AN: Big thanks to my buddy Phiesy for being an awesome pal and reading my stuff over and giving me super-advice and being my personal awesome cheerleader, and also to JimmyDANj2 for giving me a big confidence boost as well :3 Loved getting your review. Got all warm and fuzzy. I try to be original and stick out from the rest when it comes to writing xD Pointing out the story as such made my day, really. And as for Deacon and Jenna…haha, yes, I'm liking them and their clashing personalities more and more as my mind goes through the story… We'll see what happens. :3 Also, this chapter makes me sad :C

Chapter 5

Call from hell with love

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..

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"Montana?" Deacon looked up and frowned. "I don't want to go to Montana."

"Why not," Dustin said absently, tone suggesting he was merely asking to try placate the other man with questions to keep him from whining. "You've never been to Montana."

"Yeah and I don't want to go to Montana."

"That's an incredible reason for us to ignore this job. Please, give us another good one," Luca called, and Deacon glared at him over his shoulder, eyes narrowing as the doctor grinned, toothbrush sticking out of the corner of his mouth before he disappeared back into the bathroom to finish brushing his teeth.

It was 'morning' now, for them. The sun had set and they had started their day.

And Jenna, usually the first one up to get herself ready, was still curled up on her side, dead asleep. Dustin had tried shaking her awake earlier, but the girl merely rolled over away from him. He'd left her alone since then.

"She still asleep?" Cole asked as he moved across the room, dragging one hand through his shower-damp hair. He sat at the foot of the other bed and pulled on his boots, looking over at her all cocooned up in the scratchy red blanket to the point where only the top of her head was showing.

"Mm-hm," was all Dustin said. "I'll wake her up in a moment—Deacon." The younger vampire's name left the eldest's in a hiss-like warning, but the dark haired man all but tossed himself at the foot of her bed, making the girl yelp as she bounced into the air after the impact, struggling with the blankets for a moment as she awoke and found herself hopelessly tangled in them. "Deacon, you idiot," scolded Dustin.

"Rise and shine!"

Jenna mumbled something into the blanket that none of them could have made out of they tried. After another moment of struggling, her face popped out of the heap of blankets and she glared at Deacon, eyes narrowed.

"Well. Morning, there," Deacon grinned, ignoring Dustin as he got up and smacked him over the head as he walked past. "Everyone else is just about done in there. Your turn."

Jenna blinked, hesitating before looking around at the others. "Did you all get up early?" she asked.

Deacon shook his head. "Naw, you slept in is all."

"Oh." She blinked again. "Sorry."

"Shit, don't worry about it," the vampire laughed. "It's no big deal. We each take like two seconds in there anyway. Except Dustin," he added, and his eyes shifted towards the bathroom without turning his head. "Who is a GIRL."

Dustin didn't respond.

She pushed at the blankets wrapped around her until her arms were loose and she let out a tired sigh, rubbing at her eyes. "Are you sure we aren't all up early?"

"Didn't sleep very well last night, huh?" Deacon leaned back a bit, resting his weight on his hands pressed behind him into the mattress. "Your tossin' and turnin' woke me up a couple times."

"No, I slept," she mumbled. "I didn't wake up once. It just…doesn't feel like it."

"…" Deacon frowned for a second before looking back at Cole, who had finished with his boots and was staring absently at the wall in front of him, lost in thought. "Bad dreams, then?"

"I don't know. Can't remember," she shrugged, tone soft, and Deacon looked at her again, as if expecting her to change her answer. "…Really," she added, glancing at him for a moment. "It's fuzzy. Probably about something stupid." She looked away again and Deacon let out a sigh.

"How do you feel about us going to Montana?" he asked finally.

"Montana?" She held her breath for a moment, and Deacon caught the sound.

"We don't have to if you don't want to," he said, remembering her reaction at the mention of the werewolf in Washington. And Montana was just about right next door—Luca would try and press for the job again. He knew it. "Really, it's up to you. You can shoot the idea down—"

"What's in Montana?" she asked.

