Chapter 2: City of Devils

Dean groaned as he put the empty bottles back inside his jacket pockets. "So this was a big waste. Thought I could switch things up a bit, jack some blood off Buddy, here, but no, he had to go get drained by a vampire! Pisses me off!"

Sam ignored his brother's fit. He picked up Abel Schmidt's autopsy report, which lay next to the operating tools. "Dean, it says here that the other two bodies were drained of blood, too."

Dean pursed his lips. "Definitely vampires."

"But why are they after werewolves?"

"Sam, I don't think these people are werewolves at all. This is another vampire case. Been there, done that," he shrugged.

Sam shook his head, unconvinced. "I need to do some research. Can you get the blood from the funeral home?"

"I'd pick the funeral home over the library any day," Dean laughed.

Sam covered Abel Schmidt's corpse with the white sheet, and Dean double-checked to make sure everything in the room looked reasonably undisturbed. They waved goodbye to Lilith and walked back toward the funeral home, where they had left the Impala. When they reached the car, they both turned to look toward the entrance of the funeral home, where they could see a tall man yelling at Garmr.

"This is your fault! You monster!" The man lost his temper and took a swing at Garmr, knocking the boy to the ground.

"Holy shit!" Sam cried aloud. He took quick, long strides toward the man who was yelling at Garmr, and Dean followed along, not sure what Sam was doing. Sam put a hand on the man's shoulder and whirled him around, and now Dean also stared at the man in shock. "Abel Schmidt?" Sam barely managed to utter.

Sure enough, the man they were looking at had the dark curly hair, dark eyes, tan skin, and all the same features as the corpse they had just looked at. The man's expression, however, was grim. "No, I'm Caine Schmidt, Abel's twin brother."

Sam stood frozen as he was finally able to make sense of his vision. He hadn't been seeing Abel in his vision; he'd been seeing Caine!

Before things got too awkward, Dean flashed his badge at Caine. "We're with the FBI," he said with a cheeky grin. "We're investigating your brother's death and the other two cases like it."

Caine glared at Dean, then Sam, and for a long time at Garmr, once the boy had gotten up. Then Caine stalked off toward the direction from which Sam and Dean had just arrived.

Garmr fidgeted nervously and Sam smiled politely.

"Friend of yours?" Dean flashed his toothy smile.

Sam gawked at Dean as Garmr ignored them both and rushed back inside the funeral home.

"What do you think that was about?" Dean asked while he and Sam walked toward the car.

"I dunno. But that guy was pretty upset," Sam said. "I wonder what could've made him angry enough to hit Garmr like that. It's not like Garmr ever says or does anything."

Dean shrugged. "Maybe the kid just showed up at the wrong place, wrong time. Caine Schmidt's brother was just murdered so it's understandable he's in a bad mood. I mean, I was pissed as hell when those hicks carted you off." Dean caught sight of Sam's lips twitching into a grin, so he corrected himself. "Pissed as hell at you for getting yourself carted off," he said with a glare. "Anyway, get in the car. I'll drop you off at the library and then come back to get the blood once it gets darker. Just don't leave the library, okay? There's no way to know if the vampires have caught wind of our scent yet, so it's not safe."

"Dean, if they've caught our scent already, they could get me at the library if they really wanted to," Sam said.

Dean pursed his lips. "Just don't leave, okay?"

"Fine, fine," Sam said. "I won't leave."

x x x

Sam was pleasantly surprised when he arrived at the library. The last time he was in Manning, Colorado, nothing gave him reason to believe their library would be anything extensive, but considering the town harbored vampires and werewolves, it actually made sense that the town would be bubbling with all sorts of history.

At a glance, the cream-colored building seemed to be the largest construction in the vicinity. The three-story architecture was very intricate. It consisted of curved walls and inaccessible balconies located near the roof. But despite how much it should stand out in a town where homes made from wooden panels still exist, the empty walkway leading to the library, as well as the surrounding area, proved otherwise.

Once Dean had driven away, Sam timidly walked into the library, feeling as though his gangly body might somehow disturb the absolute peace and quiet of the solid structure. Inside were rows and rows of shelves filled completely with books of all shapes and sizes. The walls of the library were lined in glass cases that displayed many historical artifacts, although they weren't as extravagant as the actual library. Sam scoffed at three sets of pure gold, silver, and bronze silverware before laughing to himself and walking toward the front desk.

