CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dean goes on with the story.

They found a fried patch of grass in the shape of a perfect circle. The boys continued digging, and Dean apparently thinks his brother is more emotional than a teenage girl. He says that Sam hugged the guy they were talking to and made him really uncomfortable.

"I never said that!" Sam argues.

"You're always saying pansy stuff like that."

"Now, do you see why I want to kill them?" Nyx asks Bobby. "They've been arguing about anything and everything, it's driving me nuts."

One good thing finally came out of all this though. They started to see a pattern. Dean thinks both victims were dicks.

However, this is also where another problem started. Sam couldn't find his laptop, and he thinks that Dean is at fault for its disappearance.

"Did you take his computer?" Bobby asks.

"Serves him right, but no." Dean tells him.

"Well, I didn't lose it. 'Cause I don't lose things." Sam argues.

"Yeah, that's right. Yeah, 'cause he's Mr. Perfect."

"Nyx?" Bobby turns to her.

"Oh, I have no idea what happened to his computer or the damn car." She looks at Dean. "I was asleep after taking care of the twins while they were out. I didn't see anything."

"Alright, why don't you boys tell me what happened next?" He asks​.

Nyx gets up to lay Everly next to her brother on the bed, unaware of Dean's eyes on her as she walks away from them. The twins are both out like lights again, and it makes their mom smile as she looks down at them.

"Dean." Bobby tries to get his attention, and Sam smacks his shoulder.

"Huh, yeah?" The older Winchester looks back at the two of them. He was too distracted by Nyx with the twins to even hear Bobby say anything to him.

"Stop staring at Nycole and tell Bobby what happened next." Sam says, and his brother glares at him as Nyx smiles to herself.

"There's one more victim." Dean says as she walks over to fridge to grab a beer for herself. Being around all of the boys and the twins is difficult, but if there's one thing that Nyx has learned from the Salvatore brothers — it's that alcohol can help take the edge off.

"Right. Now, we didn't see this one ourselves, either." Sam says. "We kinda put it together from the evidence. But​ this guy, he was a research scientist. Animal testing."

"Yeah, you know, a dick." He says. "Which fits the pattern."

Nyx suddenly runs over and opens the door. Caroline smiles at her. "Hey." The blonde quickly hugs her, and Nyx smiles.

"Come on, you're just in time for the gator story." Nyx tells her.

"Ooh, is this the only one you didn't tell me?" She asks, and the brunette nods.

"Bobby, this is my friend Caroline. Care, this is Bobby." She introduces them, and Care smiles at him. "She wanted to get away from my sister. So, I told her that she could travel with us for little while."

"What about school?" Dean asks.

"I have good grades, and I got all my work before I left." Caroline explains.

"Well, grab a beer and have a seat." He tells her, and she does just that.

The boys tell Bobby and Caroline about the man who was eaten by an alligator that was living in the sewer. They went to see the remains — what little were of him — and found a scale on the guy's mutilated leg. They had to go see the body because an official cause of death was never released.

"We decided to search the sewer anyway. So, we split up, each of us taking one end of campus​." Sam tells them.

"Did you find anything?" Bobby asks.

"Yeah, I found something, just not in the sewer." Dean says, and Nyx sighs.

"And here we go." She mumbles, and her blonde best friend​ looks at her.

Dean came out of the sewer and went to the car to drive back, only someone had deflated the tires. And he found Sam's money clip on the ground beside the Impala.

"And here's the part where I really wanted to kill them." Nyx tells Bobby, and he looks down at her from where he's standing.

"You think this funny?" Dean asks after slamming the door behind him. Everly starts to stir on the bed, and Nyx has to coax her back to sleep.

"It depends. What?" Sam asks.

"The car!"

"Dean." Nyx looks over at him, and he grits his teeth.

"What about the car?" His brother questions.

"You can't let the air out of the tires, you idiot. You're gonna bend the rims." Dean tells​ him.

"If you don't shut up, that's gonna be the least of your worries." Nyx says as she carefully stands up from the bed.

"Whoa, wait a minute." Sam says. "I didn't​ go near your car."

"Oh, yeah? Huh." Dean pulls something out of his jacket pocket, and Nyx sees Sam's money clip in his hand. "Then, uh, how'd I find this?"

Sam stands up and starts checking his pockets. "Hey, give me back my money." He holds his hand out toward his brother.

"Oh, no, no. Consider it reparations for, uh, emotional trauma."

"Hey, drama queen. Shut it." Nycole says as the twins start waking up.

"Give it back." Sam walks after his brother as he moves toward the beds.

"No." Dean pushes his brother back.

"Dean, I have had it up to here with you." He holds his hand level with his head.

"Yeah, right back at you!"

"Knock it off." Nyx leans over Everly and attempts to sooth her.

The boys start fighting and end up falling onto the bed. Nyx quickly pulls them off and shoves them in different directions. "You — get back to your research." She points at Sam and then looks at Dean. "You — help me with the twins."

"I like it when you take control like that." He says with a small smile, and she clenches her teeth as the twins start crying.

"Okay, I've heard enough." Bobby says, and she kicks Dean under the table.

