Dean had instantly regretted answering his phone. Of course it was Sam, who'd had a call from Bobby, who'd had a call from God knows where, to alert them to a vampire problem in a town somewhere in Virginia. It was the middle of the night so Dean told Sam that he and Chloe would leave in the morning and pick him up from Mel's before heading east.
It was dark when the rolled into town, it was a small town with a busy diner in the centre. And it seemed like the kind of town where everybody knows everything about everybody else, and not exactly the place you'd expect to find a group of vampires, because they'd be too easy to spot, and so would the body count. Sam, Dean and Chloe checked into the only hotel they could find and then decided to head out to the diner to see if they could find anything out about the alleged vampire infestation.
Sam asked the regular, innocent sounding questions to the guy behind the bar to see if there were any signs of the vampires and came up with nothing. Dean was pissed because his time with Chloe had been cut short, so he wanted to get this job over and done with as quickly as possible, but so far that didn't look as though it would be the case. If a vampire, or indeed several of them, were living in this small town then they must be pretty well hidden, and it was down to the Winchesters, and Chloe, to hunt them out. They ordered some food and discussing their options when a man, about 5 feet 6 with dark hair and a cocky smile, interrupted them,
"You must be the Winchesters." All three of them looked up.
"And you are?" Dean replied.
"The man who invited you out here." He sat down in the empty seat next to Sam and continued, "You see, we've been having a bit of a problem with vampires around here and I've heard that you're the people to call to get something done about it."
"Where'd you hear that?" Sam asked defensively.
"Oh you know, around." Dean looked over his shoulder at Chloe and rolled his eyes, apparently they were going to have to work to get the information out of this mystery man rather than him just telling them.
"Over 150 years ago there were vampires, and witches, discovered in this town." The man settled into his seat, clearly this was going to be a long story. "The witches encased the vampire population into a tomb and left them there to starve. Eventually the witches were discovered too and were all burned in a big house just outside of town. But now they're back, both vampires and witches and a few of the vampires have it in for the town's folk. But they're being dealt with. You are here for another vampire, well hybrid actually. One that has been around for many millennia and has made many enemies around here, me included." When they were sure the man was finished Sam asked,
"What has he got against this town?"
"Thwarting his diabolical master plan to create a hybrid army didn't go down to well, you know, the usual."
"Of course." Dean replied.
"The town council are well informed of the situation and are extremely grateful for your intervention."
"Sure they are." Dean replied again, sarcastically. The man smiled,
"They are very keen to meet you. I told them I'd take you to them when you arrived."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Dean asked, getting up out of his seat. Sam and the man followed suit and finally Chloe too. Dean and Sam walked ahead on their way out, whilst Chloe fell back to see if she could get any more information out of their strange new companion.
"Do you have a name?" She asked, having noticed his previous evasion of the question. He looked up into her eyes and smiled his cocky smile,
"Damon," He said, "Damon Salvatore."
Chloe was suspicious of Damon from the word go. He just seemed to know too much. It was obvious from the way the town council acted that they were withholding some vital information and it was bugging the hell out of her and it wasn't until they arrived back at their hotel that all the pieces clicked into place in Chloe's brain.
"You know Damon's a vampire, right?" She asked suddenly.
"Yeah." Sam replied at the same time that Dean replied with,
"What?" Chloe laughed at Dean's ignorance.
"Really Dean?" Sam said, mocking his brother.
"But he's obviously not your average vampire or he wouldn't have called us here." Chloe noted, trying to overlook Dean's outburst.
"I guess,' Sam replied, "But he's still a vampire. We don't usually make exceptions for any kind of monster, however kind they may seem." He looked pointedly at Dean who looked away, well aware of the fact that Sam was referring to Amy.
"So what do we do?" Dean asked to divert the conversation away from his past actions, "Because obviously the usual rules do not apply here."
"I guess we start by talking to him." Chloe shrugged. Sam just frowned.
"How come you can go out into a sunlight?" Dean asked.
