Chapter One
There was only one place open for breakfast in this nowhere town. Dean hated it. He'd never seen so much pretension applied to a regular old diner. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and the tables were covered in doily tablecloths. The menu was written in script and introduced every overpriced item with The Art of. The Art of Waffles. The Art of Eggs. The Art of Pancakes. The food wasn't that good either, but art was subjective.
The waiters were a humorless bunch in tuxedo shirts. They seemed to know when Dean ordered The Art of French Toast that he was mocking the restaurant, and their carefully penciled eyebrows lowered. This place was too much even for Sam, who grimaced while perusing the menu each of the five mornings they had eaten here. There hadn't been anything else for them to do since the car had gotten a beating on their last job and was currently in the shop undergoing The Art of Car Repair. They were picking it up today at nine and quitting this joint.
As they waited for their arts to come, Dean paged through his rag of a paper. The wait staff threw occasional glares at Sam for being on his cell phone. A sign posted over the register pleaded for the restaurant's honored guests to hang up and hang out. Honored guests. That made Dean's eyes cross every time he paid. And Sam wasn't even talking on his phone. He was just playing a game to kill time while Dean read about Bat Boy's return and a long-hospitalized woman in a coma who always woke up at the exact moment Jeopardy started. She'd watch it, cheering and shouting out guesses, and fall asleep again after the credits. Dean turned the page.
"That's weird," Dean commented.
"What?" Sam said, distracted by his phone.
Dean skimmed the very short article. "Vamp attack in Wisconsin. A woman walked into her house to find a vampire attacking her teenage granddaughter. Lulu Cubson screamed and the vampire dropped the girl and fled out the window."
"Mmm-hmmm," Sam said over the game. Then his brow furrowed and he looked up. "Wait, what? It fled? Was the grandmother armed?"
"Nope."
"Is she . . . a real Amazon?"
Dean turned the page around to show him the picture of an old woman who couldn't have been five feet tall or weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. Snickering, Dean said, "It's like the Cowardly Vampire. The Wizard needs to give him some courage."
Sam took the paper to read the article. "This happened at four in the afternoon! The vampire couldn't have fled out the window without turning into a fireball. 'Fourteen-year-old Makayla Cubson was treated for minor neck wounds at the hospital and released later that day.' No blood transfusion?"
"He must have just been sinking his fangs in when Big Bad Scary Gramma walked in," Dean said. The waiter started coming in their direction with a tray and a T-square. They delivered everything that way, even just a tiny plate with a pat of extra butter on it. Sam set aside the paper and searched for the incident online to see if he could dredge up more information. The Art of French Toast and the The Art of Pancakes were set down before them with a flourish.
"Anything?" Dean asked about the phone research.
"No," Sam said. "That has to be a crackpot article."
"Nothing else on the schedule," Dean said. This article was the most entertainment that he had had in months.
"Guess we're going to Wisconsin," Sam said, and they tucked in to one last lame display of culinary art.