"Poltergeist!" Luca's head popped out of the bathroom, his grin wide. "I thought about what Deacon said—we are still green I guess. This one hasn't killed anyone yet, but it's knocked a few people down the stairs, tossed pots and pans around hard enough to give a few people concussions, and tried to hit somebody with a Grand Piano."

"How in the fuck," Deacon growled, "is a Grand Piano tossing bastard supposed to be an easy job?"

"Ah, shut up Deacon. I'd love to see you get hit with one anyway. Maybe that's my real motivation for suggesting the idea."

"Oh, you're a hilarious little—"

"Sounds fine," Jenna said, raising her voice to break into the banter. "It does. It sounds fine," she repeated. "Montana's okay." She glanced at Deacon after watching a grin spread across Luca's face again, the vampire frowning even deeper, looking at her. "…What?"

"Well I don't think Montana's fine," Deacon huffed.

"Wuss," Luca said, and disappeared again the same instant Deacon flipped him a hand gesture that showed him what he thought of being called such a thing.

Blanket still wrapped tight around her, she bent down and grabbed her backpack from the floor beside her bed, making sure she had a clean change of clothes inside before hugging the backpack to her chest as she stood. "Really, Montana is okay," she smiled, eyes still tired. "It'll take us a couple of days to get there though."

Deacon grunted and Cole looked away from the wall.

"When we get in the truck, you can have the—"

"Back seat again? Aw, thanks," Jenna grinned and Cole snorted, laughing under his breath. "But really…poltergeist huh? So…pretty much the same idea as the last job."

"I guess," Cole shrugged. "Spirit with a nasty temper throwing stuff and people around."

"Fun," Jenna smiled, lifting an arm and placing the back of her wrist over her mouth as she yawned. "We'll go over how to approach it on the way there. We've got a couple days to do extra research."

"Unless Luca already did everything," Deacon added.

"Don't sound so disappointed," Cole grinned. "As if you would have done any of the research anyway."

Deacon scoffed, rolling his eyes and Jenna walked past.

"I'll hurry so we can go soon," she said, and laughed as she stepped into the bathroom after grabbing a towel, shooing Dustin and Luca out as soon as they were finished brushing their teeth.

She let the water run for a few moments, and rolled her eyes when she heard Luca and Deacon start to argue again through the walls, smiling as she began to ready herself for her own quick shower. And as always, she found herself looking her left arm over when she tugged her shirt over her head, that smile slipping a bit as she did. It didn't bother her as much anymore, to be honest. She was used to the way it looked now, and certain weaknesses and limits her arm now had she was growing accustomed to as well. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and was glad that she hadn't grown up as the sort of girl to be very bothered by one's appearance. Her parents had always taught her that the important things weren't about…

The girl hesitated a moment, thinking back to the restless dreams that had sucked away her energy and a good night's rest. She was still tired, despite having slept through the night. She honestly couldn't remember much of those dreams, but…she knew who they were about.

An image pressed itself against the front of her mind of a hospital room and soft, beeping machines, and she almost winced, pushing it away before easing the shower curtains aside a bit, reaching a hand in to test the water. But something gave a high, cheerful beep from her backpack and she jumped, gasping at the sound.

Her eyes narrowed, confused, as she looked down at the bag. Crouching down, she fished her cell phone out of it, and stared at the lit up screen, blinking and confused.

She flipped the phone open and her brows lifted at the sight of the unknown number. The phone vibrated in her hand, the call waiting, and she glanced at the closed bathroom door before hitting the green button and pressing the phone lightly to her ear.

The voice on the other end cut her off before she could even say "hello".

"I'll make this part quick, Jenna," the rough, familiar voice said. "I'd be an idiot if I didn't expect your little vampire posse to be close by. If you aren't alone, fix that. Right now."

Her voice was a soft whisper when she replied, glancing at the door again, the sound of the water from the shower masking her voice from the outside. "I am."

"Oh, excellent." Conall was grinning. She could hear it. "I'm going to ask you to do something. And don't say anything—not another word. I know those weak little bloodsuckers have better hearing that most. So listen, and listen only. I'm going to make you a deal."

She let out a breath, confused, but he growled at her to keep quiet before she could say anything.

"It's a good one. You'll appreciate the outcome. But Jenna? …Girl. You've…ha, you've really made me angry."

Jenna closed her eyes, waiting for more.

"So much so, that instead of just hunting you down like the dog I am, I decided to use the more logical, more devious human side of myself and I did a little research on you, Miss Chaunce." There was a ruffled noise from the phone, as if he were moving around and making himself comfortable. "How's your father doing, by the way?"

Her eyes lifted from the floor at the wall, blood going cold despite the hot steam pouring from the shower.

"Heard he still hasn't recovered completely from that werewolf attack last year. Tsk." The shifter clicked his tongue, sympathy coating his voice like sugar. "It's a damn shame. Left his high school daughter to the world, all alone... Anyway, long, traumatizing story short, I know where he is."

"Don't—"

"I told you to be quiet," the man snapped, and Jenna closed her mouth. "Now if you don't want me finishing what that damned werewolf couldn't, I want you to show up at the address I'm going to text you, by yourself. If I even catch a glimpse of those vampires anywhere nearby, I'm ditching and killing your father in his hospital bed. Am I clear?"

She nodded numbly against the phone.

"I'll take your silence as a definite yes. And I know you'll do it. You're just the perfect little hero, aren't you? You ran off to fight monsters like the one that wrecked your family all by yourself. Didn't know which way you were going when you started, too. But you have guts. If nothing else, you're a brave little thing. Hell, you shoved your arm down a wolf's throat to keep four strangers from being torn to bits. That's cute. How's that arm doing by the way?" Conall laughed. "Nice and pretty? I'm going to take a look at it when you show up."

She heard him move again, the man letting out a long breath, like a sigh.

"If you're frightened, that's completely understandable. But it's adorable that I know you're more worried for your father than you are about yourself. Jesus, I can't get over what a selfless little do-gooder you are. People like you are rare, you know. It's refreshing, actually. A lot of people I know would have told me to just eat their father and to leave them alone. Disgusting, right? Or maybe I just hang around the wrong crowd."

She heard a light tapping noise, as if he were drumming his fingers on something.

"Wrong crowd or not though, I get what I want. And I've given you the terms of the deal. I'm going to be generous though, because I'm pretty sure that little squadron of leeches is going to give you a hard time about this. Not that you'll tell them what's really going on, of course. But you'll need to come up with a good excuse for them to leave you alone. Those vampires…" Conall scoffed, irritated. "Almost as good at tracking as I am. And my ego isn't inflated in the least."

He paused for a moment. "You have three days. Nice little cushion to get used to the idea that these are going to be the last days of your happy, monster-fighting life. I'll send you the address after I hang up. Do you understand?"

"Y…" her voice was shaking, and she had to swallow to get it under control. "Yes," she breathed.

"Good."

"…Please," she added, and then quickly, "don't hurt him."

Conall was quiet for a few long seconds, and his voice was low when he answered. "If you do what I said, I won't lay a hand on your father."

The line went dead.

.

"Hey," Dustin called, knocking on the door with the back of his hand. "You've been in the shower over forty minutes now." Usually she was in and out in fifteen. "Everything okay?"

"…I'll be out in a second. Just a second," Jenna's voice came slowly, and Dustin's eyes narrowed when it cracked.

He leaned away from the door and looked at Cole, the only one left in the room besides himself, Luca and Deacon having already gone to the truck, where they were no doubt fighting over a good radio station.

"Earlier she said she'd had a dream that bothered her," Cole said quietly. "She said she didn't remember most of it. I'm not so sure," he shrugged though, sighing. "Dustin…" he was quiet a moment, and Dustin moved away from the door, closer to him. "I don't want Luca suggesting that werewolf hunt again. Or any…any werewolf at all." His voice had dropped even more, making sure that Jenna would not hear him, even if the water had not been still running.