"Because I don't sparkle!" Damon replied sarcastically, "And because of this." He held out his hand to show a ring with a large Lapis Lazuli stone embedded in it, with what looked like a family crest. Neither Sam, Dean nor Chloe had ever seen anything like it before. While they were still thinking about what they were being told Damon added, "Any other myths you'd like clarification on whilst I'm here? You know, do I sleep in a coffin, can I enter churches or do I only dine on virgins?" Dean just glared at him. They were all really confused, this guy was a vampire, so they should be driving a stake through his heart instead of chatting to him, but he was the one that called them so there must be something different about him because him calling, in his opinion, wasn't him signing his own death warrant. Sam was sceptical, Chloe didn't know what the hell to think and Dean was just pissed. He had been quite looking forward to staking a vampire or two, but apparently this one was off-limits.
"So what's the plan to get rid of Klaus?" Damon asked impatiently.
"We're working on it." Dean told him. After another minute of silence Damon shook his head and sighed dramatically,
"Don't strain yourself." He said. That was the last straw for Dean and he lost it.
"Do you know what happened to the last person who said that to me?" He yelled. Damon unwaveringly met his stare so Dean continued, "They got ripped apart by hellhounds, and don't think for a second I won't hesitate before ripping you to shreds the first chance I get!"
"You'd be dead before you'd even pulled out that lovely little stake you've been keeping in your jacket pocket." Damon shot back. Dean was about to lunge for him but Sam grabbed him and Chloe stepped in front of him putting a hand on his chest.
"Ignore him Dean, he's trying to wind you up." Chloe said a little shocked by the anger she could see in Dean's eyes. Dean muttered something unintelligible, but backed off. Damon's had a smug smile on his face, which wasn't greatly helping the situation.
"What do you suggest we do about Klaus?" Sam asked Damon, because, if he was honest, they were struggling for ideas especially since Damon and his brother Stefan, with the help of a few other vampires and humans alike, had not been able to take him down. Suddenly Chloe's head snapped up as she had an idea. The night before Damon had told them everything he knew about Klaus, or at least he said it was everything, but there might have been something to go on there.
"What about his brother, Elijah, wasn't it?" Damon nodded. "You said that the white oak tree that gave the siblings their immortality was the only thing that could take it away."
"But the weapon is gone." Sam said, not following her train of thought.
"So is Mikael." Damon added.
"We might not need Mikael, or his weapon." Chloe continued, "It's a long-shot, but if the tree was used as part of their, umm, creation I suppose you would call it, then a part of it must live on in them. So if we can find where he's keeping Elijah and remove the dagger from his heart then maybe he is the key to killing Klaus." When she finished, she looked around to see three pairs of wide eyes staring at her. "What?" She asked, thinking that she had said something wrong.
"You, my darling, may be onto something." Damon said, only sounding slightly patronising. "And I think I might know just how to find Elijah."
Damon's next move was to introduce the trio to another vampire called Katherine. He'd been vague about the connection between Katherine and the girl called Elena, whom he seemed unwilling to talk about despite the fact she seemed to be at the centre of all his issues.
"I can find Elijah." Katherine confirmed, "For the right price."
"We wouldn't expect anything less." Damon replied sourly, "What do you want?" Katherine pursed her lips as she considered Damon's question. Dean folded his arms across his chest impatiently; he was having serious trouble keeping his temper under control. They were supposed to kill vampires, not work with them to conspire against hybrid freaks of nature. Plus Katherine reminded him of Bela, a woman they'd also once worked with who had completely screwed them over. Katherine seemed to be struggling to name her price so Sam offered up a suggestion,
"How about you bring Elijah to us and we won't kill you?" He asked. Dean smirked, but Katherine only glared at him despite the fact she actually looked like she was considering it.
"Okay," she began after a while, "There is nothing that you have that I want so for now that will do. I will undagger Elijah and bring him back here if you promise that when all this is done you just let me walk away. Oh, and your pretty little girlfriend comes with."
"No deal." Dean said without even pausing to think. Katherine just shrugged and turned to walk away.
The car journey with Chloe wasn't nearly as awful as Katherine had expected, she was actually beginning to quite like her, she was ruthless and Katherine admired that.
"I know why you wanted me here." Chloe stated after a long silence.
"Really? Why's that?" Katherine asked, feigning innocence.
