Chapter 13 Living Death


Forest Edge, Oregon

The road, the garden and house, the buildings and trees were covered in snow, the second fall this month pointing to a frigid winter season to come. Ellie paced along the living room, occasionally glancing out through the French doors at John and Rosie, barely visible beneath layers of clothing, rolling up balls of snow and building a snowman. The cover was light and the snow would be gone by midday the next day, but it was good to hear their shrieks of laughter as they played. She pressed the phone tighter against her ear as Laney came back on the line.

"Hon? You still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. What's the story?" She moved to the kitchen, going to the coffeepot and pouring out a cup.

"Jeremy went to do a recce on that big nest in Maine," Laney's voice sounded tinny. "It was wiped."

"Wiped?" Ellie put her cup down. "By hunters?"

"Not unless they like to get very hands-on. Jer said that the nest looked like it had been attacked by a pack of wendigo; the heads were gone, and every body had been ripped to shreds."

"Did he pick up tracks? Prints? Anything?"

"Nope. He said it could've been an elemental, but they're not usually so well under control that they'll take the heads. Said there was no physical evidence he could find that pointed to a particular type of attacker."

"Great. Another anomaly," Ellie said, picking up her cup again and sipping the coffee. "Okay, thanks for the information, Laney. Stay safe."

"You too, honey."

The phone cut out and Ellie put the handset on the table, leaning on one elbow and staring absently at the door as she wondered what the hell was powerful enough to massacre a vampire nest and leave no trace. It wasn't so much a question of what could, she realised, as what would.

Sighing, she picked up the phone again and called Frank.

"Frank? Got another search for you. I need any reports, nationwide, of vampire nests being wiped out, and the bodies left in shreds, no burning, no cover-up. Check out any particularly violent human deaths in the same area if you happen to find anything."

"You know, I have got other things to look for, Ellie, like Asase Ya and the firstborn? Or are you saying they're no longer our top priority?"

"Frank, humour me, would you? And call me when you find something," she said, smiling at his muttering as she ended the call.

A fresh volley of shrieks from the garden drew her attention, and she smiled as she saw Dean and Sam pitching snowballs at each other with deadly speed and accuracy, Marc and Laura joining in with John and Rosie in an all-out war.

The front doorbell rang, and she rose, walking fast down the hall to let Tricia in, Adrienne bundled up to the eyes in snowsuit, scarf and knitted hat.

"Can you see the battlefield from the back?" Tricia asked, following Ellie back to the kitchen.

"Yep," Ellie confirmed, gesturing to the windows as they walked into the warm kitchen. "All going to end in tears, you know."

"I know. They must have been hellishly competitive as kids." Tricia walked to the window and waved at Sam. Sam waved back and Dean's snowball hit him in the side of the head, disintegrating over Marc and Laura.

"Damn, gave Dean the advantage there," Tricia muttered, making an apologetic face at her husband.

Ellie grinned. "Bobby used to tell me stories; from all accounts, they were competitive. Not exactly sporting either."

Tricia watched Sam lobbing snowball after snowball at his brother, Marc and Laura making them and piling them up for him. "Yeah, I can see that."

"So…" Ellie looked at Tricia enquiringly.

"Dean invited us over for dinner." Tricia grinned at her. "I don't suppose that's really okay?"

"It's good," Ellie said, wondering what to make that would stretch to eight.

"Oh, Ellie, Sam got a call from Steve and said to mention it." Tricia sat down at the table, unwinding Adrienne's coverings and pushing them into her bag. "He's in North Dakota. Said he found a big vampire nest, but someone had already been through it—all the vamps destroyed."

Ellie stared at her. "North Dakota?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I just got a call from Laney. She said a nest in Maine had been wiped out. Bodies left lying around, shredded. No prints, tracks, nothing." She frowned. "Did Steve say what the condition of everything was?"

"Not that Sam mentioned to me," Tricia said, glancing at the window. "He might've told him more."

"Yeah." Ellie nodded thoughtfully. "I'll ask him later."


The basement was warm, a couple of lamps casting pale gold light over the work tables, the cool blue light of the monitors illuminating Ellie's face as she scrolled through the homicide reports for Rumford, Maine. On the other side of the table, Dean's face was similarly lit as he searched through the online databases for Jamestown, North Dakota.

"I got six victims in Jamestown," he said, looking over the screen at her. "Over three nights, all of them ripped to pieces, but the heads left."

Ellie nodded. "There are five in Rumford. Same deal."

"Are we looking at a monster that kills both vampires and humans? Or a hunter killing the vamps and a vamp killing the humans, or what?" He rubbed the heel of his hand over his jaw, staring at the police report. "Every one of these vics was drained dry—that's a lot of blood for a vamp."

"Aside from spillage, it looks like the vampires were drained as well, at least partially."

Dean frowned and brought up the report on the nest. The police had tagged it a spree murder, although from the cautious wording in the report it was obviously no kind of spree they'd ever seen or heard of before.

"Ditto." He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. "All the hits, all night long."

"Dean, what would take vampire blood?" Ellie pushed the laptop aside, massaging her temples with her fingertips. "What would someone use vampire blood for?"

"Make more vampires?" He frowned. "That much blood would make a lot more vampires but is it still potent if the vampire's dead?"

"I don't know. I've never heard of this before." She brought up a map of the US. "What's weird too are the locations. Why Maine, then North Dakota? There must be at least two or three nests in between those two."

He raised his hands in the air helplessly. "I just work here, sweetheart."

She looked over her screen at him, one corner of her mouth tucking in. "Can you print them out? We might need to get together a couple of teams for these."

He tipped forward and typed in the print command on each of the files; police reports, coroner's reports, photographs, maps and the related news stories. Chazaquiel and Anina had been working with Adam for a couple of months now, they could handle one of these. Trent and Katherine with Sariel and Oran? The four were another long-standing team. He could talk to them in the morning.

He stood up as the printers began humming, grabbing a folder as he walked over to the long table holding them. "Bloodwraith?"

"No, they're much more conservative." Ellie shook her head.

"Uh, Laney said Jeremy said it looked like an elemental had been in there?" He rifled through his memories of hunts and stories of hunts, through years of experience, his own and the hunters he'd met, his father's experiences and those of John's friends.

"He said the destruction was like an elemental's: unbridled rage. But the vampires were at least partially drained, by the looks of it and every head had been taken. No elemental is under that level of control," Ellie elaborated on what Laney had told her.

"Could it be a spirit? Or a demon?"

"A spirit wouldn't take the heads. And Cas said he sealed all the gates." She made a face. "I can't see a demon drinking both vampire and human blood."

Returning her attention to the screen, she typed in the login and password for the research database. When Frank's simple search screen loaded, she typed in 'vampire blood, uses, myth*' and hit Enter. The search was returned instantly with a No Data Found message.

"Crap."

Dean tucked the printouts into folders and walked up behind her, looking over her shoulder. "Not loaded yet?"

"Guess not," she said, with a sigh. "I'll be hitting the books."

He shook his head, holding out his hand. "Tomorrow, not tonight."

"Yes, sir." She took his hand and got up, walking to the stairs with him.


Breakfast time was the usual barely controlled chaos. Ellie poured Dean a cup of coffee as he scrambled eggs, the cordless phone jammed against one ear. She carried bread, ham, tomato and cheese to the island counter and made John and Rosie's lunches, cutting, spreading, sealing and tucking sandwiches into the boxes, along with fruit, small yoghurt cups and sealed packs of plain crackers and dried fruit. For some reason not really specified, both the school and pre-school required inordinate amounts of food per day. Half of it came home uneaten.

