Chapter 2
"I'm telling you, man, it's a vampire that sparkles in the sun," Dean says for the third time.
"Dean, you idjit, what've you been drinkin'?" Bobby hollers. "Put your brother on the damn phone!"
Sam's trying to type furiously with the laptop balanced on his knees. He sets it carefully on the seat, takes the phone Dean's shoving at him, and braces his other hand on the dashboard while the Impala careens around a curve on two wheels. "Bobby. It's a vampire. It sparkles."
There's a long silence. "Go back to your motel and lock yourselves in," Bobby barks. "Lemme make some calls."
He disconnects. Sam closes the cell phone. "I don't think he believes us."
Dean snorts and presses harder on the accelerator.
"Ellen? Bobby Singer."
"Bobby! What can I do for you?"
"Those fool Winchester boys've got themselves mixed up in somethin' weird. Got any idea what would make 'em hallucinate sparkly vampires?"
"…Nothing I've ever heard of, outside a three-day tequila bender. You did say…?"
"Yeah, vampires that goddamn sparkle. In the sun, apparently. Both of 'em are sayin' it, an' Dean mighta thrown in a 'glittery' and a 'twinklin' for good measure. Downright unsettlin'."
"They aren't in upstate New York, are they? I heard there's some kind of fae infestation at a petting zoo up there."
"Nah, they were lookin' into suspicious wild animal deaths in Washington State. Bodies by the dozen, all in the same area, all of 'em drained of blood."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wild animals? Big ones?"
"Yeah, whole packs of wolves, mountain lions, bears… You got somethin'?"
"Maybe. Bill and I crossed paths with a guy once, dealt with some strange polar bear deaths up in the Yukon. When he tracked down the killer, he swore he-- or it-- glittered in the sunlight. Let me see if I still have his info around."
"You might not be hallucinatin' after all," Bobby says when Dean answers his phone.
"Never thought we were."
"Got in touch with a guy who ran across somethin' like what you're seein', few years back. Ex-Royal Canadian Mounted Police, up in the Yukon. Didn't take kindly to polar bears turnin' up dead and bled dry all over his territory."
"Like the animals around here."
"Yup. So he went after this thing, cornered it on a cliff ledge. Said it looked human, but anything that could kill an angry momma polar bear bare-handed probably wasn't. Then it stepped outta the cliff shadow and the Mountie said it lit up like the Northern Lights."
"Told you. Sparkly. Ass. Vampire."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Any case, Mountie has some theory about secretions leakin' out the skin an' crystallizin'. Somethin' about lickin' slugs when he was a boy-- don't ask."
"But he was able to kill it."
"Finally. Said his partner pumped the thing full of bullets, slowed it down enough that he hacked its head off."
"The usual with vampires then, even though they sparkle."
"Not quite-- Mountie did say the parts wouldn't stop twitchin', an' I never heard of a vampire behavin' like that. This is some weird-ass mutant bloodsucker you stumbled on."
"Great. So how do we finish it off?"
"Mountie said he chopped it up and burned the pieces, burned 'em down to ash."
"Okay, so here's a list of funeral homes in the area," Sam says, tearing off a sheet of motel paper and holding it up. Dean's too busy peeking out a crack in the curtains to notice, so he flaps the paper noisily until his brother leaves his post and circles around to take it. "And the morgue is at the local hospital, so we can try there next if we have to."
"Yeah, okay. After dark tonight." Dean goes back to the window and presses his head flat against the wall, squinting out the narrow gap behind the drapes.
"Y'know, if this thing is as tough as Bobby says, regular bolts might not be enough." Sam watches Dean cross to the other side of the window and peer out at the parking lot.
"I saw a sporting goods store just outside of town. Maybe we can pick up heavy-duty bolts for the crossbow."
"Might be a little specialized for Forks, Washington, but we can check."
Dean goes into the bathroom and Sam can hear him fooling with the tiny window on the back wall, opening and closing its frosted-glass louvres. He comes back in the main room and paces back and forth between the beds.
"Why are you so twitchy?"
"That thing's got my scent. And I didn't like the way it looked at me."
"Oh, this isn't gonna be like that time in New York, is it?"
Dean sits on his bed and folds his arms. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do. That guy with the curly hair, looked like he stepped out of GQ? You said he was trailing you around all the bars."
"He kept whispering shit about a 'traveling orgy'!"
"Right, right. And when his boyfriend finally got fed up and dragged him away, what was it he had again? Feathers?"
"Wings. Swear to god he had wings. And you didn't need to cut off all the booze for the week."
"Just looking out for my big brother. Hey, I think we should hit Stiva's Funeral Parlor first-- their website says they've got a viewing on Monday."