"Why not?" Dustin tilted his head a bit. "I thought you were looking forward to finding one."

"It…well I was, but…when Luca brought it up the other day…" Cole looked at the bathroom door. "Deacon noticed it too, but she… froze. And there was fear in her. The sort that meant she'd dealt with it before. From experience. We're all curious about why she's off on her own doing this, and I think she told Deacon and I when Luca brought up the werewolf."

"…You think she's run into one before." Dustin blinked.

"I think she's run into one before," Cole repeated. "Deacon doesn't want to go to Montana because he knows Luca'll bring the werewolf up again, since we'd be so close." Cole's eyes snapped up to him. "Tell him to drop it and keep it dropped."

Dustin was silent for a while, eyes shifting to the door that lead outside for a few moments, but turned his head, straightening when Jenna finally came out of the bathroom, backpack slung over one shoulder, her hair ruffled damp and drawn back into a thin ponytail like it usually was. "There you are," he said, voice quieter than it should have been.

"Sorry. I think I zoned out in there," she mumbled.

Cole stood, letting her reach the door first. She hadn't looked at either of them; she kept her eyes to the floor, shoulders hunched.

"Hey," Dustin reached out before she touched the doorknob, fingers catching the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "Hold on, wait a moment."

The girl stopped, glancing at him for a second before simply standing still, lifting a hand to grip the strap over her shoulder tightly.

"Cole? Give us a minute, will you?"

The black haired man seemed to almost glare at him for a second before he let out a breath and left the hotel room, walking towards the truck after closing the door carefully behind him.

"…Jenna," Dustin began, and released her sleeve. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes," she said, a bit too quickly.

"Nightmares, right?" he asked softly, and she looked at him then. Her eyes were hard, and he frowned because of it, not used to an expression like that from her. "It's okay," he went on. "I'm not trying to pry. I'm really not—I just want to know if you're alright. If you want to talk about anything, I'm right here. We can talk now if you want. The others can wait." He offered her a smile that slipped away when she didn't return it.

"I'm okay," she answered after a few seconds pause. She nodded as well, looking back down at the floor. "It was a stupid dream. It was… Spiders," she lied. "Old…childhood fear." She closed her eyes at the deep sigh the redhead let out.

"Jenna…You aren't very good at lying," Dustin said quietly. "But it's alright. If you don't want to talk about it, don't worry—"

"I don't want to go to Montana," she cut in, and Dustin blinked. "I don't."

"Ah…okay," he said, watching her. "Where do you want to go then?" He shook his head when she gave him a questioning look. "I know you've got a good enough reason. Just tell me where you want to go instead."

Relief seemed to flood the girl's face for a moment before it left just as quickly, and she looked at the door before taking in a slow breath. "Maryland."

"Maryland?" Dustin repeated.

"There's been signs of a demon there," she said easily, and looked at the floor again. "It'll hurt someone—kill them—if we don't stop it. I think it's more important than a poltergeist right now."

Dustin looked from her to the door before his eyes swept over the room one more time. "…Alright then. Maryland it is." He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake, smiling a bit before reaching out to open the door. "But Jenna, really. If you want to talk about anything…"

"I know," she finished, a tiny smile crossing her face as he opened the door slowly. "You're here."

Dustin smirked, pushing at her back playfully as she headed for the truck, making her let out a short laugh as they reached the vehicle.

Jenna opened the side door and Deacon grinned at her from the middle seat, smirking. "You get the window this time, kid," he grinned. "So enjoy it, dammit."

She shook her head and slid in, closing the door behind her and fiddling with her seatbelt until it was fastened while Dustin got in himself and started the engine. "Thank you for the window seat," she said.

"Pft. Don't go thankin' me for shit," he waved a hand dismissively, grinning. "And by the way, you've beaten Dustin on his longest girly shower record."

"Change in plans," Dustin said, ignoring Deacon's comment completely. "We aren't going to Montana," he said.