"Trent? You get that?" Dean slid the eggs onto plates and fished out the bacon strips with his fingers, dropping them onto the plates and blowing repeatedly on his burned fingertips between each one. "Yeah, Jamestown, North Dakota. Yeah, take them."

The phone slipped out from his grip as the older man hung up and he swiped at it with bacon-greasy fingers, watching it shoot out of his hand and across the kitchen. Ellie caught it one-handed as she returned to the counter for their plates.

"Nice reflexes." He grinned at her, wiping his hands, turning off the stove and grabbing cutlery.

"Everyone's good at something." She took the chair next to John and started eating, tucking a mouthful into her cheek as she looked at him across the table. "Can you drop me at Frank's when you take the kids in?"

He nodded, spreading butter over toast and adding it to his plate.

"Dad, can we play at Marc and Laura's this afternoon?" John's gaze flicked from his sister to his father.

"If it's okay with Aunty Trish, yeah."

"And grab a couple of gallons of milk. And a dozen tomatoes." Ellie buttered her toast, her gaze on the fridge as she wondered if there was anything else they needed. The unplanned dinner guests the previous night had emptied some of her supplies.

"Mommy, could we get a doggie?" Rosie asked, and Ellie chewed and swallowed fast, turning to Dean.

"Um…we'll see, honey. Dogs are a big responsibility," Dean said, keeping his eyes on his plate.

"We'd take care of it, you wouldn't have to do anything," John promised.

"That's what they all say," Ellie muttered, picking up her plate and Rosie's and taking them to the sink. "Dogs need a lot of attention, John, or they get cranky."

"What about a kitty?" Rosie shifted to Plan B without hesitation. Dean sighed.


"What time do you want me to come and get you?" Dean leaned out the window as Ellie walked around the car's nose and stopped by his door.

"I'll give you a call. I can walk home if you're doing something else," she said, bending to kiss him. From the back seat she could hear giggles, and she grinned at him. "See you later."

"Yep." He closed the window and pulled out, heading down to town. He dropped John at school, and Rosie at the pre-school, turned around and picked up the groceries, then drove to the post office to empty their box. Glancing through the mail, he stopped when he saw the thick black handwriting on one small box. Goddamn it. It was the same hand, he was sure of it. He dropped the box on top of the rest of the mail and headed back up to Frank's.


Ellie studied the screens that covered two walls of the long, wide room, flicking a glance at the shelving that filled the other two. The database was, according to Frank, about three-quarters of the way done. The oldest documents, texts, manuscripts and cuneiform papers had been loaded first, and she wondered if a different search criterion might bring up something. She sat down at one keyboard and started typing.

Forty-five minutes later, she conceded defeat. She'd brought up a lot of information, most of which they already knew, none of it specifically referring to uses for the blood of a vampire, other than the usual one. There were dozens of variations on what the creatures were called around the world, she thought, staring at the screen in front of her. Since she was going to be going through every volume even remotely related to vampire lore anyway, she'd put together a list and then run another search later.

Getting up, she turned around and headed for the shelves, moving along the titles and extracting books. The library at their house would be stage two. She'd gathered four armfuls of books, carrying them to the table and setting them down in piles when Frank came in, his face worried.

"What?"

She took the handful of printouts he handed her and flicked through the pages. Not just Maine and North Dakota then. Pennsylvania and Illinois had both had hits on nests and on the local populations of the towns.

"What is it?" Frank looked at her, brows drawn together.

"You read them?"

He nodded. "Haven't seen that before."

"No, we haven't either," Ellie said, noting the direction. "Aside from going around the Great Lakes instead of across them, this is looking like a reasonably straight line from one side of the country to the other."

"Yeah."

"Is there any way we can get ahead of them? Track the nests through thermal imaging, maybe?"

Frank gave her a dry smile. "No. Relative to population centres, most nests are insignificant. We can't get that narrow a focus tapping into the satellites that are up there."

They both turned at the pounding on the front door of the small house. Frank moved past Ellie and hit a button on the closest keyboard, and the monitor above it showed Dean standing on the front porch, his expression tense as he looked up at the camera.

"I'll let him in," Frank said. "Do you want me to keep looking?"

"Set up a bot to do it?"

"Right." He left the room and Ellie set the files on the table, opening the first one and reading through the contents more slowly this time. Pennsylvania had been two weeks after Maine, Illinois a week later, then North Dakota a week after that. It seemed consistent with a relaxed driving schedule. But the blood taken…Allentown reported six human victims. Galesburg four. Because of the time difference, Ellie wondered? Or an appetite fluctuation? She shook her head impatiently. They still didn't have enough information.

Both nests had been quite large…and the coroner in Galesburg had been right on the ball, picking up the lack of blood at the scene and doing fairly good calculations as to how much had been taken. Around three to four quarts per vamp. She sat down in the chair at the table, rubbing her forehead with the inside of her wrist. That was a lot of blood, whether it was being taken elsewhere or ingested immediately.

The door opened, and she turned around as Dean and Frank came in. Dean's expression was a mix of anger and unease.

"What is it?"

"Another package from my penpal," he said sourly, holding out the small package. Ellie took it, looking at the handwriting. The postmark was Montana.

"Frank?"

She handed him the parcel and he took it around to the large, boxy-looking machines tucked between the library shelving and the line of printers. It had cost a small fortune, but it was worth it. The GE AMX x-ray machine could handle almost anything they needed, including their own people if required. The XPS had its own cubicle, requiring an ultrahigh vacuum operating environment. She'd never seen Frank so excited as he'd been on the day it had arrived. It was the smallest model manufactured but the objects for which they needed electron spectroscopy analysis tended to be small.

Frank put on the protective suit and gloves and started work. Ellie turned back to Dean.

"Post office box again?"

He nodded. "What'd I do to deserve the stalker treatment?"

"I don't know. Who'd you get pissed at you in the last few months?" She smiled at him.

He shook his head. "Too many to count, probably."

His gaze dropped to the table, brows rising at the piles of books, notes and printout files. "How're you doing with the vampire lore?"

"Not great," she admitted, following his gaze. "But Frank's searches found two more hits on nests, like Maine and North Dakota. One in Pennsylvania, one in Illinois. Both were in between Maine and North Dakota."

"Travelling west," Dean said, looking at her. Ellie nodded, picking up the map Frank had printed, showing all four locations and the dates.

"Do we have a trajectory?" He looked at the map over her shoulder. "Moving fast, too."

"A choice. Montana, Idaho, Washington—or here in Oregon."

"There never were any nests in Montana," he said thoughtfully, looking at the map. "Idaho or Washington or here. I don't like that much."

"No, me either."

Frank came out of the cubicle and cleared his throat. They walked over to him.

"It's organic this time, possibly a spell laid on it," he said, handing Ellie two printouts. The first was the composition, elemental and empirical analysis. The second was a photograph on the object and the note that had come with it.

"A rose. That's not suspicious at all," Dean looked at the photograph. The note, which like the first one, had been lying under the rose, was in the same thick black pen, the handwriting identical to the first note.

Dear Dean,

Glad to see you found your way out of the past. This one might let you explore more than your present holds now.

