"What do you mean it won't work?" Dean yelled.
Samuel sighed, frustrated, "The cure won't work because he fed already. It only works if you drink it before you feed. You said you saw him kill Christian!"
Dean shook his head, "I don't know what I saw. He had blood on his mouth, but maybe it was just the vampire's blood." He slammed his hand against the wall he was standing next to in frustration. "Dammit, what the hell are we supposed to do?"
"We'll find him, Dean." Gwen said. She pushed herself off the wall she'd been leaning against, and walked towards Dean and Samuel. "We've got all their hide-outs mapped out. We've been tracking the vamps here a long time."
Dean shook his head, "Sam knows how to hide. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be."
Samuel shook his head, "He's not your Sam anymore, Dean, he - "
"Shut your mouth - right now, or I'll rip out your friggin' tongue." Dean growled.
Samuel huffed, and held up his hands.
Gwen walked past Dean and said, "We're worried about him too." Then she went back downstairs to the library.
Under Sam's direction, the vampires' supply of humans became a sustainable, reusable resource. Sam tried a few different techniques, figuring out what motivational tool was most effective. He tried pain first. The problem was that demons, by their very nature, were used to torture, and even though Sam could inflict a whole lot of pain, they didn't obey his commands any faster because of it.
Eventually, Sam found that a direct approach worked best. When he had enough demon blood in his system, there were no limits to what Sam could do to them. He could pull them from their hosts, kill them with a thought, and he could take away their free will. Overriding their minds was the most efficient way to get them to do exactly what he wanted, so that's what he did.
Sam took satisfaction in manipulating the demons like puppets (puppets within puppets), and marveled at his own reaction to their expressions when he released them hours later. They were confused, and terrified...and it made Sam happy.
Father was so pleased with Sam's accomplishments, that he offered him a reward - anything he wished.
Sam only hesitated for a moment, before answering. "My brother, Dean. I want to bring him back into our family."
"Dean rejected our gift before."
"And he will again, if we give him the chance." Sam said. "We have to turn him, and feed him right after - otherwise it won't work."
Father looked at Sam strangely and asked, "Is this some vestigial sense of nostalgia, Sam? Why do you want to bring your brother into the fold?"
"If we don't, he will find a way to stop us. I guarantee he's looking for me right now. Plus..." Sam smirked, "He'd be a valuable asset, don't you think?"
"Indeed. He had so much potential." Father nodded, "As you wish. We will bring Dean home, and we'll make sure he stays." He tilted his head and asked, "Have you tried to turn any others?"
"Not since last week."
"Same as the rest?"
Sam nodded, "They look like they're going to turn, but then their veins go black and they die."
Father laughed softly, "A pity. I would so very much enjoy having more children like you." He sliced his wrist open with his nail and offered it to Sam. "Then again, I'm very lucky to have one."
Sam accepted Father's offering eagerly, and reveled in the strength of his blood. He wondered, not for the first time, why Father let him feed so often. From what Sam could tell, most of the others had never had even a single drop of Father's blood.
Dean wasn't half as giddy as Samuel when they figured out where the alpha vampire had gone. There was an enormous nest of vampires hiding out less than twenty miles from the Campbell's compound. After weeks of watching, carefully, from a distance and always during the day - they finally spotted him.
The plan was to sneak up on the vampires' nest. Cars would have been far too loud - they would have been heard from miles away. They were going to walk the last two miles, covering their scent as best as they could with a foul-smelling combination of mud and herbs.
On the final stretch of their long trek, through an empty field, Dean took another swig from his flask, flinching at the burn in his throat. He'd screamed for Castiel for hours, every day and every night with no response, and he'd lost his voice a few times because of it. Every word hurt, but that didn't stop him from screaming, "Look out!" when he saw the first pack of vampires running at them.
