Progress

"Finally!" Xander muttered to himself as he looked over a report given to him by one of the Tracker Watchers. He had located the name of the demon that had killed Misty Baker in Las Vegas last summer. Taking four months to simply find the name of a single demon, not finding it, what kind it was or how to kill it, just finding its name, was simply unacceptable. Ok, for this demon they had to find the name first before they could find out the rest, but it was still far too long, what would have happened if this demon was planning on an apocalypse?

"Jason, this took far too long. I know that you didn't have much to go on and you really needed to get the name of the demon first, but I want you to track down everything we have on Yknot within the next 24 hours. In this game time is always of the essence and getting research like this done fast and thoroughly can actually save the world."

Jason nodded and shoved his thick glasses closer to his eyes. "I know Xander and I do have a little information to go on. I just thought that you and the Council would need to know what I've gotten right away. Yknot is the child of the First, that's what threw everyone off for so long. There is only one mention of Yknot in the records we have of the First and it seems to indicate that the First actually cared about its child and wanted corporeality for its child as well as itself. It gave a branch of the Bringers as Vampires to Yknot. I think it had something to do with the corporeality issue."

Xander shook his head in disbelief. Why hadn't anyone brought this up before? He knew that most demons cared in their own way for their offspring, and just as often the reverse was true. This Yknot was not going to be happy with any of the Slayers or the Council, not to mention the rest of the world. It had already reached a point where it could interact at least on a limited basis with the physical world, much like the First had done.

In Jason's eyes Xander seemed to change and grow in stature as he shed the goofball image that he wore like a second skin. This was the warrior people had told him about but he hadn't believed. This was the man who had stood down 'Darth Willow', Caleb - minion of the First, Angelus and others with nothing more than his courage.

"Jason, pull everyone else in the tracking department off of whatever they're working on and start them tracking Yknot. Send what information you have over to the research department, top priority. Send anything and everything that is found directly to the Council chamber. We're looking at another Holocaust." With that grim announcement Xander stalked off, presumably to tell the rest of the Council what was happening. Jason shuddered and turned to run back down the stairs towards the main floor and the departments that Xander had ordered him to put on alert. Holocaust was a term that had been used only once in Council terminology. It was used to describe the Battle of Sunnydale and the Calling of the Slayers.

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The desk Sergeant wasn't the only who was gawking when Dean Winchester came into the Palo Alto Police Department's building pushing a double baby stroller. His brother Sam was right behind him. While the older cops might have a hard time knowing which Winchester was which or have a hard time pointing them out in the street, Sergeant Karen Walker was a big fan. She was also the daughter of one Patrol Officer Walker, who had met Sam Winchester last night over the body of Dr. Tanner's new guest down in the morgue.

“Hello Sergeant,” Sam said politely. “I’m Sam Winchester and I was told that you would know where I needed to go to give my statement about the body that Janice Buckles and I found last night.”

“Detective Evans has that case. He’s in homicide on the third floor. If you’ll just wait a moment, I’ll get you an escort,” Sergeant Walker told him. She did her best to remain professional, but she wished she could sneak her phone out to snap a picture.

It took next to no time for an escort to arrive and the Winchesters were taken up to a squad room. While Sam followed the uniformed officer through the maze of desks, Dean caught sight of an older woman showing a picture to another detective. The minute Dean saw the picture his heart sank. This was one of the things he hadn’t thought of when everything had gone public. He knew that some victim’s bodies were never recovered, time the supernatural didn’t even leave partial remains but he hadn’t even thought about doing anything about it. This woman would never know what had happened to the young man in her picture if he didn’t speak up.

Dean stopped the side by side stroller next to the detective’s desk. “Is that your son ma’am?” he asked gently and quietly. The sobbing woman nodded and handed the picture to him. The closer look only confirmed what he had seen before. Dean sighed and snagged a chair from an empty desk close by. He set the chair down so that when he sat in it, he and the woman were knee to knee. He clasped her hands in his as he returned the picture and said, “My name is Dean Winchester and I’m one of the two Watchers assigned to this area."

"I'm Carol Messick, this is my son Tom."