Ellie looked down at the picture of the deeply red rose. It was identical to the roses in Santa Barbara. She looked at Dean.

"Do we still have the evidence bags with the Santa Barbara roses?"

"Yeah, in the job file." He looked at the picture. "Think it's the same batch?"

"Yes, I do," she said, catching her lip with her lip as she looked at the picture. "Which means your secret admirer has been able to follow us around."

"Crap." He looked at her. "I'll get the other rose."

"Dean, this is really personal. This is someone you know, someone who feels that they know you, that they have a connection to you," Ellie said, looking back at the note.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, but I don't know who that could be."

She looked at him worriedly, knowing the same thought was in both of their minds. It was someone who knew where he lived. He turned away and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Frank looked questioningly at Ellie.

"Whoever it is, they know about him, know about us, know where we live. So far, everything has been aimed at him," she said, not wanting to say the rest of her thought. "The roses were spelled, keying to the victim through either touch or smell. They took the core emotions—the thing that drove them—and amped them right up to whatever extreme the person was capable of."

Frank frowned. "What would that do in Dean's case?"

"I don't know," she said. Not for sure, anyway, she thought. What drove Dean was responsibility. How the spell would manifest a negative reaction on that was anyone's guess. She turned away from the picture. "What did you find out about the handwriting?"

"I've tried the sample against every law enforcement database in the country that supports the comparisons, even tried the National Archives at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, but so far… nyet."

"Whoever it is could be a nobody, or a hunter, or a witch with absolutely no criminal connections or records." Ellie exhaled loudly. "Forget it. We're not going to get any further with the writing itself."

"It was mailed Tuesday from Montana," Frank said. "I'll check and see if there's any security footage in the area? Maybe we'll get lucky that way."

"Thanks, Frank," Ellie said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I need a search done on the database with all the variations of vampiric lore names; in a lot of the older stuff they weren't called vampires at all. Oh, and different language variations as well."

"Give me the list and I'll get on it."

"I would like to work a single case with a single bloody outcome for once, instead of having all these jobs tripping over each other."

"I'll try and find one for you for Christmas," Frank said, straight-faced. She snorted.

"I'd appreciate that."


"Ellie?"

She looked up, the tension in her neck and shoulders making itself known, along with a dry, gritty feeling in her eyes. Frank stood behind her.

"Dean just called. He's coming to get you."

"Right," she said, looking at her watch. Ten past six. Crap. Crap. Crap. "Okay, yeah, I'm done."

Dean pulled in five minutes later and she was waiting at the door, notes, printouts, the text she'd been working on and a data storage disc tucked under one arm.

"See you in the morning, Frank!"

"Uh huh." Frank's voice drifted out from the back of the house as she closed the door behind her, and hurried down the path to the car. The sky was clear and the air still and the temperature had to be well below zero, her breath crystallising as it hit the cold.

Sliding into the heater-warmed car, she put her armload of research on the seat next to her and shook her head at Dean.

"Sorry, you should have called earlier and interrupted."

"Frank was cagey about disturbing you," Dean said, giving her a quick smile as he twisted in the seat to reverse down the drive. "Kept saying you'd be finished soon."

"Oh…brother."

"You find anything useful?" The black car's tyres spun on the gravel then gripped and Dean pointed them toward home, headlights picking up the gleam of ice along the way.

"Lots of useful things. None of them particularly useful to this situation at this particular time."

"Shocker."

"Mmmm." Ellie tipped her head back, stretching as much as she could. Dean looked at her.

"Sore?"

"Unbelievably." She rolled her shoulders and sighed. "I'll have a hot bath when we get home."

He slid a sideways look at her, one side of his mouth lifting. "I'll help."

He turned into the driveway and pulled around in front of the house, coasting to a stop in the usual space. Getting out into the cold air again, Ellie felt a shiver ripple up her spine, and she tucked the documents tighter against herself as she followed him up the steps to the porch.

Dean unlocked the door and Ellie hurried inside, heading for the living room, glad for the warmth of the house. The fire crackled on the hearth and Ellie glanced at the sofa as she unloaded her documents and bag onto the low table. She froze when she took in John and Rosie, lying on the sofa, asleep, curled together. Dean was only a couple of steps behind her and she saw his eyes widen, his jaw clench tightly.

"They were in bed," he said to her in a low voice.

"They were, indeed. Sleeping like little angels." The voice was warm and mellow, accented slightly.

Italian, Ellie thought as she turned around. The woman stood by the door they'd come in through, elegant in a dark red dress and high heels, the muted glitter of jewellery around her neck and on her fingers. Perhaps five foot seven, her long, black hair was swept into a simple chignon on the top of her head, framing an oval face with pale olive skin and large dark eyes. The light seemed almost to bend around her, as if it could hide her at any moment.

Beside her, Dean stiffened as he recognised the creature that faced them.

Vampire.

"It's Dean, isn't it?" The woman looked at him, a slow, lazy smile playing over her lips. "You might not remember…we met in New Orleans, in 2007. We were quite close for a short time."

Ellie glanced sideways at him. He was statue-still, his gaze fixed on the vampire.

"I've never had another who was quite so responsive, so deliciously passionate even against his will."

"I remember ganking a couple of vamps, in New Orleans in '07," Dean said, his voice arctic. Underlying the antagonistic tone, Ellie heard something else, some thready trace of unease.

"Fledglings," the vampire said dismissively, lifting her hand and admiring her rings. "I left the night your brother found you. I'm not surprised you found the other two easily."

"Are you here to relive old times, or did you have some purpose to the visit?" Ellie asked, her patience thinning.

"Purpose, yes. I have a purpose." The vampire walked into the room. "My name is Francesca della Celentano de Modicia, and I require the skills of a hunter."

"Just like that?" Dean's mouth curled down. "Why would we help a vampire?"

"Because your family is vulnerable, caro. Easily accessible." Francesca's gaze turned to the sleeping children. "And what I seek is something you will seek too."

Dean's fury radiated out from him, almost crackling in the silent room.

"Dean," Ellie said, unsure if she meant to caution him or preempt some action on his part.

Neither saw the vampire move. Francesca was beside him, her arm around his throat, as hard and unyielding as a band of steel, holding him effortlessly while she touched her lips to his ear.

Then she was behind the sofa, and Dean lifted his hand to the sore skin of his neck, a trace of blood on his fingertips from the thin red line she'd left with one long nail.

"You've made your point." Ellie turned from Dean to the vampire. "What do you want from us?"

"There's a…creature, hunting my kind and yours. It hunts in darkness and in the daylight, and it drains the blood of all its victims, vampire and human. I want you to find it and kill it."


Dean came back down the stairs. John and Rosie were back in their beds, heartbeats normal, warm and alive and just sleeping, he reminded himself, keeping a tight rein on his reactions.

He nodded to Ellie as he came into the living room. The files of the nest hits were open on the low table in front of her. The vampire sat comfortably in the armchair opposite. His fingers itched for a machete. The memories that had returned with her prompts were incomplete and vague, bringing a sense of discomfort as well as unease.

"How did you find us?" he asked, taking a seat on the sofa beside Ellie.

Francesca lifted one finely arched brow. "I know your scent, Dean. I caught it in Monterey when you cleared out the vampires just outside of that town."

"You were in Monterey?" Ellie asked.

"For a brief time, I was watching the others. They seemed organised, then something happened and they stopped following Usiku's orders, began hunting for fresh blood." She looked from Ellie to Dean, her full red lips curving. "When I smelled you in Mort Noir, I knew it was time to leave."

