"Why do you need our help?" Dean asks suspiciously. "You want us to catch the bastard just so you can talk us out of killing it? Cuz once I start I don't stop."

"We'll do our best to help, whatever your reason," Sam promises, sidestepping his brother's rudeness.

"Thing is, I've been after it for awhile. And more and more people are dying. Particularly gruesome deaths, not clean-cut and drained out neatly, as I've seen before. And no one going missing, no one being turned, leastways that I know of. Why you boys? Well, word on the hunter circuit has it that you're good. So good that you're on some of those hunters' lists." Sam and Dean exchange grave looks. "But don't you worry, young fellas, I only brought you here with the best of intentions. I presume you checked me out with Bobby Singer before you hitched your asses on up here?"

Sam nods. "Bobby's like a father to us."

"Or a God..." Dean mutters under his breath.

"Yeah, he'd've been my first pick, only I know he likes to stick around his own territory if at all possible. But you two are a regular pair of honeymooners, as I take it."

"A travelling freak show," Dean says with a smile.

"Well good," is Charlie's reply.

The creak of the front door made all three of them slap a hand to their respective weapon of choice.

"Oh, it's my daughter, Bella! Come in here. There's someone I want you to meet."

"Kind of busy, Dad. I'm going right out again."

"I'm so glad she's found some friends," Charlie says as an aside to the Winchester brothers. Dean nods in mock understanding while Sam gives a sympathetic smile. "They're old friends, Bella. You can go out right after!"

Sam and Dean look at each other in suspicion as they hear a rustling and a murmur at the front door before the girl closes it behind her and bounces into the room.

"Okay, Dad, I'm here. Can we get this over with? I have something important to do."

"Bella, this is Sam, Dean." The two nod, the first curtly, the second awkwardly, as their names are called. Holy hell! Dean thinks, then curses himself for using those evil words. But holy – matrimony? This woman is hot...

He can almost hear Sam's parental voice break into his thoughts. Not now, Dean. And not with a hunter's kid. I mean, I'm sensitive to your needs right now, because of the whole Jo thing, but –

Shut up, Sam. And would you relax? There's no crime to me pasting her head on the porno that plays circuitously in my head –

Circuitously?

What, like you wouldn't enjoy intellectual porn. I'm not gonna bugger The Hunter's Daughter. My Favourite Aunt already gave me a mouthful about that. Then again...

Bella is staring at him expectantly. "Snap out of it, bro. Look Dad, a friend is waiting for me outside, and –"

"A friend?" Sam asks. "I mean, we'd love to meet this friend of yours, too, I mean, if you're up for it."

"I've got a couple more beers in the fridge," Charlie says with a tempting smile.

"He doesn't drink," Bella says quickly, backing up slowly, hoping no one will notice her progression back toward the front door.

"Well, there's a first time for everything!" Dean cries merrily. "Bring in the initiate!"

"I don't think he'd want to..." Bella stalls, glancing behind her nervously.

"You don't know until you try," Sam adds with a friendly smile. He got a bad feeling about this friend as soon as Bella got home. Maybe it was the air of coldness that rushed through the door when they opened it. Or maybe it was nothing other than simple familiarity...

"Fine." The raven young lady stamps out of the room, leaving a lovestruck Dean, a quietly brooding Sam, and a happy-go-lucky Charlie, thrilled that his daughter would join him for longer than five minutes.

The utter paleness of the face presented before them is not the only dead giveaway of his subhuman status, Dean notes, horrified that his newest ravenous beauty should be seen in the company of such...thingness. There's also that glint in his eye. And...

...the smell. The blood lining the esophagus and the back of the guy's throat is something Sam can sense with ease now, being the fellow blood-drinker he is. Sometimes it was just a guy with a really bad, under-cooked burger on his palate, sometimes an uppity young professional trying to look savvy by ordering the steak tartare. And it's definitely an animal besides human, Sam can tell as he sniffs a little closer. But no restaurant to his knowledge has a menu that serves an entire raw cow.

"Sam," Dean mutters, tightening his grip on the machete hanging loosely by his jeans. "He's –"

Sam almost panics. Dean's going to let the cat out of the bag. What can he do? Uh... "– vegetarian?" Sam breaks in.