"I'm a walking, talking blood-bag for you to use to wake Elijah up." Chloe wasn't willing to take any crap, she knew what she was doing when she'd said she would go with Katherine and she'd rather it be her than any random innocent person. Katherine laughed.
"Don't be so melodramatic! Yeah I need your blood, but only a few drops. After that he's on donated blood bags, don't worry."
"Oh." Chloe said, making Katherine laugh again.
"Hey look, I want Klaus dead as much as everybody else and to be honest, you intrigue me. How did you become a hunter anyway?" Katherine asked.
"Long story." Chloe muttered looking out of the window as the scenery flashed by.
"Okay, just curious that's all. Your boyfriend seems to be very protective of you." Chloe's eyes widened as she turned to stare at Katherine.
"Really? You want to talk about my relationship with Dean? I thought you were supposed to be queen bitch around here?" Chloe asked, incredulous. Katherine held her hands up in surrender,
"Sorry, just trying to make conversation. That's what girls do on road-trips isn't it?" Katherine replied, only half joking.
"I wouldn't know." Chloe muttered and turned back to look out of the window.
Katherine knew exactly where the coffin containing Elijah's lifeless body was being stored. She led Chloe straight to it and ripped off the thick, heavy lid as if she was pulling the plastic lid off a yogurt pot and without hesitation she pulled the dagger from his chest and then stepped back and folded her arms across her chest. Nothing happened.
"Oh for the love of God." Katherine sighed after a few minutes. "Give me your hand." She said holding out her hand. Without thinking too much about what she was doing Chloe put her hand in Katherine's and watched as she used the dagger that had minutes before been firmly lodged into Elijah's heart make a small cut across her palm and held it, palm sideways over Elijah's motionless mouth. The blood slowly dripped from Chloe's palm, landed on the vampire's bottom lip and ran into his mouth. It only took about 6 drops before his mouth closed and he swallowed as his lifeless body slowly regained function. Katherine pulled Chloe's hand away,
"You should go and wait in the car." She warned, handing Chloe a small bandage. Chloe nodded and left, she didn't want to risk being vampire lunch if she really didn't have to be.
After very little persuasion Elijah had agreed to travel back to Mystic Falls with Katherine and Chloe to help them with their hybrid problem. He'd listened to Chloe's theory and was impressed by her way of thinking because he'd been searching for a way to kill Klaus for more than a thousand years, and even if he lived a million more he didn't think he'd come up with something like that. They'd arrived back in Mystic Falls with a pretty solid plan in place using Chloe as bait, which she knew Dean would not be happy about, but what choice did they have? Klaus couldn't know that Elijah was alive so it would be down to Chloe, Dean and Sam to lure Klaus to the large house that belonged to Damon and his 'younger' brother Stefan and they had to be quick before Klaus learned that Elijah was no longer in his coffin with a 12 inch dagger in his chest.
Despite careful planning, it turned out that no luring was necessary. Klaus had heard that hunters were in town and had returned to Mystic Falls to massage his own ego and prove that even the most notorious hunters in America could not defeat him. He walked right up to the door of the Salvatore boarding house and rang the bell. After a silent scramble and issuing of commands Damon went to open the front door whilst Dean, Sam and Chloe stood where they would be seen by Klaus as soon as the door was opened and Elijah took a step back around the corner to the hallway. Katherine was long gone and Stefan was nowhere to be seen, probably out trying to protect the human girl Elena from something that she didn't need to be protected from.
"Klaus, what a lovely surprise." Damon greeted him, not lying completely; his arrival was a surprise for sure, but not necessarily a lovely one.
"You must be the supernatural hunters I've heard so much about." Klaus ignored Damon altogether and instead focused on the trio inside the mansion. He walked right over to them, having no trouble entering because the house wasn't owned by humans who would normally have to give a vampire permission to enter. There was no plan and nobody, not even Damon, really know what to do. It was in those few seconds as Klaus strode across the hallway towards them and they were all having their own few moments of panic about what to do next, Elijah stepped from around the corner and barely a second after meeting Klaus' startles gaze Elijah reached out and plunged his hand into his brother's chest and ripped out the heart of the hybrid.