"That was nearly a year ago," he said, brows drawing close.

"I keep a few pied-à-terre along the coast." Francesca gave a slight shrug. "I've been in California since 2007. Last winter, I came up to the Cascades, and I smelled you again all over Bend. It wasn't so difficult to find you from there."

"Where did you say the next nest was? After North Dakota?" Ellie kept her eyes on her notes, filing away the information the vampire had unintentionally given them. Tomorrow, she would get Frank to look into the property records in the coastal towns. They needed leverage over the vampire to counterbalance the ease with which she could take their family.

"Idaho," Francesca turned her head, eyes half-closed in thought. "Twin Falls."

Ellie nodded and rose, walking to the phone and talking the handset from the base. She dialled a number and walked out of the living room.

Dean looked at the map spread over the low table. Twin Falls was southern Idaho. Whatever it was, it was coming for Oregon, he realised. Coming for them? He pushed the thought away. It was too early for speculation.

He didn't want to talk to the woman opposite, didn't want to hear what she had to say. Deal with it, he told himself.

"What can a vamp's blood be used for? Other than making new vamps?"

"I can't tell you that, Dean," Francesa said, her voice soft as a purr. "You might use it against me."

"You better give us some information we can use, or you might be next on the dinner menu," he retorted, gesturing at the files. "The humans were all drained dry, five to six quarts per vic taken, but the vamps…whatever did it didn't take the whole bottle, just a couple of quarts from each one, and some were left untouched. Why?"

Francesca looked away, lips pursing. He could see that despite her easy and rather feline humour, she was annoyed at having to ask for help from them. Suck it up, sweetheart, it's a bitch finding decent help these days.

"I don't know," she admitted after a few moments of silence.

He considered her. "If you do know, and you don't tell us, there's not much point us being involved, is there?"

Her scowl was delicate, barely a crease forming on the smooth skin. "I am telling you the truth."

Ellie returned, setting the phone handset onto the side table as she came past Dean. "Frank confirmed it. The police and feds are all over it right now."

"It's not a long drive from Twin Falls to here," Dean pointed out, his face carefully expressionless.

"There's another nest. Between Twin Falls and here." The vampire leaned forward. "A small town called Burns."

Dean nodded. "On Highway 20, about a hundred twenty, thirty miles out from Bend." He got to his feet, turning to Ellie. "I'll take Carl and Bezaliel."

"Dean, we don't know what this thing is yet—how're you going to kill it?"

He gave her a lop-sided grin. "Guess we'll start with decapitation and work our way through the other options from there." He turned to Francesca. "You're coming too."

She rose, dark eyes flashing a little red at him. "In case you've forgotten, I hired you."

He snorted. "Relax, sweetheart, you don't need to get involved in the bloody end. We can't get near a nest without them knowing about it, but you can. So, you're coming."


Ellie stood with him on the porch an hour later, the two cars loaded with everything they thought they'd need.

Dean looked at her. "Sam's up to speed. Anything happens, you call him."

"Okay," she said, looking up at him. "Be careful."

He put his arms around her, bending his head to kiss her. "Hey, it's me."

She didn't answer, winding her arms around him and kissing him deeply instead.

"Dean, the necklace Francis gave me, the silver one," she said when they broke apart. "It's in your bag. Don't forget it."

"You think it'll help?"

"I think it can't hurt," she said, letting him go and stepping back. "Don't take too long."

"Be just a little while," he replied, giving her a grin over his shoulder as he walked down to the black car.

He could see her standing there as he drove out, getting smaller in the mirror. It was getting harder to leave her. No matter how risky a job might be, if she was with him on it, he felt like the odds of both them living were better. He glanced at the woman sitting beside him then back to the road. This kind of company he didn't need.

"How long is this going to take?" Francesca asked.

"A couple of hours to get there." He checked the mirror, seeing Carl's over-sized headlights behind him. "I don't know how long the rest will take."

"You don't remember anything of New Orleans, do you?"

He stared at the road ahead of them. "No."

"What a shame."

Dean made an effort to laugh. "For you."

He could see her smile from the corner of his eye and kept his gaze rigidly forward. Should have made her ride in the back of Carl's truck, he thought darkly.


Highway 20, Oregon

His phone rang when they were twenty miles from Burns, and he answered it as soon as he saw the caller.

"What's wrong?"

"Depends on your point of view," Ellie answered dryly. "Frank got the crime scene photos from Twin Falls. I'm sending them to your phone now."

"What am I looking for?"

"The bite marks."

"How'd you get the crime photos so quickly?"

"Frank intercepted them when the cops sent them to the feds."

"Are you okay?"

"Yep, all quiet here. Ask Francesca about them, Dean."

She hung up, and he glanced down, pressing the button for email. The photo files were small but perfectly clear. The bite marks on the victims were unmistakable. He handed the phone to Francesca.

"That's impossible." The vampire stared at the images, scrolling from one to the next.

"Those are vampire bites," Dean said coolly.

"No vampire would kill another," she said, looking at him, her brows drawn together. "It's the only law we have. We do not kill each other."

"Well, someone broke your rule." He shrugged, taking the phone as she handed it back.

"It's not just that," she said, her eyes closing, the scowl reappearing. "The monster hunts in the daylight hours. That's when the nests are hit, during the middle of the day."

"How do you know that?"

"Your police photographs of the remains in Galesburg," she said. "The bodies were burned. Not greatly but as if someone had opened the coverings that kept the building dark."

"Didn't feel like sharing that with the class earlier?" His lip curled up.

"I told you the monster hunted in the daylight hours. A vampire cannot," she argued. "At least, not a vampire of this power."

"What's that mean?" He eased off the accelerator as the highway curved around the side of the hill.

"Only an old vampire could attack and kill like this, taking so much blood. Not that any old one would. We gain power as we get older. We can manipulate the minds of mortals, can move at speeds you cannot register, create illusions. We grow in strength as the years pass. But we also become more vulnerable to certain things as we age."

"Sunlight being one, I guess?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What else?"

The silence stretched out between them and he let out a frustrated exhale.

"If we're hunting an old vampire, we need to know what its vulnerabilities are, Francesca. We need to know everything, or we're not going in at all."

"Silver." She scowled at him. "We are more vulnerable to that metal as we age."

He flexed his hands around the steering wheel, remembering the necklace. He'd wear it when he was hunting this thing. "Anything else?"

"No," she said. "There is nothing else."

"Why silver?"

"I don't know." Annoyance edged her voice. "When I was made, there was precious little myth about vampires."

"But no matter what age, you're still vulnerable to dead man's blood? To decapitation?"

"Yes." She smoothed down the skirt of her dress, the image reminding him of a cat washing itself to restore its dignity. "It cannot be a vampire."

"Yeah, well, those bite marks say different," he said, chewing on the corner of his lip as he thought of them. "So we'll have to wait and see."


Burns, Oregon

The town was dark and quiet when they drove in, finding a small motel on the western side and getting rooms. Dean unloaded the gear bag and pulled out the files. Francesca had disappeared, stating she would find lodgings more suited to her needs. In Dean's room, Carl and Bezaliel sat at the small table and looked through the files, passing Dean's phone between them to study the distinctive punctures in the photos.