"Doh, Edwud," Bella moans. "I don' doh how I manid widdoud you."
Edward pets her forehead, his cold fingers more efficient than an icepack. "You don't manage, you silly darling, that's the problem. Whyever did you leave the house on your own?"
Bella scrunches her face and thinks hard. The day is a featureless blur of sad-empty-empty-pavement-ow!-hot guy!-cute guy!-sad-EDWARD. "I… I don' rebember." She burrows into the marble god reclining in her bed, being careful not to dislodge the cylinders of gauze protruding from each of her nostrils.
"Next time you want to do something as foolhardy as window-shopping, let me know first. I nearly popped my fangs when Alice got the vision of you falling. I had to risk the sunlight to come to you." He settles against the headboard with a tender yet stone-hard and ice-cold arm around her shoulders.
"Yes, Edwud." Bella sighs and nuzzles closer. Edward's staring into the distance, a slight frown marring the pallid perfection of his brow. She rests against him as he lies still as a corpse, her chin slowly going numb on the slab of his chest.
Finally Bella can stand the brooding silence no longer. "Edwud? Are you bad ad be?" she asks in a tiny, pitiful voice.
"I could never be angry with you, precious." Edward turns to her and she gasps. His eyes, his ardent amber orbs, have darkened to an ominous ocher! "But as you can see, both my ire and my hunger have been awakened."
"Bud I told you how by blood god on thad hod guy's jagged!" Bella whines.
Edward's eyes narrow to gleaming slits of smoked glass. "Bella, my dear one, why do you keep referring to him as 'hot'?"
"Because he was!" Bella exclaims. "Though nod as hod as you, ob course," she adds hastily.
"Of course." Edward scowls broodily some more. "I must go hunting," he announces, and Bella gasps and whimpers at the very thought of another day without the glittering sun of her universe. He clasps her hand to his chest, over the dead spot where his heartbeat would be. "It is for your own safety-- remember, I find the scent of your blood intoxicating. But if you promise you won't leave Alice's side until I return, I'll take you on a picnic tomorrow afternoon."
Bella bounces up and down on the bed, clapping her hands in delight. Picnics are so romantic! Her enthusiastic jouncing shakes loose one of the gauze plugs in her nose; a trickle of blood follows. Edward's eyes darken further and he draws back with a hiss.
Bella merely beams radiantly at him. "I trud you, by lub."
But he springs up and across the room in a single fluid bound. "I must go. Be strong and behave, my little freesia sprig."
Picnics are romantic, Bella thinks, even picnics where one half of the couple doesn't eat food and the other half has a puffy nose and two black eyes, even picnics where the ground is soggy and the sky is overcast and the breeze is cold. Still, she intends this to be the utmost perfect and romantic picnic ever.
Alice arrives just as Charlie is heading out the door for another day of fishing-- he thinks the picnic is a girls-only outing, and Bella sees no reason to actually tell her father the truth-- and she is loaded down with grocery bags.
"How did you find a store open before nine on a Sunday morning?" Bella asks.
"I had a vision of your picnic, so I drove out to that 24-hour megamart last night," Alice trills in her music-box-ballerina voice. She pirouettes across the kitchen like a ballerina, too, and begins laying out her purchases on the counter.
Alice directs Bella in constructing the daintiest tea sandwiches Bella's ever seen, while she forms tiny flowers out of melon slices, melts white chocolate for dipping strawberries, and folds napkins into swans. Everything is going well-- Bella is actually having fun without Edward plastered to her side-- until it comes time to pack up the food.
"You don't have a picnic basket?" Alice asks, voice ringing with tragic disbelief.
"No, but Charlie has a whole collection of coolers!" Bella skips to the back porch.
Charlie does have a whole collection of coolers-- one even has yellow and pink Hawaiian flowers on it, which Bella finds quite festive-- and every one of them reeks of old bait.
"Hasn't your father ever heard of bleach?" Alice asks when she has finished retching like a bulimic music-box ballerina.
"Probably not." Bella feels her lower lip begin to tremble. Nothing to carry the food in-- the picnic is ruined, before it even began! How can this happen to her? She and Edward have more obstacles thrown in their path than Romeo and Juliet! Tears well in her eyes at the injustice of it all.
Alice leaps to the rescue. "Cover everything in plastic wrap and tuck it in the icebox. We'll go to Newton's Outfitters and buy picnic gear!" she cries in rallying tones.
By the time they reach Newton's, Alice has another list-- not just a picnic kit is needed, but a waterproof groundcloth, pillows to lounge on, an umbrella, a firepit to keep Bella warm. Not to mention a wheeled tote to transport it all. She's debating the romantic possibilities of purchased marshmallow toasting forks versus traditional sticks, and Bella is trying to explain that Charlie forbade her from toasting anything over an open flame after that one summer when, well… and then they pull in to the parking lot.
