Disclaimer: Not mine!

Warning: Not much to warn about. Few swear words, nothing serious.

Author's Note: So, thanks for everyone's reviews! They're great as, man! Um, yeah, the story's been a bit slow so far, but action is coming up! Anywho, hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Chapter 5: Clues

The room where the cops had left Dean was tiny, with one small window and desperately needing a clean. It was one of the interview rooms, and even when he knew he didn't really have anything to hide, it made Dean feel on edge. Of course, that anxious feeling might have had something to do with the not-so-little fact that his baby brother was missing.

They still hadn't told him anything, and it was making him angry, a dangerous emotion to add to the cocktail running through him. He had arrived half an hour ago, but no police officer had been free to do much besides sit him down in the room he was in now, and give him a plastic cup of coffee that tasted like shit.

Dean sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. He needed to know what was happening. He needed to know if Sam's disappearance was tied in with the other disappearances. He needed at least some clue as to what condition Sam might possibly be in. He needed something. Anything.

As if answering his thoughts, the door opened, and a man entered. Dean sat up straighter, sighing.

"Finally," he snapped. "I've been waiting here for half a freaking hour, having been told my little brother's been taken. I still don't know by what, or when, or even where, because no one has come to see me!"

The cop sat down, and Dean took in the haggard expression with a little surprise. "Mr Connors, I'm Officer Holden. We spoke on the phone. I'm sorry you had to wait, but we've been very busy." The man sighed, opening his folder. "If disappearances weren't enough, we've had a murder, an attempted murder by an apparently known murderer with a like for fire, and a fake FBI agent on the loose, all in the past couple of days."

Dean withheld a wince. That was the Winchester family for you. The cop, James Holden if Dean remembered correctly, did wince however.

"Sorry, I just let that slip. But it's been a long couple of days."

"Did you say disappearances?" Dean asked, accentuating the plural. The cop nodded. "And Sam's a part of this?"

Again, the cop nodded. "We think so. We just need to get a few facts straight first. How old is your brother?"

Dean sat back, pretending ignorance on the disappearances in the town. "He's twenty-three."

"Can you describe him, or do you have a picture we can use?"

Dean nodded, reaching for his wallet. "Yeah, I got a picture. Hang on…" He paused while searching for the right one. "Here you go."

Officer Holden took the photo, and glanced at it. He began writing notes in his folder. "Was your brother an athletic man, Mr Connors?"

"Call me Dean. And yeah, he was." Dean waited a moment. "So, what's the deal with all these disappearances then?"

Holden smiled. "I can't really tell you, Mr Connors," the cop answered, ignoring Dean's request.

Dean just stopped his eyes from rolling. "Why not? Maybe I can help."

"Are you a police officer, Mr Connors?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow.

Dean shook his head, beginning to get the feeling that he didn't like this man. "No," he answered truthfully, remembering his previous efforts at pretending to be one. It didn't usually work out so well. "But I still might be able to help."

"You're a civilian," Holden answered as if that was explanation enough. "Now, what was your brother doing out and about anyway?"

Dean shrugged. "He was walking. He likes walking. Last time I checked it wasn't a crime."

"And that was it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean snapped, letting his growing dislike for the man get to his temper.

"Nothing, Mr Connors. Is there anyone in this town who might have something against your brother, someone with a reason to kidnap him?"

Dean thought, thinking back to the past few days. Family of that girl the demon had killed? That woman who the demon had nearly killed, the one Sam had saved? Who knew what else the demon had done while wearing Sam's face.

"No, no one," Dean answered. "We've only been here a few days, stopping during a road trip. And we haven't really gone out. We've been sleeping mostly." Ha, if only.

Officer Holden stared at him for a moment, before snapping the folder shut. "Thank you, Mr Connors. You're free to go."

Dean stood with the man, but didn't move to leave. "Please, you've got to give me more. I mean, evidence at the crime scene, patterns with the previous disappearances… I need something, Officer."

Dean hated that he almost sounded like he was begging. Especially from this man. He really didn't like the policeman. But he needed to know things if he was going to get Sam back.

The officer sighed. "Look, okay. I can tell you a few things about your brother. But that's it."

He motioned to sit down, and Dean did. Holden slid back into the opposite seat. "We think he was taken about one-thirty last night. We estimate there were four or five of them. We found three different types of blood, but we don't know who it belongs to. Your brother fought back, Mr Connors. And as far as we can tell, he's the first. Or at least, the first to do any damage."

Dean felt pride swell within. Go, