Authors Note: Thanks to everyone to sent a review ... i love reading them :-)

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Chapter 10. The Hunt Begins

"Dude, are we even close?" Dean asked as he trudged along beside his brother.

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean's complaining. It was, after all Dean's idea to park further away so that the Impala would be hidden.

"It's only been roughly forty five minutes and yes judging by this map I think we are getting close."

"I think we're here." He heard Dean say and looked up to see that they were standing at the edge of a small clearing.

The clearing was surrounded by thick forest and looked like it was frequented by campers and the like.

"Okay. I guess lets take a look at the area." Sam suggested, walking further into the clearing.

Dean nodded and followed his brother in. Dean looked around him and couldn't help but notice how very green it was up in this area of Pikes Peak. He stood still just taking in the scenery when he felt something move just above his ankle and gave a startled yelp when he felt that same something, bite him. He looked down and saw that he had been standing on an ant hill and jumped off it quickly.

Sam turned around, hearing his brothers yelp of pain to see him hoping on one foot trying to brush something off his lower leg.

"Dean what are you doing?"

"Damn ant's. What? There's not enough food around for them so they have to bite me?" He grumbled, standing up straight having brushed off the last of the small ants.

Sam looked down and saw that Dean had been standing on top of an ant hill, "Well you were standing on their home man." He snickered and then walked away to continue his search.

Dean poked his tongue out in Sam's direction in a childish gesture and stomped off in the other direction. This was why he hated camping. They dealt with enough creepy things in their line of work he didn't need creepy crawlies on top of that.

He walked over to the other side of the clearing to where the edge of trees started. The clearing ended with a drop about the height of a 3 story building and then began a climb again. Looking up he saw that the climb made up another small mountain. The drop was just like a humongous ditch with lots of trees, bushes, twigs and other plant life that would make a fall very uncomfortable, to put it mildly.

"Hey Dean, come here." He heard Sam call, so he stopped gazing at the ditch and went over to where his brother was standing near what looked to be an extinguished campfire.

"What?"

"I think we can safely say that we are dealing with a Manticore now." Sam told him holding up something in his hand for Dean to see.

"Is this one of its stings?" he asked grabbing the sting out of Sam's hand and taking a closer look and the long white sting, which was about a foot in length.

"I think so … I know one thing though. That didn't come from a bear."

Dean nodded and pursed his lips and was about to ask Sam if he had found anything else when a sound off to where he found the ditch caught his attention. The brothers exchanged a glance with each other, letting the other know that they had both heard the same thing.

Dean held up a finger to his lips to motion for Sam to remain silent and walked over to where the disturbance had come from. He saw something move slightly in the tree line. Whatever it was, it was too small to be a bear or the Manticore for that matter. Unless the Manticore had cubs, then they would have a whole new situation.

He pulled his berretta out of the waistband of his jeans where he had stashed it during their walk and turned around to see Sam doing the same thing.

Dean moved closer to the tree line and cocked his gun. As soon as the sound of the gun being cocked sounded in the air he heard a human sounding gasp coming from the tree line.

"Hey!" he shouted "Come out here."

"Don't Shoot. It's just me!" a familiar female voice rang out, moments before a person emerged from behind a tree.

Rachel Carter warily made her way out of the forest to stand before Dean and now Sam who had come to stand beside his brother.

"Um … can you point that somewhere else please?" Rachel asked a little unnerved that Dean had yet to put his gun down.

Dean came out of his shocked state and lowered his weapon, putting the safety back on and putting it back in his jeans.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked angrily.

"I'm looking for my husband. What do you think?" She shot back.

"You shouldn't be out here!" he answered back forcefully, "And what the hell were you doing hiding like that? You do realize we could have shot you?"

"For one I have every right to be here. The authorities have done jack about these missing people and I can't sit around doing nothing."

"No actually you don't have the right to be here! You could get yourself killed, which is why the rangers haven't allowed you up here by yourself. It's too dangerous." Dean argued his voice rising.

Sam could see that his brother was getting angrier by the minute and he realized that it was more because he was worried that she might be hurt. He didn't need someone else's life preying on his conscience.

"Where …"

"That's exactly why I was hiding! I finally managed to get up here and when I saw you guys coming I thought you were the rangers so I hid. What the hell is a Manticore?" Rachel interrupted Sam's question.

"Of all the irresponsible …" Dean began another tirade.

"Irresponsible?" Rachel asked astounded, putting her hands on her hips.

"Yeah irresponsible!" Dean stated, "Where's Katie?"

"Not that it's any of your business but a friend I had called turned up last night and she's staying with her at the motel."

Sam watched his brother and Rachel argue back and forth totally absorbed in their argument. This was not the time and the place for this.

He turned around to look behind him when he thought he heard something and saw something that made their day decidedly worse. There, about twenty feet away from where they were standing, stood a single Manticore.

"Dean!" Sam called not to loud, no wanting to send the Manticore into action, but was ignored

"Tell me Detective what would you do if it was someone you loved out here?" Rachel yelled at Dean.

"That's not that point it's too dangerous for you to be out here. We're taking you back NOW!" he said grabbing her arm.

Sam looked back frantically at the Manticore which smile just said 'Dinner'!

The Manticore looked even more intimidating than the pictures he had seen when researching it on the net. It stood at nearly twice the size of Sam and its red lion's body looked strong and powerful. It had a wavy red mane at the base of its long neck and upon the neck sat the head that did indeed looked human.

In Sam's opinion it just looked wrong. Be that as it may it still looked scary as hell and the internet sites weren't lying when they said its mouth stretched from ear to ear. Not only that but, Sam couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like it had three layers of teeth. None of this boded well for them.

Sam watched as the Manticore arched up on its rear legs and pulled it long and powerful tail around to the front of its body, ready to attack. Sam acted on instinct knowing that they were out of time.

"Dean move now!"

"Sam …" Dean turned around in time to see the Manticore standing in the distance before he was cut off as Sam crashed into him, sending him crashing into Rachel.

Dean heard something that sounded like darts flying through the air just before he felt himself crash into Rachel and he knew that things had taken a turn for the worse.

He had never gotten the chance to tell Sam about the humongous ditch that he had found and all three of them had been standing too close to it when Sam tackled him out of the blue.

Dean felt himself lose contact with both Sam and Rachel and fall over the cliff edge. He couldn't help but cry out on the way down as he crashed into branches, rocks and other plant life on his way down. He could hear the same from Rachel somewhere close but he hadn't heard anything from Sam since he took them over the edge.

It wasn't long before he crashed into something hard stopping his momentum. He never felt the body collide into him.

TBC ...

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