Chapter 2 – Misdirection

"I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top."

John Keats

5 years later

The young women's eyes darted around nervously as she increased her pace, heels tapping out a quick nervous staccato on the concrete pavement, head turning this way and that, trying to pierce the darkness that lay between the sickly, dim glow of the street lights on this narrow street. Under her breath she cursed the local authority for not maintaining the street lights in the area; many were broken, resulting areas of deep shadow where she could just about see the pale grey pavement beneath her feet and not much else. Behind her a garbage can rattled startling her. She tried to tell herself it was a just a cat or big rat but she knew she was only kidding herself. The dim street light threw disjointed images onto the narrow dank buildings that populated this street – humanoid shapes but wildly exaggerated into grotesque monsters with over long arms and misshapen heads. They were coming.

Stifling a sob she increased her pace once more, conscious not to break into a run. That was what they wanted. They wanted to see her panic, to see her break and once she did they would be on her.

Dean was more of a late seventies through eighties kind of guy but at the moment he had a certain appreciation for the sixties or more specifically the part of the sixties that invented the mini-skirt. The current object of his attention was a group of sorority girls from the local university who seemed to have adopted the mini skirt as a uniform and were all competing to have the shortest one.

He was currently chatting up the winner who as it turns out was doing a PhD in Folklore. He was amusing himself by listening to her theories on how the existence of various rare mythical creatures could be disproved, including about ten that he had not only personally encountered but had done quite a bit to make sure that they stayed rare.

His enjoyment was further enhanced by the fact that she had just devoted a full 10 minute tirade to the "myth" of vampires when in fact there was a group of about seven of them standing not 10 feet away from her.

From the way that they angled their heads towards them Dean knew that they had heard her too. Dean knew that he would have to take this girl home tonight – just to keep her safe from this group who would undoubtedly love to teach her that vampires actually do exist – ah the perks of the job he grinned to himself.

Just as he turned to catch Sammy's eye across the bar to let him know that they may have a situation, his attention was caught by a slight young women with black hair making her way over to the group of vamps in the corner. She leaned down and whispered in the ear of the one that Dean had already clocked as the leader. The tall vampire stiffened and seemed to question the newcomer intently. Apparently satisfied with her responses he gave a quick jerk of his head and as one they rose and made for the exit. Dean's eyes narrowed – his amusement and relaxed demeanour gone as he tracked the vamps across the bar. In the corner of his eye he could see Sam hurriedly sliding his laptop into his bag and getting to his feet. Dean gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head towards the fire exit on the opposite side of the bar from the exit the vamps used. Sammy caught his meaning and changed track to move towards the rear door.

Dean made a quick excuse to his drinking partner and hurried over to Sam. He reckoned she would be safe enough now that the vamps attention was caught by something else.

Dean and Sam slipped out the exit and ran over to the where the Impala was parked across the alley.

As Dean slid in behind the wheel Sam said – "I think they headed east towards Old Town"

Dean spun the car in a tight circle as they tore off in the direction of the old quarter of the city. Sam stared intently out of the window trying to catch a glimpse of their quarry.

"You know – we haven't actually discovered if these are human killing type of vampires or the "we just want a normal life" kind. We haven't seen them do anything yet and there are no unusual missing persons reports in this area" Sam said as he continued to peer into the gloomy night.

"I know Sam, but in fairness – are we ever that lucky? Of all the vampires we've meet how many have been of the hippie, happy, let's hold hands with humanity kind?"

"True" Sam chuckled grimly. "But let's not start knocking off heads before we find out okay Dean?"

"That proof enough for you Sammy boy?"

Sammy turned to where Dean was pointing to see a young woman dash out between two buildings. She was running full tilt and throwing frantic looks over her shoulder into the alley way behind her. As Sam looked five shapes appeared in the alley way behind her and he could just make out four more on the roof tops of the buildings around them and three others including the tall vampire from the bar approach her from the other direction.

Dean gunned the engine and the muscle car jumped forward, racing towards the girl as she tripped and fell onto the wet pavement. As he slammed on the brakes causing the car to spin to face round in the other direction, broadside to the pavement, Sam reached behind him and popped the lock on the back door – swinging it open and narrowly missing the girls head as she looked up from where she was sprawled on the ground.

"Get in" Sam shouted at her as Dean revved the engine, keeping a close eye on the group surrounding them. The vampires howled as they realised that their prey was about to escape them and started sprinting towards the car.

The woman didn't hesitate but leapt forward to land across the back seat as Sam twisted to pull the door closed behind her as Dean peeled off down the street, heading for the more populated and brightly lit parts of town and away from their attackers.

Once they were safely away from the area Sam turned to look at their shivering back seat passenger as Dean watched through the rear view mirror.

"Hi" he said softly. "I'm Sam and this is my brother Dean. Are you okay, are you injured?

The girl just looked at him through wide shocked eyes and slowly looked around the car.

"What's your name?" Sammy tried again softly.

"Maeve" came the shaky reply. "What was wrong with those people? Their faces – their teeth"

Sam shot a quick glance at Dean. "Em" he hesitated. "Look, I don't want to scare you but those things were vampires. Do you know why they were chasing you?"