"Excuse me? Is anyone here?" Sam called out quietly, looking for the librarian. Perhaps they didn't even have a librarian because no one ever visited the library.

Suddenly, a very peculiar man barely half as tall as Sam popped up from behind a stack of books that was pushed off to the side of the desk. He wore a sheriff's outfit, and even though he was inside, wore a pair of dark sunglasses.

Sam eyed his nametag. "Mr. Dante?" he asked.

"Joe Dante," he said. His voice was so rough and metallic it sounded like iron being crushed. He stood on top of a stack of books to see over Sam's head. "You're here alone?" He began wringing his hands. "Wait, why are you here at all? This is the library, boy! No one comes to the library!"

Sam pulled a face. "I was actually looking for some books," he said slowly. "If you could just point me toward the paranormal section, I could help myself—"

"PARANORMAL?" Dante shrieked, making Sam jump back in alarm. "Paranormal, paranormal, paranormal. You're not a vampire, are you?" The small man began running his hands through his thick black hair. "Oh, no! No, no, no—"

"I'm not a vampire," Sam said quickly. "I was just looking for some books—"

"About vampires!" Dante yelled, punching the air with his fist. Then he made a face, climbed onto the desk and leaned very close to Sam's face. "You trying to be funny with me?"

Sam was confused, but he quickly interjected before the man could interrupt him again. "I'm just looking for some books about werewolves."

"Werewolves?" Dante spluttered. "Werewolves? Where? Wolves? Werewolves!" He gibbered on a bit longer before he seemed to remember Sam was standing before him. "No. There's no such thing as werewolves!" Then he laughed to himself for a bit. "Funny. Trying to be funny with me. Funny, funny, funny boy." And suddenly his voice dropped an octave lower as he glared and pointed a finger into Sam's chest. "I'm on to you," he sneered, holding out the last syllable.

Sam gently removed Dante's finger from his torso and proceeded in trying to explain himself again. "I understand that there's no such thing as werewolves, but I was just curious about what folklore said about them. So, I was wondering if you knew anything about—"

"Me? Know anything about werewolves?" Dante gasped as though Sam had offended him somehow. "Of course I don't know anything about werewolves. Nope! No werewolves for me! Where's the wolf? I don't see a wolf—!"

Sam groaned inwardly. "I'm kind of in a hurry. Could you please point me toward the paranormal section?"

Fidgeting uncontrollably, Dante looked around to make sure no one was looking, then shouted, "There!" He pointed toward the back wall, and immediately jumped off the desk and hid under his chair.

Sam looked over the stacks of books to make sure the small, trembling man was all right before making his way to the back wall. When he looked over his shoulder, he could see Joe Dante peeking at him from behind a potted plant.

Sam strolled through the isles, whispering creature names as he passed them. "Tiamat… tikoloshe… utukku… vodyanoi… wahwee… wendigo… werewolf," he said when he finally found the one book about werewolves in the whole library. He tucked it under his arm and headed for a table situated in a corner, although he wouldn't have had to worry about anyone reading over his shoulder no matter where he chose to sit since the library was completely deserted of patrons.

Fifteen minutes later, he was dialing Dean's number.

"What?" Dean said on the other end. He was sitting in the Impala, loading the silver bullets with the blood he'd swiped from the funeral home.

"Dean, listen to this," Sam said. Then, in hushed whispers, he began to read to Dean the exact ritual that Caine Schmidt had performed in his vision.

"Okay, we already know that," Dean said.

"Yeah, but then it says that that's the ritual you perform if you want to become a werewolf on a night where there's no full moon. New werewolves can't transform on command, so if they want to transform on a night where there's no full moon, they use this ritual. But otherwise, when they're not transformed, they appear as normal humans," Sam trailed off.

"Except?" Dean asked, knowing Sam wasn't finished.

"Except they have red eyes. Their eyes return to their normal color only when they're in wolf form, but otherwise, their eyes are red." Even through the phone, Sam could sense Dean's eyes growing wide in realization.

"Adam Hel," Dean whispered.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "He's definitely a werewolf."

"Dude, what color are Garmr's eyes?" Dean asked, startled.

Sam recalled all his meetings with Garmr, but every time he'd seen the boy, he was always staring down at his shoes. "Dean, he's got to be a werewolf, too."

"And if Adam Hel's a werewolf, you think his wife's a werewolf, too?" Dean asked.

Sam thought about all the eyes he'd seen today. "No, I'm pretty sure her eyes were blue. Definitely not red—" Sam froze.