"Your vampire says it cannot be a vampire, but these are vampire bites," Bezaliel said, putting the phone on the table. The golden-haired Watcher had run several hunts now, in a team and on his own. While his brother, Baraquiel, preferred to remain in the hunter's enclave, focussing on research and training, Bezaliel had found enjoyment in the hunt.

"She's not 'my vampire'," Dean corrected him. "And yeah, apparently rule number one is no killing other vampires."

"What would a vampire want with the blood of another vampire?" The Watcher's brows drew together. "Surely they could make enough of their own fledglings to satisfy any thirst for power?"

Something he hadn't asked Francesca, Dean realised irritably. Damned vamp made him so uncomfortable he wasn't doing his job now. Some things about New Orleans were coming back. Flashes and feelings more than memories. None of them were conducive to a neutral view of the woman.

"We'll ask her Highness whenever she decides to turn up again," he said, sitting down and opening the map of the town. "According to her, the nest is here."

He pointed to a grouping of buildings a half-mile out of the town.

"This place is tiny," Carl said, a frown marring his forehead as he stared at the map. "What the hell is a nest of vampires doing here?"

"Feeding in Idaho and Washington," Dean said, drawing a triangle between Burns, Boise and Kennewick with a fingertip. "It's a base. Not like the big nests the Alpha had going. Maybe they heard about the vampire hunter and they're hiding out? I don't know. And I don't care."

"There's no localised population here," Bezaliel pointed out, gazing at the map. "No apartment buildings or high-rise where the monster we seek can take several humans at a time…where will the monster feed for its human blood?"

Dean's stomach turned over lazily when he realised Bezaliel was right. "Most of the households here are families."

In small, freestanding homes. With yards and plenty of places to hide after dark.

"Any ideas on how we can protect them?" Carl looked at him.

"Francesca said this vamp hunts other vamps in the daylight, when they're sleeping. So if it's going to attack people, it'll probably do it the night after it hits the nest. If she can see it, maybe we got a chance of getting to its target before it does. At least the small town factor works for us that way."

"Dean, if this is an old vampire, how're we going to see it?" Carl gestured vaguely toward the door. "We can't see Francesca half the time."

He shrugged. "I don't know, Carl. She'll be able to see it, I think. So we'll be watching her."


The room was dim, he couldn't see anything clearly, only feel—the silk cord around his wrists and ankles, chafing at them now because he couldn't help moving, couldn't help pulling against the bonds; soft lips and satin skin sliding over him, drawing out electrifying sensation from every nerve ending, pulling need and yearning from the depths of his body. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, thundering at the pleasure that spilled and crackled and spumed through him. He turned his head, his hips lifting off the bed as the muscles of his back contracted sharply, and it kept going on and on, getting closer and closer to a place he knew he wouldn't be able to bear it, where it would cross the line from ecstasy into agony. He couldn't breathe, couldn't shut out the feeling, couldn't shut down his body, she didn't give him a chance to fucking breathe; and she was over him, her heat calling to him, dripping moisture running down him, thrusting hard to get into her, so desperate to get deeper, no leverage spread-eagled on his back, and finally she enclosed him, hot, so tight and soft and wet and he bucked against her, no more capable of stopping the savage rutting than he could have stopped himself from breathing; the sounds coming out of him, vibrating in his chest and throat, helpless moans and gasps as she tightened around him and he exploded into her.

On the bed, Dean moaned, turning over restlessly as the memories gripped him.

Spent. Limp. Depleted. Exhausted. Nothing left. Her lips were soft against his neck, then the sharp prick of her teeth, biting through his skin, a bright pain he felt in his groin, the deep suction as her mouth sealed around the wound she'd made and his heart pumped his blood out of his artery for her.

He woke, sitting up and looking around. The lamp beside the bed clicked on and he jumped, shifting backward across the big mattress as Francesca sat down on the edge.

"God! Don't you know how to knock?"

She smiled at him, leaning on one arm. "Jumpy, aren't you?"

He glared at her, dragging the covers up. "Justifiably!"

"What were you dreaming about, Dean?" The smile widened, her eyes hypnotic as she stared into his.

"Fucked if I know," he snapped. He could feel the sticky dampness under him. How long had she been there, watching him? The thought of her standing in the dark watching him sleep, watching him dream, made his skin crawl.

Her laugh was soft, throaty, and she shrugged, getting to her feet and walking to the window. "I think the creature is here."

He looked at his watch. It was three in the morning. "Will it take people first? Or the nest?"

"I don't know."

He rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. Brought the bitch all the way here, and she was as much as use as

"Can you check the town? If it's going to attack the people first, we have to be there."

He didn't see her move. The door closed gently behind her. How'd she even gotten in, he wondered uneasily? He pushed the covers aside and got dressed, taking a long machete, the automatic and his knife from the bag on the floor at the foot of the bed. They'd loaded their pieces with silver bullets on the hope if it was an old vamp, it might be susceptible, maybe enough to slow it down so he could take the head.

He pulled on his boots and went out of the room, banging on Carl's door, then Bezaliel's. When he stopped pounding, he heard the soft noise in the shadows at the end of the line of rooms. He couldn't see anything in the darkness there and his fingers tightened on the machete hilt.

Francesca stood less than a foot from him and his heart leapt into his throat again. He checked the instinctive swing of the heavy blade, rolling his eyes.

"Christ! Make a noise! Clear your throat! Don't just sneak up on people," he said, in nervous exasperation.

"I thought your senses were better than most humans?" She raised a condescending brow.

"You're goddamned lucky my reflexes are," he said, as Carl opened his door.


The three men were covered in ash and oil, the mixed reek of trillium, saffron and vervain rising from them as they crouched beside the unclipped hedge along the side fence of the house. They wore throat mikes and earpieces, but didn't risk even the softest subvocalisation so close to the house. Dean gestured once to the backyard and Bezaliel rose silently and moved along the hedge, his footfalls indistinguishable from the soft rustling of the light breeze in the foliage.

Carl followed Dean to the front of the house. Francesca had disappeared again. Silent and formless as a shadow herself, she was entering the house some other way, Dean hoped. No matter how quiet they were, he thought a vampire, an old vampire, would probably hear them. He wasn't sure if the vamp would run or fight, but either way they'd covered the exits.

He knelt beside the front door and slid the pick and torque wrench into the lock, working through the pins. The lock's click was very soft, but still audible and he pushed the door wide, checking behind it as he entered, Carl on his heels. He tightened his grip on the sharkskin hilt of the machete in his hand as he left Carl in the hall and headed for the staircase in front of him.

They had no hope of seeing the thing. Even without the power to bend the surrounding light, to hide in a sliver of darkness or along the edge of a moonbeam, vampires were too fast to see. Under his shirt, the round discs of the silver pendant necklace were warm against his skin. It wasn't much in the way of protection, but it was the best they had.

The soft noise from the first bedroom drew his attention and he walked slowly and silently along the carpeted hall to the door that stood ajar. The moon was half-full, its light more grey than white, but through the doorway he could see the furniture in the room, the chequered pattern of moonlight and shadow across the floor, the figure leaning over the bed.

Its head snapped up as he slid through the narrow gap between door and jamb, and his hand slapped against the wall for the light switch, flooding the large room with light. He caught a second's glimpse of long dark hair, a skeletal-looking face with black eyes, half covered in blood, long limbs in black clothing, then it was gone, no flicker of movement to show direction, just gone.