The early-morning fishing and boating customers have already been and gone, and there's only one other car in the lot, a big black one Bella thinks vaguely she might recognize from somewhere. Alice frowns.
"Edward gave strict orders for me to protect you. Wait here until I make sure everything's safe inside."
"What could possibly be dangerous about Newton's?" Bella asks, mystified.
"I don't know, but Edward has a way of going on and on and on if I don't follow his orders, so let me check, please?"
Bella sighs and nods and leans back into the buttery softness of the expensive car's seat and then she reaches up and twists the rear-view mirror so she can see the Outfitter's door and Alice dancing lightly across the puddled lot toward it.
Several minutes later Alice waves to Bella, so she gets out and goes to join her.
The parking lot is heavily potholed, and one day of sunshine wasn't enough to dry up the deep puddles. Bella picks her way nervously between the pools of water, trying not to lose her balance and tumble in.
Just before she reaches the entrance, she hears a placid quacking, and a mother duck marches out of the shrubbery with a parade of tiny ducklings trailing behind.
"Oh! How cute!" Bella cannot restrain herself. She rushes forward, intent on picking up and cuddling the yellowest, fluffiest one. But as she swoops down on the adorable creature, she accidentally kicks aside one of its siblings.
Alice flits through Newton's. There are no gas leaks, no open flames. As long as she keeps Bella away from the knife case, there are no sharp edges. The ladies' room floor is not wet and the only two customers are talking quietly in the bowhunting aisle. Alice goes back to signal Bella, taking note of where the propane camp stoves are so she can guide the dear child away from them.
Bella exits the car without mishap, so Alice wanders into the barbeque and picnic supplies. Oh, look! One basket has a ruffled liner printed with smiling fruit! But the other one comes with a matching tablecloth in old-fashioned red-and-white checks! Alice can't decide which is more romantic and she looks around impatiently for Bella.
Outside, a cacophony of enraged quacking erupts. Alice jumps. From a few aisles over she hears "The hell is that?" She follows the sound of hurried footsteps to the front.
The two customers are looking out the glass door, blocking her view. Bella doesn't appear to be in the store, and alarm fills Alice. There's an awful lot of flapping out there.
"Oh, crap!" the shorter guy says. "It's that girl again!" He backs up, bumping Alice. "Sorry," he says, still backing away.
The taller one can't retreat without stepping on Alice. He gives the other one a death glare and says, "Oh, no."
"Oh, yes. I dealt with her last time."
Alice can see past the tall guy now, and there's a whole flock of ducks flapping and squawking and diving around the head of…
"Bella!" Alice wails.
The tall guy shoots another, deadlier glare at his friend. He takes a deep breath, gets a good grip on the doorframe, and flings open the door.
The ducks are deafening. Over the din, a plaintive cry can barely be heard. "Alice! Help me, Alice!"
He leans way out the door, seizes Bella's arm, and hauls her inside.
"Bella!" Alice reaches for Edward's beloved. She's a bit mud-splattered, but at least there's no blood. She looks dazed, though, and keeps shaking her head as if her brain has rattled loose.
Before Alice can comfort her, Bella gazes up at her rescuer. She blinks and takes a breath. Slowly, she begins to tip toward him.
"Um," he says, and his eyes get big and then he does some kind of quick stiff-arm spin thing with Bella so she ends up pressed against Alice. "Here's-your-friend-take-care-goodbye." He squeezes past them so fast there's a breeze.
"There, there." Alice pats Bella's back. "There, there. I'm going to think happy thoughts so Edward doesn't come roaring back here." She looks at the nearest display and thinks fiercely about mosquito repellant so Bella doesn't get sucked dry before Edward has the chance to turn her.
"You should've seen your face!"
"Shut up."
"In fact, you should see your face right now!"
"Just… Dean, just go buy the stupid bolts so we can get out of here, okay?"
Sam keeps checking behind him, but that girl and her friend are off squealing about happy fruit or something. Dean's considering the merits of crossbow accessories-- the extra-heavy bolts, or the ones with the razor-sharp tips? and what kind of predator problem does Forks have anyway, that the sporting goods store offers a choice?-- and Sam gets fed up.
"Just get them all!" He snatches both packages out of Dean's hands, snags the ones hanging from the pegs, and bundles the lot of them into his arms.
Dean raises his eyebrows. "All of 'em? They're pricey."
"Why not? You're the one always saying 'It's not our money'. Hurry up."
"Now who's twitchy?" But he follows Sam to the register.
The elegant woman at the check-out takes her damn sweet time, beaming and commenting they must be new in town and asking if they're staying for the fishing tournament, and Dean's playing along just to be a pain in the ass. Sam stifles the urge to tell her the tournament's why they're buying crossbow equipment, and instead glances casually around the store.
The two girls are by the camping equipment now. The clumsy one's holding onto a basket with both hands and the tiny one has a groundcloth rolled beneath one arm. Sam can't tell what they're looking at, but there's still a clear path to the door so it's okay. He nudges Dean. "Hurry up! They're on the move!"
"He's like a two-year-old," Dean says to the woman and smiles at her as he props one elbow on the counter. That's all the prompting she needs-- she pauses in the middle of running the credit card and starts gushing about cherry blossoms or some damn thing. Dean's refusing to make eye contact with him, so Sam sneaks another peek at the girls.
Shit. The little one's studying portable grills-- she's going to light a fire near that walking menace?-- and there's no sign of her friend. Sam strolls across the store, but he can't see her anywhere. He checks behind him, and in the few seconds he's making sure she isn't sneaking up on him, something rumbles.
There's a hollow 'boom', and the floor shakes. "Owwwch!" a girl shrieks.
"Bella!"
"Sam!"
"Your turn!" he yells back.
The epicenter seems to be on the far side of the register. Sam waits until Dean's cursing fades out a little before he dares to follow.
Bella's sprawled on the floor next to a tall metal display rack, a halo of soft brown feathers wafting gently around her head. A two-person canoe is lying bottom-up nearby, its pretty blue side dented.
"Bella, Bella, oh Bell-lla!"
Alice comes streaking down the aisle. Sam presses back against the endcap display to let her pass, and two things leap out at him. The first is that she's got the same freaky dun-colored eyes as Spangle Boy out there on the roadway-- at the moment, they're bugged out with worry, so it's not hard to notice.
And the second is apparent as Alice flits around the end of the aisle, past Sam and the display of lamps at his back. There are a couple of different desk lamps, a table lamp in the shape of a leaping salmon with its big fishy mouth gaping open, and some work lights with handles for hanging over work spaces. Some of them are plugged in, and all of them have the new lightbulbs advertised on the sign taped to the top shelf.
Lightbulbs that mimic natural sunlight.
The sign jabbing the back of Sam's shoulders lists a lot of health and practical benefits of lightbulbs that reproduce sunlight in your home, but it doesn't include the most important one as far as he's concerned-- that they make weird-ass mutant vampires sparkle just as if they were outside on a sunny day.
Alice flies past and the side of her face blinks on with a crystalline shimmer and then off again. She's rushing at Bella, and at the moment Bella's got her arms locked tight around Dean's neck and is trying to drag him down to the floor with her.
He's a little too preoccupied to notice what's bearing down on him. Sam grabs a hockey stick out of a big wooden bin. "Dean! Get away from her!"
"Trying!"
The woman from the register is crouched by the canoe, frowning and saying, "Oh, Bella, dear, are you all right?" very absently. Bella's chin is quivering and her eyes are brimming with tears and she's whimpering weakly, but she's still got an iron grip around Dean's neck and he's going under fast.
Sam steps up, reluctant to get in range of Bella and trying to keep an eye on Alice, when she darts in, slides her stark white hand beneath Bella's, and twists. Bella's grip pops loose and Alice shoves Dean aside, hard.
"Let go of dear Bella!" she hisses. She gathers the other girl into her arms and pats her back. "There, there. You poor thing."
Sam grabs a fistful of Dean's jacket and hauls him backward, keeping the hockey stick leveled on the seated girls. Dean scrambles up, rubbing his throat, and he sees what Sam's holding.
"Poke her!" he wheezes.
Sam shakes his head, pointing the stick at Alice. "Not the klutz, her! Dean, she sparkles!"
Alice whips her head up and her beautiful face twists with an ugly snarl. Sharp teeth glisten. "You tried to hurt Edward's beloved."
"You've got that backwards, sweetheart. She tried to strangle me." Dean slaps Sam's arm. "What do you think that hockey stick's gonna do, shoot blue sparks? Back up toward the door. Hey, lady!" He directs his voice toward the woman, who's still inspecting the dented canoe. "Think I can take my gear and go?"
She waves one hand. "Your card's probably gone through. I think Mike can hammer out the dents," she muses.
Alice is still cuddling Bella, but her gaze stays fixed on Dean the entire time he scoops up the bolts and hurries from the store. A low growl, almost inaudible over Bella's choked sobs, vibrates her throat.
Sam's just outside, shotgun in hand. "I told you to hurry up! But no, you had to be chatty!"
"Yeah, well, now we know we're dealing with a whole nest, don't we? And because I was chatting? I know who they are and where they live."
With apologies to: Paul Gross, Rob Thurman, Jim Butcher.