"What?" Luca stared at him. "Well why not?"

"Fucking good," Deacon huffed, crossing his arms. "But yeah, what's up now?"

"Going after something a bit better than a poltergeist," Dustin shrugged. "There's a demon in Maryland. We're going to stop it."

"A demon?" the other three vampires said at the same time. Deacon looked at Jenna, who was staring out the window absently.

"Really, a demon?" he blinked. "And that's what Jenna wants to do? Jenna wants to go demon hunting?"

"She was the one who suggested it," Dustin answered, and drove out of the parking lot silently. "So Maryland it is."

Jenna looked at Deacon over her shoulder a moment, eyes holding something he could almost recognize until she looked back out the window. "I need to stop it from hurting anyone," she said, tone soft but flat.

Deacon snorted, arching a brow before looking back at Dustin, as if expecting some added, left out piece of information, but when he got none the man simply shrugged, reaching up to run a hand through his short black hair, fingers digging into his scalp agitatedly. "Yeah then," he shrugged. "Maryland it is."

He was quiet for a few minutes, the radio as silent as the rest of the truck, before he cleared his throat. "But," he began. "I'm hungry."

A chorus of agreements echoed through the car.

.

Ironic as it was, she was getting used to the night life now. Really, it took a few days to get her new sleeping schedule on track, and even more to stop feeling sleepy when she was awake anyway. She'd catch only glimpses of the sun, and would wonder if she was eventually going to become as pale as the four vampires she all but lived with. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

Jenna shifted in the back of the truck, reaching up and rubbing a hand over her scarred arm, brushing against her sweatshirt and closing her eyes.

Like her complexion really mattered anymore.

Looking around, listening to nothing but the musical chirp of the crickets outside the silent truck, she made sure the guys weren't anywhere near the vehicle. The four of them were out hunting, and she imagined them trying to catch themselves a bear for dinner. She knew they'd pulled it off before—Deacon had told her once that bear tasted a lot better than deer.

But the clicking forest around the truck was empty of vampires, and so was the dirt trail leading into the clearing. So with a small, shaking sigh she dug through her backpack on her lap and pulled out her cell phone.

Her thumb did the scrolling by memory, opening up her contact list and stopping over the one she was looking for. 'Hospital' was all it said, and she stared at it for a moment. She hadn't called…in a long time. Funny, how after a call from Conall she was going to fix that.

Turning her head, she looked through the dark, tinted windows one more time, building up her courage as she double checked. When she was again sure that she was alone, her thumb pressed the green 'call' button, and she lifted the phone to her ear.

It rang four times before she began to think that calling the place at eleven at night wasn't such a great idea—

When somebody picked the line up Jenna actually jumped, biting her tongue and holding her breath until the nurse finished introducing the hospital and asking what she needed.

"I'm…I need to know about any changes in a patient," she said softly. "T-Troy Chaunce."

There was a sound of ruffling papers and a few clicks of a mouse. "And who is this?" she asked.

"His daughter," was all she said, and remained quiet as the woman searched her files. It took a few minutes, which stretched like hours in Jenna's ears. When the woman started speaking again, she held her breath as if bracing herself.

"I'm sorry," she began, and Jenna felt her heart sink into her toes and her skin go cold. "But Troy Chaunce was moved from hospital to an around the clock care nursing home last week. Apple Haven Home, it's called."

Jenna felt a surge of relief at the averted terrible news, but blinked, closing her eyes and ducking her head a bit, her fingers clenching around the phone before she said anything in response. "…So is…is he still in his coma, then?"

"Yes." There were a few more audible clicks from the woman's computer. "But he was stable enough to be moved. So that's a good thing." The woman paused, listening for some sort of reply. "I'm sorry, what was your name again, honey?"

Something snapped loudly outside of the truck, and Jenna hissed in a breath. "Nothing, I have to go," she said, and snapped the phone closed, stuffing it back in her backpack an instant before Dustin opened up the driver's side door and slid into the seat, breathing out a sigh as he did so. Jenna's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood—hunting was never clean, after all.