The girl looked incredulously at Sam

"Vampires – what are you talking about? What is the matter with you? You are crazy. I just nearly got mugged that's all. Who are you anyway? Why did you help me?"

Sam shot Dean a look. He really didn't want to upset the girl more than she already was so he just shrugged and said "we were passing".

The girl continued to look suspicious so Dean chipped in with "we saw those guys chasing you. There were twelve of them and at this hour of the night, in this part of town we didn't think they wanted to give you a hug".

Sam asked her gently "did they say anything to you? Did they say why they were chasing you?"

The girl continued to look suspiciously from Sam to Dean. "No they weren't real chatty, they just said something about being hungry which I took to mean that they were after money."

Sam felt slightly relieved that there seemed to be no ulterior motive to this attack other than the normal food one. Still though, something wasn't quite right about this whole thing. He was distracted from his thoughts by Dean asking the girl where she lived so they could drop her off.

"Across town – 53rd and Lexington."

The rest of the journey passed in silence – Sam trying to figure out what exactly was bothering him about this evening, Dean singing along softly with the radio and the girl – Maeve – staring suspiciously from one to the other.

Sam was momentarily struck by how strange it was that Dean was singing with a stranger in the car. He only usually did it either alone or when Sam was there, in fact come to think of it he didn't do it with John either. Sam realised that Dean was picking up on exactly how freaked this girl was and was trying in his own way to calm the atmosphere in the car.

Casting a look over his shoulder and smiling reassuringly at the young woman under the pretext of asking her if she was warm enough, Sam realised just how tense the girl was. She was sitting ram rod straight on the edge of the seat, twisting her fingers together, eyes continuously darting from left to right as she took in the route Dean was taking back to her apartment.

Sam was slightly confused by her nervousness; normally the people they rescued from whatever creature they were hunting were so relived to be safe that they became almost chatty and overly familiar with them. Sam was also aware of the effect his brother had on people. Dean emitted waves of reassurance – it just took one look at Dean with his game face on, that face that said - I am totally in control, I know what to do, you can trust me, I will save you or die trying – and people were calmed. Hell even Sam was reassured by that look and had been since he was a kid.

However Dean's reassurance mojo was appearing to have zero effect on this girl hence the singing. Dean had picked up on the girls mistrust and nervousness and was trying in his own way to reassure her that everything was going to be alright. Sam smiled to himself, for all his bluntness and insistence on no touchy feely crap; Dean was trying his best to put this girl at ease.

The traffic was light as they made their way across town to the more affluent, better lit part of the city. The girl had unwound a little, and although she kept up her watchful vigilance she had at least relaxed enough to rest against the soft old leather of the impala's back seat. As a result, Sam and Dean were totally taken by surprise when, as they slowed for a red light, the girl leapt for the door of the Impala, wrenched it open and dashed from the car down a nearby alleyway.

"Maeve" Sam called as he threw open his own door and made to chase after her.

"Let her go man" Dean said as he grabbed Sam's arm tugging him back down into the Impala. "We are at least 5 miles from where we picked her up and only a block from 53rd and Lexington. She'll be fine. They are not going to chase her all the way into this part of town just for food."

"Yeah – I guess you are right Dean but something about this doesn't add up. Why were 12 vamps hunting her? Usually they hunt in much smaller groups and you saw what happened at the bar. They all left when that small vamp with the dark hair reported in. It's almost like they were looking for her"

"Who knows Sammy? We don't really know that much about vampires. We've only hunted them a few times. Maybe hunting in large groups is not that unusual or maybe this particular group like to scare their victims to death. We can ask them tomorrow while we're chopping heads."

"I guess."

Maeve crouched at the entrance to the alleyway looking at the Impala as it sped off. Good – she was hoping that her nervous act coupled with them only being a block from the address she had given them would make them think that she had just been freaked by the whole night and wasn't too keen on allowing two strangers to know exactly where she was living.

To be honest she was a little spooked. She hadn't realised that the vamps were aware that she was in the city. She had obviously been spotted sometime over the last two days. As a result, she had been totally unprepared when they had found her tonight. She cursed her own foolishness. Months of planning could have all have been wasted if they had gotten her tonight before she was ready. Well lesson learned. She would have to move her plans up to tomorrow. She knew that once they were aware that she was in the city they wouldn't rest until they had found her. She paused for moment to see if she felt a thrill of fear or apprehension for her plans and then smiled humourlessly to herself, of course she didn't. If she felt anything it was relief. Soon this would be over and she could join her family and be back exactly where she was supposed to be.

Look around her carefully she back tracked a mile or two of the distance covered by the Impala moving through alleyways and trying to avoid been seen from the street. Stopping only to retrieve a rucksack from behind a dumpster she made her way to a cluster of abandoned warehouses on the edge of Old Town.

Jimmying open a window, she climbed swiftly through and dropped with a soft thud to the dusty floor of the building. Stepped carefully over the ring of salt and occult symbols drawn in chalk on the factory floor she dropped onto the ratty old sleeping back in the centre of the rings. Almost immediately she felt her eyes close, heavy with sleep. It had been a long day and she'd need all her strength for tomorrow. And so she slept, a small figure in a tiny circle of candle light surrounded by the dank encroaching darkness of the vast empty warehouse.