Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 14

Darien scowled at the news article that had flashed into his email. They knew the Winchesters holed up somewhere in Northern Kansas, but no one knew exactly where, or if they did, they weren't talking. He had subscribed to every newspaper in the area, like he always did when they started a hunt. Tammy was watching traffic cams and local security feeds, hoping to spot Sam shopping somewhere, but Northern Kansas was mostly rural and didn't have much in the way of surveillance cameras.

The article in his email contained details of the first violent murder the area had seen in...well, a while. There wasn't much data on the crime statistics in the area available online. These people kept to themselves for the most part and that worked in the Winchesters' favor. He scanned the lines of the article, his frown deepening. A man had been killed, throat ripped out by a wild animal according to the police report, but this area didn't have much that could take down a grown man and Darien couldn't imagine the Winchesters allowed anything supernatural to survive for long in their vicinity.

"Hol-eee shit!"

Darien's head jerked up at Tammy's exclamation.

"He's alive!"

"Who's alive?" Darien abandoned his own laptop to join Tammy at hers. She angled the screen so he could see and pressed play on a grainy security cam feed outside of a shopping center that held a bank and a laundromat. The footage clearly showed Dean Winchester entering the laundromat in filthy, gore soaked clothes and later leaving again in different, clean clothes.

"If he's alive, then Sam won't have a reason to come after you," Darien said with a broad grin. Tammy nodded, but continued scowling at the footage. Something felt off about it.

"Where IS Sam? Dean looks like he's cleaning up after a hunt, but a place like that? It's too open. He didn't have those clean clothes with him when he went in, so he must have stolen them. He's acting like he's on the run. Why?"

Darien scowled and returned to his screen. He scanned the article still on display again.

"Weren't you hunting a vampire with them?"

"Sort of? It wasn't like any vampire I've ever run across, but it had fangs and it drank my blood, so...close enough."

Darien sat back in his chair, eyes closed in thought, mind churning.

"I think...I think maybe you did kill Dean...or gave him a death wound, at least. What if the vampire turned him? I think he's gone native."

Tammy watched the footage again, scowling.

"If he's gone native, Sam should be hunting him...but Sam wouldn't kill his own brother. Those two...they walk through hell for each other. On a shockingly regular basis."

"Which means, we have to do it. I think Dean may have already killed one person." He turned his own laptop around to show her the article. "He's feeding. If he's killed once, he'll do it again. We can't count on Sam to kill him. He's too sentimental."

Tammy bit her lip and her shoulders drooped. "You realize the odds of him killing us first are high, right?"

"We have to try," Darien said with a shrug. "Dean Winchester is a scary motherfucker, human. With fangs, blood lust and the kind of speed you described, he's a monster's monster, and he obviously doesn't have any issue with killing humans. Not anymore."

Tammy watched her footage again and shuddered. "We're gonna need back-up. A lot of it."

Omega was pacing in the library when Cas brought Sam back to the bunker. The vampire rounded on them, eyes narrowed with anger.

"Where is he?" He stalked toward them, glaring between them as through one or the other had Dean hidden behind them.

"Gone," Sam said, scowling. "He's smart. He'll get as far away as he can, as fast as he can."

"This is your fault!" Omega turned on Cas, baring his fangs and hissing. "If you had told Lucifer where he could stuff it, we wouldn't have been at that bar when Asmodeus found us and both of us would have been here to keep Dean from attacking Sam!"

Cas bristled, the shadow he cast on the wall bulging at the shoulders and a faint blue light shining in the depths of his pupils. "Don't underestimate Lucifer. He is my brother and I know what he's capable of!"

"Not much," Omega scoffed. "I had to break him out of that cell!"

Cas took a step forward, reaching for the vampire and Sam slipped between them, putting a hand on the angel's chest.

"Not now!" he barked, glaring over his shoulder and then back at Cas. "It doesn't matter who did what or whose fault it is. We have to find Dean and arguing isn't going to help."

Omega glared up at the taller Winchester and then closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, visibly centering himself.

"You are correct. My apologies. I'm…worried about him. Just as you don't know much about my brand of vampirism, I still don't know enough about this world to know if something might be able to truly harm him."

Sam's expression softened. He could empathize with the vampire. He worried about Dean and his reckless antics, too.

"First thing's first. We need to figure out what radius to look in. Have you ever clocked just how fast you can run?"

"No." Omega shook his head and backed off. "Every vampire is different. Some aren't anywhere near as fast as I am, some are faster, but I've never heard of a vampire that could sustain the higher speeds indefinitely. Not without stopping to feed all the time. We are like hunting cats, built for sprinting, not for a marathon."

Sam glanced at Cas and took his hand back when he confirmed the angel had calmed down.
"Good. That's good to hear. We'll either have a clearer path of victims to follow or he won't get that far." He stopped and frowned at the idea of a swath of victims killed by his brother being a good thing but he shrugged it off. They couldn't hold Dean responsible for what he did under the influence of the hunger. They just had to find him so they could help him control it.

Gesturing for Omega to follow, he fetched his laptop and opened it to settle in to what he did best: research.

"I know where he's going." Sam sat back from the computer, feeling particularly stupid. The screen displayed several records of recent car thefts between Kansas and Lake Michigan, a couple of them found abandoned a little over a hundred miles from where they were stolen. He should have known Dean would steal a car rather than feed to fuel his abilities.

Cas opened his eyes and leaned forward as Omega stopped his pacing and rounded on them. "Where?"

"Chicago." Sam glanced at Cas and the angel's eyes widened. He nodded at him, but directed his words at Omega. "There are several supernatural families that run Chicago…like the mafia, but not exactly human. With one notable exception, we mostly leave them alone. They police themselves, and if we're completely honest, they're a bigger bite than we're prepared to chew. Considering we've saved the world a couple of times, that should tell you something. I should have thought of it sooner. If Dean wants a place full of supernatural creepy crawlies that he can munch on and he's virtually indestructible, now, Chicago is his best bet."

"That makes a great amount of sense," Cas said, tapping the table. "The problem is that Chicago is very highly populated. There is as much risk of Dean killing humans as something supernatural, there."

"Not to mention not all the supernatural people there are actually bad guys," Sam said, scowling at his computer. Omega's eyebrows rose in surprise at Sam's comment. He hadn't realized the Winchesters were capable of understanding that a supernatural creature might not be evil by nature. Maybe there was hope for Dean, if they could just convince him that his new nature did not make him more of a threat to anyone than he chose to be, assuming he learned the control he needed.

"Alright, let's pack up the car and head out." Sam closed the laptop's lid and headed for his room.