There were so many of them - dozens at least, and that was only counting the ones Dean could see. Four of them were running straight at him, and for a moment, he thought he saw Sam, standing twenty feet away, just watching. Dean opened his mouth to scream his brother's name, but couldn't hear his voice over the deafening sound of the four vampires near him, screaming all at once. There was a brilliant white light, and then another, and another. Dean couldn't see anything, and then he felt a horribly familiar sense of vertigo. When he could see again, Castiel was staring at him curiously.
"Cas...what the hell!"
"What were you trying to accomplish? You were outnumbered - twenty to one."
"We were trying to save Sam, and we were gonna take down all the vamps we could. We had a plan, Cas."
Castiel shook his head, "Your plan would have failed."
Dean turned around and looked behind him. "What happened to Samuel? Gwen? All the other hunters I was with?"
"We saved as many as we could. Your family is safe."
Dean scoffed, "No, my family is not safe - Sam is still a goddamn vampire! Why didn't you bring him with us?"
"What would that have accomplished?"
"Well, you could help me try to cure him, for starters!"
"I can't cure vampirism, Dean." Castiel said, and shook his head, "Anyway, that's not what your brother is."
"Excuse you?"
Castiel let out a huff, "Your brother is not a vampire, not entirely."
"Okay, then what happened to him?"
"Back when he was drinking demon blood, his soul was tainted. The more he drank, the darker his soul became, but underneath all of it, I could still see his light."
"But his soul's not in him - you said so yourself."
"Exactly." Castiel looked down at the floor briefly, and then backup at Dean, "Dean...Sam has been drinking human blood...and demon blood."
Dean nodded, "Great. That makes me feel somuch better."
"When a human becomes a vampire, it is more than a physiological change. That's why your grandfather's cure only works before they make their first kill. It isn't the biological change that transforms them - it's the metaphysical change. The act of taking a life - it mutilates the soul, allowing the vampirism to change the soul into something inhuman."
"Okay, so what does that mean for Sam?"
"He has no soul. Whatever he is...it isn't a vampire. It's something new."
Sam didn't think he could feel rage anymore. He was wrong. Seeing Dean taken right out from under him by that angel made something in him snap.
He didn't remember anything beyond the feel of his fangs piercing skin over and over, the taste of blood in his mouth, the feel of power - constant but never enough (never enough). There were screams and there were hands on his arms - trying to stop him, trying to pull him away from the blood, but they weren't nearly as strong as he was, and they couldn't break his hold. They couldn't stop him, and he didn't want to stop...not until he heard Father's voice, and smelled his blood.
"Sam. This isn't what you need."
Sam pulled away from the flesh and looked down at who he was holding. It was Felicia, one of his sisters. He dropped her to the ground and she clutched at her throat, coughing weakly. There were other bodies on the ground next to her - four, six, nine...Sam stopped counting and turned to face Father.
"Come here, child." Father held out his bleeding arm.
Much later, Sam woke in one of his rooms, lying on the floor. He blinked up into the overhead light and then sat up, leaning against the wall. The five demons he'd kept in this room were dead. The bodies they'd been in were torn to shreds and completely exsanguinated. The air smelled like sulfur and ozone - just like it always did when Sam burned demons from their hosts. He didn't remember draining them, but he felt their power in his veins, and the all-consuming hunger from earlier had faded into a low, dull ache.
The door opened, and Father walked in. He smiled at Sam and asked, "Are you feeling better?"
"I think so." Sam stood up, and added, "What was that? What happened to me?"
Father laughed softly, "You were upset. I believe seeing Dean taken from you may have been the cause."
Sam's lip twitched. "Castiel."
"One of the angels?"
"Yes."
"Tell me, why did angels save your brother and his hunter-friends?"
Sam shook his head, "I'm sure they have their reasons."
"I made you a promise, Sam. We will bring Dean into the fold. If we have to fight angels off to do so...then so be it."
"How many did we lose?"
"Too many..." Father said grimly, "but those that survived are relocating. We'll have to leave this place and go to another shelter. One far harder to find."
Sam nodded, "We should leave tonight."