"Ow!" He looks at her and then turns back to Bobby. "Anyway, you showed up about half an hour after that."

"I'm surprised at you two. I really am." He says as he looks between the brothers on either side of Nyx and Caroline. "Sam, first off, Dean did not steal your computer."

"But— But—" He starts arguing.

"Shh!" He turns to the older boy. "And, Dean, Sam did not touch your car."

"Yeah." Sam says.

"Shut up." Nyx looks at him.

"And if either of you bothered to pull your heads out of your asses, it all would've been pretty clear." Bobby tells them.

"I like him." Caroline whispers, and Nyx smiles as she looks at her.

"What?" Dean asks the older man.

"What you're dealing with." Bobby says.

"Uh..." Sam starts.

"I got nothing." Dean says.

"Me neither."

"You got a trickster on your hands." Bobby tells them.

"That's what I thought." Dean says.

"What?" Sam questions. "No, you didn't."

"You are such a liar." Nyx shakes her head.

"I gotta tell you...you guys were the biggest clue." Bobby says.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"These things create chaos and mischief as easy as breathing. And it's got them so turned around and at each others' throats, they can't even think straight." He explains.

"The laptop." Sam says.

"The tires." Dean adds.

"It knows you're onto him, and it's been playing you like fiddles." Bobby tells them.

"So, what is it? Spirit, demon, what?"

"They're more like demigods, really. There's Loki in Scandinavia. There's Anansi in West Africa — dozens of 'em." He says. "They're immortal, and they can create things out of thin air. Things as real as you and me. Make 'em vanish just as quick."

"You mean, like an angry spirit or an alien or an alligator." Dean says.

"The victims fit the M.O. too. Tricksters target the high and mighty, knock 'em down a peg, usually with a sense of humor. Deadly pranks, things like that." Bobby tells them.

"Bobby, what do these things look like?"

"Lots of things, but human mostly."

"And what human do we know who's been at ground zero this whole time?" Dean asks as he looks at his brother.

Sam looks at him. "The janitor."

"Okay, so let's kill this son of a bitch. Care, you wanna watch the twins for us?" Nyx asks.

"Yes." The blonde says, and she laughs at her enthusiasm.

"You wanna help us?" Dean asks.

"That a problem?" Nyx looks at him.

"No, you just haven't seemed to want to hunt since we left New Orleans." He says.

"Well, I'm tired of being a shut in who rarely leaves the room." She tells him. "I want to kill something that's got it coming. You can stay here if you want."

"What the hell just happened?" He asks as she walks away from him.

"She talked to Elena yest—"

"Caroline." She cuts her off.

"Why do you keep stuff from me now?" Dean asks as he turns back to her.

"Maybe it's the part where we're not actually​ together anymore. So, my crap is... My crap. I can handle my bitchy sister." She tells him, but it's more the guilt talking than anything else — guilt from what Elena said to her. "Now, are we gonna kill this thing?"

He just looks at her for a second and then nods. "Yeah."

—

Sam and Dean set up the plan earlier, and now Sam, Bobby, and Nyx are waiting for the next part to start. She listens inside and then looks at the boys and nods.

"He's in." She tells them.

"I never thought I'd say this, but that vampire hearing of yours comes in handy sometimes, don't it?" Bobby says, and then the two men start to make their way inside. She smiles as she quickly follows behind them, glad that someone finds her vampirism's useful somehow.

Sam and Nyx walk into the theater on one side, Bobby on the other, and Nyx sees what's on the stage. There's a bed, a disco ball, lights, and two women who look exactly like her. And they're wearing lingerie.

"What...the hell...is that?" Nyx questions.

"That fight you guys had outside..." The trickster starts, looking between the brothers. "That was a trick?"

Dean shrugs.

"Not bad." He nods.

"Seriously, what the hell?" She asks again, eyebrows raised, and Dean looks at her. He actually looks a little embarrassed by what she sees.

"You wanna see a real trick?" The trickster asks.

Nyx hears a chainsaw start up behind her and she looks up at the man that just materialized out of nowhere. She quickly pushes Sam back and jumps in the other direction as the man swings the saw down at them.

"Bobby!" Nyx yells.

"I'm coming!" He calls, and she runs down to where Dean's fighting the two Nyx clones.

He's getting his ass kicked before she finally gets there. Nyx grabs one of them and throws her off the stage. This is would feel a lot weirder for her if she didn't have an identical twin and a doppelganger.

Nyx jumps off the stage and sees the large stake that Dean must've dropped. She grabs it and then appears in front of the trickster. She stakes him, and he looks down at her.

"You really shouldn't have gone after the father of my kids. People go after my family, it tends to piss me off." She tells him as the chainsaw man disappears, followed by the strange scene on the stage.

Nyx pulls the stake out of his chest, and he falls into a chair as the boys run over to her. "You guys okay?" Bobby asks them.

"I guess." Sam says.

"I gotta say..." Dean starts. "He had style."

Nyx looks Dean and then scoffs before walking away from them. She goes back out to the car and leans against the door. The men come out soon after and they get in the car, but not before the brothers' piss poor attempt at apologizing to each other.

"You guys are breaking my heart. Could we please just leave?" Bobby looks at them.