"Sam!" Dean shouted into the phone, alarmed when his brother suddenly stopped talking. "Sam, don't go anywhere, it's not safe!" he shouted when he heard movement on the other end.

Sam slammed the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf between two books about nisse and patupairehes. "The librarian," he gasped into the receiver, recalling Joe Dante's dark sunglasses and his nervous behavior. "He's a werewolf. I've got to get out of here."

He still wasn't sure if the werewolves were behind any of the murders in town, and Joe Dante seemed harmless enough, but werewolves were still dangerous creatures who attacked humans because it was instinctively appealing and natural to them. It was safer to have room to escape outside, while vampires were running around, than to be trapped in a building with a werewolf.

Sam could hear Dean's breathing on the other end, conflicted about what to do. "Dean, get the blood and the bullets ready and meet me at—"

"Blood?"

Sam wheeled around to see Joe Dante's head pop up from behind the desk. He slowly lowered the phone from his ear, ignoring Dean's shouting on the other end, while trying to remain calm. Slowly, he began to back up toward the entrance. "Um, yeah. Like… bloodroot! Have you heard of it? It looks like it's just a white flower, but it's actually related to the poppy and has a red root and that's why they call it bloodroot."

"Brains," Dante noted as he came out from behind the desk. His voice was an octave lower again. "I like brains."

Sam had a feeling his intellect wasn't being complimented here.

"Listen, I know you're a werewolf," Sam stated.

"Do you, now?" Dante asked, amused. He took off his sunglasses to reveal a pair of glowing, blood red eyes.

Sam wondered what had happened to the nervous Joe Dante he'd met just minutes before, but when he saw hairs sprouting out of Dante's forehead, Sam realized what was happening.

Dante was about to transform.

Sam turned to run, but the moment he took his eyes off Dante, a blood-curdling roar sounded. Sam kept running, but he was suddenly knocked off his feet and slammed into one of the glass cases. He moaned as he got to his feet again, wincing from the several tiny lacerations on his left hand and the left side of his face.

When he looked up, Dante was no where to be seen, although shreds of his clothing were scattered on the ground. Instead, a tall monster covered in pitch-black fur loomed over him, calmly licking its chops. Sam could still hear Dean on the phone, which was still open and had landed near him. He grabbed it and shouted into it, "Dean, just get the blood!" Then he snapped it shut and hurtled it at the glass case with the silverware in it. The crashing sound distracted Dante long enough for Sam to dash toward the case, reach into it and pull out a silver butter knife, but before he had time to turn around, Dante was already behind him. In one swift motion, he had Sam pinned to the wall by the neck.

Sam choked due to the sudden lack of air, but he still had a firm grip on the knife. Just as Dante opened his mouth to take a bite out of him, Sam thrust the silver knife into the werewolf's heart. Dante's eyes shot open in surprise, he shuddered a bit, and finally let go of Sam. They both slumped to the ground, Sam catching his breath, Dante breathing his last before transforming back to his human form.

When he could breathe properly again, Sam crawled toward Dante's now naked body. He turned him over, pulled the knife from his chest, and then pressed the man's eyelids closed. While he was cleaning the knife of his fingerprints, his ears perked up too late as frantic footsteps hurried up the library entrance.

The door opened to reveal Lilith Hel, who gaped at the scene before her. Sam knew what it must look like to her. The library was a mess, Joe Dante was dead and naked, and Sam was reasonably unharmed and cleaning his prints off the murder weapon. Sam grimaced. "Would you believe me if I told you this isn't what it looks like?"

Lilith's eyes filled with tears as she ran out of the library, screaming for help.

"Dammit," Sam muttered. He finished cleaning the knife, went behind the front desk to quickly delete any footage captured by the security cameras stationed around the library, and then he disabled the program all together.

He opened the library doors to make a run for it, but he never made it out. Three police cars had blockaded the library entrance, people had already started to gather around the forming scene, and Lilith Hel was sobbing while talking to a couple of officers, pointing and nodding in Sam's direction.

Defeated and trapped, Sam bowed his head as he walked down the library steps toward the officer standing at the end of the walkway, who had a gun pointed at him in one hand, and a pair of open handcuffs in the other.

x x x

Dean gunned the Impala's engine as he raced through the streets, running stop signs, swerving through traffic, and taking shortcuts through people's backyards. When he finally reached the library, he slammed on the breaks, screeching to a halt as he just barely managed not to crash into a squad car. He got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and immediately began calling for his brother. "Sam!" he yelled. Then he caught sight of the ambulance parked near the library entrance. A stretcher was being loaded onto it, and it held a body that was completely covered with a white sheet. "Oh, God," Dean whispered, his voice cracking.

