. Dean groaned, feeling like he was in the bunker again but decided to humor the hunter.

"I can't find any of the common signs of demons." Dean said. Bobby smirked.

"And…" he started. Dean glared at him. What did he mean 'and'? That was it.

"So that means the demons aren't showing any signs of being here." Dean said irritably. Bobby sighed.

"Or that demons aren't here at all." he said. Dean gave him a confused look, unfolding his arms.

"But Tara said…." He started.

"Tara said a wraith told her that. Because a monster about to be killed has no reason at all to trick the one about to kill them." Bobby said with a heavy sarcasm at the end. Dean gave him a startled look. He hadn't really thought of that. "What a monster about to be killed would want to do is send the hunter into a trap." Bobby said.

"So there's no hunt here?" Dean asked. Bobby held up the paper where the headline talked about a couple disappearing without a trace.

"Keep going." Bobby told him. Dean thought about the other missing people.

"So there is a hunt, something taking people?" Dean asked a little unsure. Bobby smirked.

"Good job." he said. Dean looked back at the papers, glowing with the praise. Bobby was not an easy guy to impress and Dean would take every bit of praise he could get from the hunter. However that still left an important question.

"So now what?" Dean asked. Bobby dropped the paper.

"What creatures would just take people?" he asked. Dean actually laughed at that. It was a long list that they almost couldn't begin without more information. "I guess we need to start talking to witnesses then don't we?" he said. Dean groaned and hit his head off the table, all the happiness and contentment from Bobby's praise draining from him. Hunting wasn't as fun as he thought it was.

"Does Tara know yet?" he asked. Bobby shook his head.

"That's yer job to tell her." he said. Dean winced. "Well then, make a list of the people we need to be talkin' to." Bobby said calpping Dean on the shoulder once, and with that he got up and moved away. Dean groaned and shook his head against the table's surface.

Xxx

Dean looked at the notebook page in front of him with a list of names on it. He didn't know how long it took him to come up with the list, but he combed through all the articles of missing persons and tried to conclude which people would be most beneficial to talk to. "Any luck?" Bobby asked as he sat beside Dean again. Dean shoved the list over to him. Bobby picked it up and looked over the names, nodding. He put it back on the table, taking Dean's pen and crossed off a few of the names before writing in a few. Clearly he had gone through the papers too and made his own deicisons. "Not bad. Think it's about dinner time." he said standing up. Dean took the list back, frowning at it before looking up at Bobby.

"A dinner?" he asked, the earlier excitement returning. When Henry vented about how beneath them hunters were, one of his favorite comments was about how hunters liked to stay in cheap motels and eat at crappy dinners. Dean didn't' eat out very often, after all they had a large family of six people in the house, but when they did it was usually nice restaurants. Bobby gave him a baffled look.

"Yeah." he said. Dean grinned.

"Awesome." he said. Bobby rolled his eyes.

"Come on you idjit." he said. Dean rushed after him. This was what he was looking forward too. The fighting monsters, the cheap dinner food, the possible cute girl who you save from the monster and kisses you in gratitude. All the stuff from the stories his mother used to tell him. "Never seen anyone so excited to go get dinner before." Bobby muttered. Dean chuckled a little.

"Maybe I'm just hungry. I've been working all day." he said giving a cheeky grin. While Bobby didn't turn around to face him Dean was almost sure he was rolling his eyes. Dean didn't see Tara and they didn't stop to get her but went out to the truck.

"Tara already left." Bobby said, clearly noticing Dean's confusion. Dean nodded and opened the door to Bobby's car. He saw a book sitting on the passenger seat and shifted it into his lap as he got in the car. Out of curiosity, he opened it. It was clearly a very old book, the spine creaking as he opened it and the pages making alarming noises as he turned them. Almost as if they were so tried out that one wrong move would actually crack rather than rip them. Dean could tell almost immediately this wasn't a book he could read either. The characters on the page looked familiar, so it was a language Dean had seen in print, but not often enough to recognize without being told. He briefly wondered just how many languages Bobby knew. All Men of Letters, and apparently hunters as well, knew at least the basics of Latin, but Bobby's house had many books in ancient Greek and Japanese. Bobby was probably one of the most educated people Dean had met. "It's the Key of Solomon." Bobby said. Dean gave him a surprised look.

"So you do think it's a demon?" Dean asked. After all Bobby just told him it wasn't. Bobby adjusted his grip on the steering wheel.

"I don't know what it is Dean, we don't have any real information to go on yet. I'm just saying to be prepared. There's a book on djinn and another on vampires on the backseat too." Bobby said. Dean smirked at that. He remembered when the Disney movie 'Aladdin' came out. He and Sam had wanted to go see it and while they did, they were subjected to a long rant from Henry afterwards. Apparently Henry hated Disney and it's terrible portrayals of…well everything. Dean had to write a paper on what djinn really were since Henry was afraid he might one day run after a genie to get a wish after watching a stupid kids movie. And Dean didn't even want to think about John's reaction to 'The Lost Boys'.

"You aren't even going to attempt to guess?" Dean asked. Bobby looked thoughtful.

"I don't want to close any options yet." Bobby admitted. Dean figured he had a point. Bobby pulled into the dinner and parked. "So are we getting take out or eattin' here?" Bobby asked. Dean thought about going back to the motel room, looking through a few of Bobby's books and calling it a night before they had to go talk to people the next day. At least until a pretty teen woman walked by the window in a waitress uniform. Dean gave Bobby a cheeky grin and Bobby rolled his eyes and shook his head as he pulled the key from the ignition.

Day one of the hunt. Next chapter will be all the fun parts of the hunt.