"I’m sorry to have to tell you this ma’am, but your son is dead. He was a victim of a vampire attack sometime within the last four to seven days. He was turned, that is, at the moment of his death his body was taken over by a newborn demon. His soul went wherever it was supposed to go. The demon did not touch it. My Slayer, Hannah Adams, destroyed that demon two nights ago. I’m sorry we didn’t have any way to tell you before now.”

“Are you sure?” she pleaded with him, wanting him to be wrong.

“Yes ma’am I am,” Dean said and pulled out his phone. He still had the pictures that he had taken during that patrol on its memory card. Normally he wouldn’t have taken any pictures, being far too busy getting into the thick of things, but Hannah had things under control with the small group of fledglings and he hadn't recognized the demon that had been leading them. He had managed to take a few pictures before the vampires had been dusted and the demon had taken off. He hadn't known that vampires could have their pictures taken until he had looked at the pictures the next morning.

He had managed to get three pictures of the fledgling vampire that had been Tom Messick. In two of Dean's pictures the fledgling was in 'game face', the warped features, yellow eyes and fangs showing the demon within, the last, (or rather the first as the pictures went backwards in chronology) showed the Human disguise the demon wore. Mrs. Messick covered her mouth with one and ducked her head as a fresh burst of tears began. Dean sat there holding her hand, thankful that the twins were tired enough to sleep through the noise.

It wasn't that he wasn't sympathetic to Mrs. Messick's situation, he was; the thought of losing a member of his own family in such a manner had been the subject of his own nightmares for years. Dean just didn't want to have the twins upset and screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to calm them when they were in full upset duet was hell on his ears and heart. After a few moments Mrs. Messick looked back up at Dean, "Thank you for everything; for killing the demon that killed my son, for taking these pictures, for telling me what happened, just everything." Dean couldn't come up with anything to say to that or to the impulsive hug that Mrs. Messick gave him before she got up and left.

"I don't suppose you could come up with someway for us to get pictures of all of the vampires you guys take care of?" the detective said wistfully. He hadn't liked the outcome for Mrs. Messick but closure of any sort was much better than questions being forever unanswered.

Dean sort of frowned and shrugged while his brain started whirling with technical plans. "I think I could come up with something. We wouldn't be able to get them all, but I bet we could get more than a couple." It would also help with demon identification if they had a better description when they sent their reports in or were looking them up. That was why he had taken the picture in the first place, he just hadn't thought of victim identification when he'd done it.

"I'm sure the guys down in the tech labs can write a computer program to turn the pictures into something we can use," the detective was saying as Sam came up to them.

"I'm done here Dean," Sam said.

Dean nodded to Detective Evans and stood up. "I'll see what I can do," he promised the nameless detective before joining his brother and Evans. "How many more finals do you have?"

"I had my third one this morning and I have one more on Friday. It's a no brainer. Dad put us both through much worse than anything Professor Jergens can come up with." Dean knew that Jergens was the Latin teacher and that Sam was right. He had to have Advanced Latin in his transcripts so that he qualified for his future position as a Watcher for Mary, but Sam and Dean both spoke and read Latin fluently, had for years. Latin was one of the main languages that demonic research books were written in and no sit down, quiet and non-life threatening test could ever compare to having to read a book in the middle of an exorcism where one misread or spoken word would mean the death of everyone around you, including yourself. It was an easy A for Sam.

"In that case, let's go down to the morgue and check out the body, see what you couldn't see last night," Dean said as he started pushing the twins towards the door. He never noticed the shock on the faces of those that witnessed his willingness to take babies into a morgue or his brother's complete unconcern over the implication.

"Dad's already looking up the frat house's history," Sam said as he followed. Detective Evans followed Sam. They made a strange sort of caravan as they headed off to the morgue, which was probably the one place that Dean and Sam didn't have to get directions for among the official city buildings. Morgues and libraries were common places for Hunters to hang out and they were almost always the first places that a Hunter found the locations for when he or she hit a new town. As they were living in Palo Alto, the Winchesters had these locations memorized. The reason was practicality of course; there were many types of lethal supernatural entities that cause wounds that were very similar in nature. An experienced Hunter could tell the difference between one type of supernatural entity and another if they could see the wounds on the victim's bodies. With any luck, Dean and Sam would be able to get much more information on what had killed the young man down in the morgue.