"Carl, Bezaliel, it's moving," he said and crossed to the bed. The couple who'd been sleeping there were dead, throats almost ripped out, blood soaking the bedding under them. Swinging around, Dean ran for the door, pounding along the hallway to the next room. The door stood open and he saw a teenage girl, half-dragged from the bed, her head at an awkward angle to the floor, the blood pool around her shockingly red under the bright overhead light.

Fuck! He left the doorway and kept going down the hall, pushing the last door open. The sound of glass shattering was loud in the silent house and he hit the lights in time to see half the frame and one curtain dragged out the window, a flick of black hair disappearing with it.

"Went out the south side second-story window. Get it!"

The flash of red under the overhead light caught in the corner of his eye. The room held two small beds and a cot. The bedding of all three was carnelian, glistening still in the bright light.

Goddamn motherfucking sonofabitch.

He ran for the stairs, taking them five, six at a time, hitting the hallway and racing out through the front door, skidding as he made the corner of the house and shot through the side garden. The crunch of timber under his boots and the crackle of glass told him this was where the vamp had landed, and he slowed down, looking wildly around for any sign of which way it had gone.

"It was too fast." Francesca's voice came from behind him, and he turned around, seeing her come into the moonlight from the darkness beside the house. "Did it take them all?"

"Yeah." Dean turned away from her. "Did you see Carl and Bezaliel?"

"They ran after it," she said, pointing toward the street. "That way. They won't catch it."

"Any doubts we're talking vampire here?"

"No." Her gaze was steady. "None."

"So is it an old vamp? Will we be able to stop it?" He looked down at the machete in his hand, the polished blade winking in the cold light.

"I could see it, when it came out of the window, and jumped down here," she said. "It didn't move like an old one, didn't use the moonlight or thicken the air to float down. It jumped down like a human, fast and clumsy."

He knew what she meant. She moved like it was no effort, as if she were floating through the air. "So it's not an old one?"

She shook her head. "To drain so many, to move so fast, it has to be. Young vampires, those who have been made within two, three hundred years, they could not possibly do it."

"That's just fucking great. Another fucking impossibility." He stepped back as he heard the crack and rustle of the vegetation by the broken side fence, then relaxed as Carl and Bezaliel came through the hedge.

"Thing moved like a rocket, we had no chance," Carl said, frustration and anger limning his voice.

"Did you get a good look?"

"Long hair, black, that's all I saw," Carl said, shrugging. Bezaliel nodded in agreement.

Dean turned back to Francesca. "And you? Did you see what it looked like?"

"It looked like a vampire," she said, her tone sharp. "Tall, thin, dressed in black, covered in blood."

"I'll just send out the APB," he said. "Will it wait for the nest to get to sleep?"

She shrugged. "It knows you're here now. Knows it doesn't have much time…but even a small nest… It will wait for the best advantage, I think."


9:00 a.m.

They sat in the diner, eating steadily, appetites gone but needing the energy, needing the fuel. Checking the bodies, making sure, calling the cops and then cleaning any trace of their presence there had taken a little under an hour and the sun's upper limb had just broken over the horizon when they'd left the neighbourhood. Getting the ash and oil off had taken a bit longer. They had another three hours to wait, but they'd wait by the nest for the vampire. Francesca couldn't help with this hunt. She'd gone underground somewhere, out of the sunlight.

The vampire hadn't had the time to drain the bodies completely this time, Dean thought, washing his food down with the hot coffee. But it'd managed to take most of it. What kind of vampire could drain two adults and four children? In one brief burst of hunger? They'd been in the house and driving it, and still it had killed the children, although from the tracks it'd left, he was sure the parents had been hit first. Which meant it'd drained the teenager in the time it had taken him to get from one room to the next, and the two toddlers and baby in less time than that, because he hadn't even gone into the girl's room.

How had it gotten past him from the parent's room? He'd felt nothing, seen nothing, standing in the only doorway, the window hadn't been open, hadn't been broken…he had to ask Francesca about the power of the oldest vampires in more detail. The memory of Rome returned, Ellie standing on the stairs in the darkness, telling him the Alpha had gone—in the time it'd taken them to climb one flight of stairs—from the apartment building to St Peter's Basilica. But the Alpha was dead, and what kind of vamp could do what it could do?

His phone rang, and he pushed his plate aside, getting up and leaving a twenty on the table as he answered it. Walking out into the bright morning sunshine, he turned down the street.

"Hey."

"Any luck?"

"No," he said. "Got the family and was moving too fast for any of us to get near it."

"Well, there's something else." Ellie's voice sounded tired.

"What?"

"Got another package today." He heard her soft exhale on the other end of the line. "This one wasn't addressed to you."

He stopped on the sidewalk. "Who was it addressed to?"

"To me."

His heart sank. "You didn't open it?"

"No, of course not. Frank's got it," she said. "The postmark was Idaho, Dean, Twin Falls."

It took him a moment to fathom what that meant. Then it filtered through. North Dakota. Montana. Idaho. His secret admirer was on the same path as the vampire. In their world, there were very few coincidences.

"This vamp is sending me personal tokens?" he asked her, trying to keep the disbelief out of his voice. It made sense, in a whacked kind of way. The vamp could've taken him any time last night, but it hadn't. He hadn't thought of why it hadn't, not really. But if it had a connection to him…he couldn't think how that could be possible.

"Looks like," Ellie's voice was worried. "When are you going to the nest?"

"In about half an hour," he said, glancing at his watch.

"Dean…"

"I know," he said. "I'll call you, when we're done here."

"Okay."

He closed the phone and tucked it into his jacket pocket. A vampire—an old vampire—who knew him. Knew her. Knew where they lived. It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. Why would a vamp send him cursed objects? Why would anyone send him cursed objects? Things that wouldn't kill him, necessarily, just take him away from his family… He leaned against the wall of the building next to the diner and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to find one piece that fit with another.

"You alright?" Carl stood a couple of feet away, Bezaliel beside him, both of them looking at him with concern on their faces.

"Yeah, got a call. Ellie said another one of the packages arrived today. Postmarked Twin Falls, Idaho."

Carl looked puzzled, but Bezaliel's expression sharpened. "The vampire is your stalker?"

Dean nodded. "One and the same, by the looks of it."

"I suppose that explains why it didn't drain you in the house," the Watcher said, his expression thoughtful.

"Yeah, small favours, eh?" He looked at the sun's position. "Let's get going. We need to find somewhere inconspicuous to watch for this thing."


12:30 p.m.

The day was still and cold, the sunlight a metallic pewter against the overcast sky. Dean lay prone in the thin undergrowth of the woodland, binoculars moving slowly over the deserted farm buildings. A hundred yards to his left, Carl was hidden in a small gully. To his right, the Watcher was invisible at the edge of a clump of conifers. Nothing had moved around them for more than an hour.

The crash from the barn was muffled, but all three leapt to their feet and ran for the old building, machetes out, sending spears of light flashing from the long thick blades. Dean didn't even think of being quiet or sneaky, the drop kick slamming into the door and breaking it open. He rolled to his feet and looked around.

On the ground to his right, two vampires lay headless, huge bloody holes in their chests. The smell of rotting flowers and decomposing flesh was rich enough to carve in the building, overlaid now by the sweetish coppery scent of blood. He saw a flicker of movement above him in the loft, a swirl of the dust motes glinting in the air, and grabbed the chain haul as Carl and Bezaliel entered.

