Prologue

"Dad?" Dean whispered into his phone. It was just after midnight and the Seattle motel was pitch black except for the dim light from the screen of his phone. He could hear Sam's shallow breathing in the bed right of his, and he tried his best not to wake him.

"Hi, Dean." John's voice came tired and raspy over the phone but recognizable to Dean's ears. He let out a silent sigh of relief and allowed himself a smile.

"Hey. It's good to hear from you. Where are you?"

"You know I can't tell you."

Dean sat up as quietly as he could, "Why are you calling then?"

"I hear you're in Washington, hunting vampires."

Dean ran a hand over his face. It was true; they had taken the job after reports of vampires had surfaced around Lost Lake, outside of Seattle. When they had gotten there, however, it seemed more like a bad reenactment of Twilight. "Well not exactly...It's probably just some Edward Cullen son-of-a-bitch that thinks he's funny."

"No, Dean. It's not a joke. This is very serious."

Dean blinked at his father's serious tone, "Okay, but we've fought vamps before, no problem."

"It's not a vampire, Dean. Look at the claims."

Getting up as quietly as he could, he made his way over to the small, wooden table that sat a corner of the motel room and switched on the lamp that rested on it. Sam's notes and books about vampires were strewn across the top. After ruffling through a stack of papers, Dean found a sheet with at least a dozen newspaper articles copied on both sides. "Eight victims found drained of blood in the last month, some of them missing limbs, but that isn't unusual."

"What else?"

Dean frowned, but continued reading, "Um...Survivors and witnesses claim the attacker was a man, very tall with red hair, red eyes and giant fangs. Apparently he was freezing cold and 'sparkled in the light'." A scowl crossed his face as he sarcastically recited those last words. He had half a mind to pop Stephanie Meyer in the face. Dean expected a small laugh from his father, but none came. Only an uncomfortable silence, "Dad?"

"Listen, I've got a friend in northern Seattle that will help you. Get a pen."

Dean quickly obeyed, his brow furrowing in worry and confusion. John's voice had been getting increasingly serious and urgent. He wondered what was so wrong about a couple of Twilight fuck-ups. He listened as his father gave him the address and name of his 'friend' and copied it down on a sticky note. Dean swallowed roughly as he finished, knowing the call with his father was ending rapidly. "Listen, Dad-"

"Tell Sammy I'm alright, okay?"

He clenched his jaw slightly, "Okay..."

"I love you boys."

"Yeah."

Then a click sounded on the other end of the line and he was gone. Dean wanted to scream and throw the damned phone across the room, but he didn't want to wake his brother, so he just angrily stuffed the sticky note and the phone in his pocket.

"He's not coming to help us, is he?"

Dean hadn't notice Sam awaken, but he sat up in his bed, his hair ruffled slightly and his eyes sleepy. For a moment, he was a kid again, explaining to his baby brother why Dad had left them in another motel room. He shook his head after a long pause, "Go back to sleep."

Sam put on his passive-aggressive pout and climbed out of bed defiantly, making Dean roll his eyes. He scooted his chair sideways and made room for his brother, who set right back to studying.

"At least he's okay."

Silence. Dean sighed in irritation and tossed the crumpled address on top of a pile of similarly discarded pages of notes that made a home in front of them. Sam looked up for a moment and grabbed the note, unraveling it.

"Christopher?" He frowned at the name, rifling through the book stack for their father's journal.

"Yeah...Dad said he'd help us, that this isn't just any old vampire."

Sam was already flipping through pages of the notebook. He suddenly stopped on a page labeled "Specialists". Dean frowned in curiosity and leaned in closer. Sam scribbled out the name and replaced it with one his finger hovered over in the journal.

"Cristofer Markov. C-r-i-s-t-o-f-e-r." He said, holding up the sticky note.

Dean felt his ears get hot with embarrassment, "So I spelled it wrong, sue me." Then he watched as Sam covered the last name and 'fer' with his fingers. Cristo, "So? He thinks he's god or something?"

Sam shrugged slightly, jamming the address in the notebook as a bookmark. Correcting his mistake seemed to have lightened his brother's mood, so Dean decided not to ask any more questions, "We'll head out tomorrow, alright? Don't stay up too late." He stood to walk back to bed, patting Sam's shoulder in reassurance as he passed. He flopped into the sheets, dozing back to sleep quickly as Sam uttered a 'goodnight'.