He began to walk toward the ambulance when he heard Sam's voice from the other direction.

"Dean!" Sam called out.

Dean gawked when he turned around and saw Sam with his arms cuffed behind his back and his face covered in tiny little cuts. He marched through the throng of gathering people. "What's going on here?"

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to step away," a police officer began to say.

"And I'm going to have to ask you to shove it," Dean barked. He caught the attention of the commanding officer. "Why the fuck is my little brother in handcuffs?" he shouted.

The officer narrowed his eyes and squared his shoulders. "Your little brother murdered Joe Dante."

Dean mouthed wordlessly as he looked into Sam's blank face for answers. "You can't know that—"

Another officer ran down the walkway and interrupted Dean. "We've just recovered the suspect's cell phone at the scene of the crime, sir," he said to his commanding officer. "And the security footage is a no-go. The tapes have been wiped clean."

"What about the murder weapon?"

"The knife was wiped clean of prints."

"The silver knife," Sam suddenly said, eyeing Dean. "Which was stabbed into his heart."

Dean's eyes widened in realization. Dante had been the werewolf, and Sam had killed him.

The officer who had been talking to Dean shook his head in disgust as Sam seemed to gloat over how he had killed Dante. "Take him away," he said, pointing to Sam.

Then Dean suddenly noticed the other officer's eyes. Even in the darkness, they were glowing red. Another werewolf!

"You people can't do this!" Dean shouted in one last effort to save his brother.

"Sir, if you don't back away, you're going with him," one of the officers said.

Dean looked at the new officer—he also had red eyes. What was he going to do? There was no way he could open fire in the middle of all these people, but there was no way he could watch as Sam got carted off by a pack of werewolves, most likely angry because he'd just killed Joe Dante.

"You have no hard evidence that he committed the crime. You have no prints and no security footage," Dean said.

The commanding officer, who seemed to be the only human among the ranks, glared at Dean. "We have his phone, and that's enough to arrest him." With that, he pulled Sam toward a squad car and pushed his head down as Sam quietly got in. Moments later, the squad cars began to drive away from the library, the blue and red lights spinning around and around, placing an eerie glow on everything as dusk began to set and things slowly began to calm down again.

But Dean wasn't calm. He was confused. Things weren't adding up.

He jogged back to the Impala and loaded a pistol with the blood-filled silver bullets he'd created. He shoved it into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, revved the car's engine and drove back toward the funeral home.

Adam Hel had some explaining to do.

x x x

When Dean arrived at the funeral home, he barreled through the entrance. Adam Hel was situated at the front desk, talking on the phone. "I'll have to call you back." He hung up, then looked at Dean. "Anything I can help you with?"

Dean pulled out his pistol, pointed it at Hel and cocked it back. "Yeah, actually, I think you can."

Hel began to move toward Dean. "Okay, I think you should just calm down—"

"Don't move," Dean growled in a dangerously low voice. "This baby's loaded with silver bullets."

Hel smirked. "Figured it out, have you? We were told that you and your brother were pretty clever." He sniffed the air. "You wreak of blood."

Dean ignored the last comment and furrowed his brows in confusion. Who had said they were clever?

"What's going on here—?" Garmr had heard the commotion up front and had come to check it out. When he saw Dean with the gun, he turned to run, but Dean was quick and planted a bullet into Garmr's shoulder, which knocked the boy to the ground.

"You idiot!" Hel shouted as he ran toward Garmr. "He isn't one of us!"

Sure enough, when Garmr looked up, Dean stared into a pair of frightened green eyes. Dean was thankful he hadn't aimed for Garmr's heart, but that was all he took the time to think about. Time wasn't a luxury he had right now. Sam's life was on the line. "Who do you work for?"

Hel pursed his lips together. "I don't know what you mean."

"YOU SAID SOMEONE TOLD YOU WE WERE CLEVER!" Dean shouted. Then he cocked the pistol again and shot into the wall right next to Garmr's head. "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU WORK FOR?" He trained the pistol at Garmr's head and added in a low growl, "Next time I won't miss."

Author's Note: This is where the action begins! And c'mon, people. Show me some love. I mean, I put Sam in handcuffs! LOL!