"Loft," he yelled, sliding the machete back through his belt and climbing hand over hand up the chain through the trapdoor above. Bales of straw and hay were stacked around the open space, some splattered with red, others soaked in it. He heard a soft slur against the wooden floor and spun around, the blade in his hand again as he searched for movement, for a difference in the thickness of the air, for a gleam where no gleam should be.

Behind the stack of bales ahead of him he saw movement, a flash of dark hair against the brighter gold of the bale, and ran forward. He had to jump the body that lay on the floor, head gone and cold blood spilling out across the bare wooden boards, another flick of black a little further, behind another stack of bales.

"Dean! Where are you?" Carl's voice shouted from the other end of the loft.

He couldn't afford to answer, even if the vamp knew where he was, even if it could hear his footfalls and heartbeat and smell his blood. He dove across the pile, hand outstretched and coarse dark hair slid over his fingers. He caught a fragmentary glimpse of wide eyes, reddish black, then the stench of blood and rot surrounded him, his eyes closing involuntarily against it. When he opened them, the creature was gone.

Gun, asshat, get out your fucking gun! The thought slammed through his mind. Sunlight glinted from the whirling dust motes, his only trail to the creature who could move faster than his senses could register.

"Carl! Look out!"

The young hunter stood near the edge of the loft floor, his gaze swinging around as he tried to see his target. The bales behind him shivered with air movement past them. Carl twisted, machete blade rising, then he was thrown outward off the raised floor, arms and legs pinwheeling as he fell to the earth floor below, a spray of blood fanning out through the air.

Dean pulled the trigger, the 9mm firing, the muzzle flash brilliant and the sound booming around the barn, tracking the vampire's movements across the loft by the movement of the dust in the air.

It reappeared by the large square bale door; back to him, hunched over, a hand curled over the baling hook, then it was gone, through the open square and down onto the ground. Bezaliel had gone too, and Dean looked down at Carl, lying on the ground, blood streaming from slashes over his chest.

Sheathing the machete, Dean ran to the ladder, ignoring the splinters embedding themselves in his fingers and palms as he half-slid down its length, a grunt escaping him when his boots hit the dirt. He staggered upright and ran to the young man, dropping to his knees beside him.

There were three marks across his chest, scraped down to the ribs, and Carl's arm was bent the wrong way, the shoulder joint pushing against the fabric of his shirt. Dean checked his pulse, then lifted his eyelids, relieved as the pupils contracted in the sunlight coming through the smashed doors.

He rolled Carl onto his side, and rotated the arm, pressing it close to his ribs, then bringing it out again, until the joint was close to the socket. Pushing hard, the ball slid reluctantly back into the socket, and he was glad Carl was unconscious for that little manoeuvre at least. The scratches were wide and dirty, but not deep. The Watcher strode back into the barn, the scowl on Bezaliel's face indicative enough of what had happened.

"There's a blood trail. You hit it," Bezaliel said without preamble. "Slowed it down but not quite enough."

"At least something can slow it down," Dean said. "Can you do anything about Carl?"

The Watcher knelt beside him and placed his hand gently over the young man's forehead. After a moment, Carl opened his eyes, looking groggily into their faces.

"What'd I miss?"


Forest Edge, Oregon

The black car sped along the highway, Dean's hands curled loosely around the wheel, his eyes fixed to the road. The car's shadow stretched out behind him as he headed west, the sky turning purple and red and gold with the sun's descent, thin wispy clouds edged and gilded in the last of the light.

Knowing the vampire had a connection to him, he'd told Carl and Bezaliel to wait for Francesca, unable to sit there while the vampire could be heading for his home. He'd spoken to Ellie an hour ago, and everything had been fine, but the prickling along the back of his neck was getting worse.

He hadn't asked her what the package addressed to her had contained, he thought suddenly. And, more alarmingly, she hadn't told him, which meant it was something that would have had him on the road and heading back straight away.

Crap.

Doing the speed limit, the drive took about two hours forty minutes. He was travelling a little short of twice that speed, and he came into Forest Edge half an hour after dusk. The streetlights were already on, the mountains rearing up beside him, their flanks deeply shadowed. The Impala's tyres spat out gravel as he swung it onto their road, the engine roaring between the mountainside and the houses opposite, the headlights lighting up the way and picking out the black Barracuda, skewed across his driveway between the stone pillars. He knew the car, knew who it belonged to, knew who the vampire was and the connection to himself. He couldn't believe yet, but he knew it.

Fuck. He pulled up beside it, and killed the engine, then slid out, knife in hand. The sidewalls of the 'cuda's tyres were worn. He left all four tyres with deep slashes.


The house was dark when Dean came in through the back door. It didn't matter at all. He knew every board, every squeak and creak and loose nail in the place. Between the realisation of who his stalker was and entry into his home, every emotion and feeling had been shut down and locked away. He couldn't afford to think about what he might find. Couldn't think about anything that might compromise his edge, diffuse his focus, or break his concentration.

He stopped at the door to the hallway, listening for anything that would indicate where he needed to go. Above him, he heard the scrape of a chair over carpet and turned for the stairs, climbing them silently and stepping over the riser that creaked. The landing was empty. Along the hallway, the master bedroom door was half-open, lamp light spilling over the floor. He moved along the wall and swung into the doorway, sending the door crashing back, the barrel of the 9mm fixed on the figure standing by the dresser.

"Relax, Dean. They're not here," the vampire said, her voice hoarse. She was holding a framed photograph. "Must be hiding out at your brother's place, I'll find them later."

Emma Jones tossed the frame onto the dresser and turned to face him. Her long black hair was matted and snarled, loose over her shoulders and down her back. Her features, once dignified and attractive, were misshapen now, the bones of her skull pressing too tightly against the skin, her dark eyes deep-set in the sockets, mouth deformed by the second set of teeth that protruded through her lips.

She'd wiped off much of the fresh blood but it still stained her skin and clung to her hair, a rust shadow over her face and neck. The close-fitting black leather pants and suede shirt were filthy with it.

"What happened to you?" he asked, the memory of her sitting in Sam's backyard in a short summer shift jarring with the woman who stood in front of him now.

"Oh, you know, the usual things…" Her gaze shifted around the room, lingering here and there. "I went into a nest and didn't quite get finished."

"How'd you get supercharged, Emma?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said, smiling at him, the fangs white and red and black.

"Try me."

"There was a book in the nest of my maker. She was…something of a collector, I think. Pretty old herself, or so she told me. Made in the fifteen hundreds. She could do some pretty hinky stuff, so maybe she was telling the truth."

She walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, her hand smoothing over the quilt.

"The book had a spell in it," she said, leaning toward him on one arm. "A spell that could transform a vampire into a power sink, or something of that sort."

He felt his brows rising. "Power sink?"

"Always hurt the ones we love…isn't that what they say?" A shiver ran through her. "I was curious. The spell wasn't that hard. I had to kill her. My…Angel. She was fast and hard but I did it…and every bit of her power, all of her strength, well, it flowed into me. I wasn't just a fledgling any more, Dean. I'd shortcut the usual six or seven centuries learning curve and I had her powers. I was fast. Strong. Unbeatable."

"And then?"

She shrugged. "There was a downside."

"Isn't there always?" he asked.

"I guess so," she said, lifting her hand and chewing along the fingernail. "I—I—well…I had to keep drinking. Every vamp I took, I got their power, but I had to keep drinking and drinking, vamp blood, human blood, killed a dozen cattle and horses on the way across from Jamestown to Billings. It, uh, eats at me constantly, feeds off me if I leave it too long."

Dean ignored the images in his mind's eye. "Why the hell were you sending me cursed objects?"

She laughed, a shrill burst that set his teeth on edge. "Oh, I didn't think you'd fall for that. That was just to let you know I was coming!"

She stretched out across the bed, crossing her legs at the ankles and resting her chin on her hands.

"I'm strong now, and fast," she said, the laugh turning into a breathless giggle. "Oh yeah, I'm fast enough to take your little Ellie now."

Then she was beside him, between one heartbeat and the next, one arm curled like an iron band around his throat, her hand grinding the bones of his fingers against the gun's grip, prising it from his grip. Her breath gusted, hot and foetid, against the side of his face, then her teeth pricked against the skin of his neck.

"Fast enough to take anyone now. Wanna join me?" Her tongue slid up under his jaw.

"Abomination."

Dean staggered as he was released and pushed back against the door. His windpipe was aching, bruised from Emma's hold. His machete lay on the floor, a couple of feet away and his automatic was still tucked at the back of his jeans. He wanted the Colt, more than he could believe but it was in his workshop, down behind the garage, waiting for more bullets.

At the window, Francesca stood, her face drawn into a mask of distaste as she looked at Emma.

"You're the one who's been watching me," Emma said, circling around her. "The really old one."

Dean drew in a deep breath and leaned over to retrieve the machete.

"Vampire do not kill vampire."

"Yeah, see I thought that was more of a guideline, than an actual rule." Emma smiled, her head tilted to one side as she studied Francesca. "Now, what can you do that I can't?"

Pressing back against the wall, Dean saw both vampires disappear, the dresser rocked suddenly as if something had struck it, then the curtains lifted and fell. He could hear them; low snarling and deep guttural laughter, a thin shriek and the patter of blood droplets falling to the floor, in sprays and whorls. He pulled his gun and levelled it, tracking the action by the movement of other objects in the room.

Then they were visible, locked together on the floor. Francesca's scream rose and cut off as Emma's hand plunged into her chest, her mouth locked around the older vampire's throat, blood gushing out and spilling over them both. Dean sighted along the barrel and pulled the trigger smoothly, again and again. The silver slugs hit Emma in the side, punching through her abdomen, through her neck and into the side of her head.

The gun clicked empty and Emma dropped Francesca, turning to face him, her eyes flame-red and pupilless. Her fangs glistened scarlet, the rich colour covering half her face and most of her neck and chest. He dropped the gun, and raised the machete, the steel hissing as it cleaved the air.

"You won't kill me, Dean," Emma said, her smile a horrifying rictus in the dripping canker of her face.

"Wanna bet?"

She stretched upward, and rolled her neck, and he braced against the wall for her attack. The door to the bathroom opened behind her. Emma spun around.

"Catch." Ellie stepped into the room, tossing something at Emma's face.

Reaction was involuntary and automatic, the vampire's hands closing around the small object even as her face registered shock and horror at the simple action.

Dean blinked as Emma froze, her skin hardening, turning from tan to grey to white, the transformation spreading up her arms and over her shoulders, down her chest and up her neck. The blood from Francesca's bite solidified and turned white. Her clothing hardened into folds, the colour bleaching out as leather and fabric became stone, her boots the last to change, the dirt falling from them into white powder on the hardwood floor.

"What the—" Dean looked past the stone statue of the vampire to Ellie as she straightened.

She smiled, walking around the statue and stepping over Francesca's body.

"I didn't tell you?" she said. "That was the package she sent to me. A little turn-to-stone spell ball."

He understood the horror on Emma's face. "And she thought she could take you," he said, shaking his head. "An' no, you must've forgotten to tell me."

She laughed, reaching up as he bent his head to kiss her.

In the deepening heat of the kiss, his nerves sang and the tension and fear of the last two days dissolved. Even the knowledge that Emma had planned to turn Ellie into a cold, dead stone statue dissipated. He could've told Emma about the sneakiness and unpredictability of the woman he'd married, but he was happy enough she'd found out for herself, the hard way.

He released Ellie reluctantly and looked around. The room stank of rotten flowers and rotten meat, daubed and sprayed in blood. Ellie's nose wrinkled up, her expression a combination of disgruntlement and exasperation.

"We're going to have redecorate this whole bloody room."

"That mean we can get mirrors on the ceiling?"


Two days later

Dean stared at the note in his hands. It had arrived this morning with the mail, in a plain envelope, postmarked Burns, Oregon. She must have been there before they'd even arrived, he thought.

Dear Dean,

I told you you weren't meant for the life of an ordinary man. Now you're free, free to be what you are, be the hunter you are, with me. A lot of things have changed and you'll probably be shocked by what I am now, but there's nothing that can stand against me, nothing in the monster world and nothing in the human and you need someone strong to protect your back.

I'll be along, sooner than you think.

E.

The package she'd sent to Ellie hadn't been addressed the same way as the others. A typewritten label from a publishing house Ellie occasionally ordered from had been on the box, and the spell-ball, made of dough and ash and dirt and blood, had been wrapped in tissue paper with a ribbon, ostensibly a gift of appreciation from the company.

Frank had told him that Ellie had brought the box straight to him, unopened, and he wondered how she'd known. But then that was her, she didn't forget who she was or the world they lived in for a second.

They'd found the book and the spell in the Barracuda, and Ellie had given it to Frank to load it into the database. They'd also found a number of invoices from a business in Carmel that claimed to specialise in occult practises. Bezaliel and Idan had gone down there to put them out of business. The invoices included the orders for the roses delivered to Santa Barbara, and the bracelet of Sekhmet.

Ellie had called Laney and told her what had happened to Emma. Laney had apologised over and over for bringing Jones into contact with them. He still didn't know what to make of the woman's apparent feelings for him. She hadn't known him, hadn't had anything to do with him aside from the one meeting in July. It seemed impossible to him she could have worked it all up in her head from that. Then again, the world was full of impossible things and he'd seen a lot of them.

Walking to the living room, he tossed the note and envelope onto the fire, watching it turn to ash in moments. The whole thing had creeped him out from beginning to end. He and Sam had carried the stone statue to the edge of the drop off, a couple of miles higher up the forest trail and pitched it over the edge. It had shattered into a thousand pieces on impact with the rocky hillside below.

"Hey."

He turned around to see Ellie leaning against the doorway, looking at him, mouth lifting slightly on one side.

"Hey." He smiled back, and walked over to her, putting his arms around her.

"You feel like checking out our new bedroom?"

"Did you get the mirrors on the ceiling?"

She snorted. "No."

"And you call me inhibited," he said, following her up the stairs.

"Well, let's talk about that," she said. "What happened with Francesca in New Orleans?"

Dean stopped and looked away. More of the vague and erotic memories had been coming back in his dreams. He couldn't figure what had gone on, but when he'd asked his little brother, Sam had turned bright red and brushed it off.

"What did you get out of Sam?"

Her eyes widened at the tacit accusation. "I did not stoop to interrogating Sam about your love life!"

He scowled. "Whatever it was, it wasn't a part of my love life."

"Is it why you don't like being tied up?"

She had talked to Sam. He was gonna kill his little brother.


[Dean and Sam meet Francesca by chance and without proper introductions in the short story, Every Last Drop]