"A bear and a buck," the redhead reported before she could ask. "Both pretty big ones too." The man smiled and she could hear it in his voice. "You weren't too bored out here waiting were you?"

"No—" she sniffed and her voice caught, blinking. It took her a second to realize she was on the verge of tears and sunk a bit lower in her seat.

Dustin was too euphoric to hear the catch in her voice. Hunting seemed to give the guys a sort of temporary mood boost. A big one. She remembered the first time she waited for them while they went hunting, and for the next couple of hours afterwards Deacon hadn't insulted Luca once.

"Good, good," Dustin nodded. "The others will be along in a second—ah, there's Luca," he chimed, and a few moments later, Luca took his spot in the passenger's front seat, and Dustin started the truck's engine.

"I don't know what Deacon is talking about," the doctor said as he closed his door. "Deer? It's way better than any bear."

"I don't know, I kind of like bear," Dustin replied.

"To each his own," Luca hummed, and turned on the radio, smiling wide as the happy pop song caught itself halfway through, and Luca began to hum along with it, leaning back in his seat.

Jenna closed her eyes, trying to focus on the song. She recognized it easily enough, and tried to play a simple game in her head to recite the next line of lyrics before they were sung. She found it difficult, and her brows knit together, hugging her backpack to her chest and touching her nose to the top strap as she tried to narrow her focus even more. Song, song, think of the song…

The truck shook as Cole and Deacon got into the truck at the same time, slamming their doors in tune and laughing at their perfect timing.

"Hell yeah," Deacon grinned. "Fuckin' best bear ever. That was like the Rocky Road of bears."

Cole grinned and leaned against the door. "Let's not get too carried away,"

"Oh come on. Blood's blood. It's all good shit," Deacon snorted and leaned forward over Jenna to shove at Dustin's shoulder playfully. "Let's get a move on, then, Captain," he said. "We're burnin' moonlight. Getting' to the next town's gonna suck up the rest of the night, so let's get going."

"Yes, yes," Dustin shook his head and put the truck in reverse, swiveling the vehicle around until the front faced the dirt trail they'd used to puncture through the forest about a mile. The pop song echoed throughout the car cheerfully, and not once did Deacon demand it to be turned down, shut off, switched to something else, burned at the stake, or all of the above.

"It'll take us two more nights I'm guessing to reach Maryland," Dustin said. "Including lunch and dinner stops for you, Jenna."

"Yeah, but only because you're pretty much the most reckless driver in the world," Deacon grinned and Dustin just shook his head again.

"Speaking of lunch," Luca cut in. "It's about that time for you, Jenna. Want us to stop at the next McDonalds and grab you something? You liked that…salad…stuff when we went there last time."

"Damn, salad. I remember salad," Deacon growled. "Never liked the shit. Nobody likes salad except crazy people." He grinned down at the girl next to him. "Looks like you're one of the crazy ones."

Jenna said nothing.

"…Jenna? You asleep back there?" Luca turned and looked at her, brow arched. The girl was still clutching her backpack, brows still furrowed and her nose still wrinkled in concentration.

"Her heart's beating too fast for that," Cole muttered. "Are you sick?"

"I can't hear a damn thing over this shit," Deacon exclaimed, and let out a sarcastic "Thank you," when Luca pushed his thumb into a button and turned the radio off completely.

Jenna's heart jumped when the music stopped. How was she supposed to focus on the stupid song if there wasn't…

Forcing back the nurse's voice as the call pushed itself back into the front of her mind, she held her breath, closing her eyes even tighter as if doing so would ward off both the call and the new attention she was getting from the others. She would just talk to them if she could. Tell them there was nothing wrong and that yes, she was a bit hungry and a salad sounded wonderful.

But she felt her chest heave, sucking in air in a great gulp against her will, and the noise that rushed out of her sounded remarkably like a sob.

Conall's voice added itself into the terrible mix. Her fingers dug into her backpack while Dustin's head tilted to glance back at her from the rear view mirror.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Deacon blinked. "What was that?"

Jenna let out another noise when the memory of her father come back to her, the walls she'd kept so half-heartedly up to block the painful break she felt whenever she thought of him cracking and crumbling. What would the story be like now? It was one thing if he woke up and found that his daughter was in another state; reachable and more than willing to come back home. It was a completely different ending if he woke up and was told she'd been murdered. God, he'd be all alone…

"Jenna," Dustin stopped the car and twisted to look at her better. "Jenna, what—damn it," he growled.

"She's crying," Cole muttered. "Jenna, tell us what's wrong."

"Deep breaths, Jenna," Luca said. "You're okay."

"Fucking hell, kid, don't…Jenna come on, look at us."

Something too dull to be agony and too sharp to be misery stung through her chest and forced another hitching breath to leave her. She ignored the others and their voices, their concern, the truck, and the entire damned rest of the world as she doubled over and simply rested her head on her backpack and knees, and tried to focused on the single thought that if nothing else, her father and her friends would be alive when everything was said and done.

.

Conall leaned back in dusty old couch lazily, grinning as he swirled a small glass of clear liquid in his hand, feet perched up on a cracked, rotting coffee table beside a bottle of vodka. In his other hand he held a cell phone, and his thumbs blurred over the touch screen before he held the device to his ear, closing his eyes as he took a drink of the alcohol as he listened to the phone ring.

"Ah…" When the line picked up the man who answered seem to hesitate, as if confused. "Who is this?"

"That part's not really important here, Dean Winchester," Conall said in his rough, ragged voice, grinning wide as he continued to swirl the drink in his other hand. "Everyone's got their own network and mine happens to be extremely reliable, and very very big, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, alright," Dean growled from the other line. "So what?"

"I know you and your brother like to think of yourselves as heroes. And you'd be absolutely right—In my opinion you're damn good at what you do. Not without your screw ups and flaws, but that's everybody." Conall let out a soft laugh. "But let's say I wanted to give you a piece of information. Concerning a group of vampires."

"Vampires?"

"Four, to be precise. They've been keeping a girl with them. Like a pet, if you will. Keeping her alive to feed off of her without letting her die, though I very sincerely suspect she'd like to at this point."

"…And?" Dean pressed when the shifter was silent for a few moments, waiting for Dean to tug at the bait.

"And," Conall went on. "If I were to give you a piece of information like that, what would you do with it?"

"What would I…? I'd hunt the bastards down and kill 'em."

"Wonderful. I really hoped you would have said that."

"And what about you?" Dean grunted into the phone. "You're just the good Samaritan right? I'm sorry but that creepy ass tone you've had throughout this whole thing is making me seriously doubt that."

"Ouch," Conall took another drink, emptying the glass before setting it down on the table with a light tap. "That hurts. But no, you're right. There's something in it for me, but it wouldn't be what you might expect. I'm not much of a fighter, but I know the girl personally. Her father is my boss, you see. Rescuing her will earn me some Brownie points." The lie left him as easily as the vodka had left its bottle.

"Knew it," Dean chimed.

"Yes, clever boy, but all I need you and your brother to do is kill the vampires. Which you should be able to do easily. They're a pack of idiots, from what I hear."

There were muffled voices, as if Dean was talking to someone else in the room with his hand covering the mouth piece of his own phone.

Conall took the time to pour himself another glass of vodka.

"Alright, time and place. And if it's a trap…" he left the threat hanging in the air, and Conall laughed again.

"Please. Like I said, I'm not much of a fighter. I get the promotion of a lifetime, and you get four more vampire kills under your belts. Oh, along with rescuing a blood slave. So everybody wins. State wise, the place is Maryland. But I'll call you when I'm sure about the specifics. Nice doing business with you."

Conall hung up, leaned back into the old cushions of the couch, and drank back another gulp of his alcohol, a grin curling up the corners of his mouth.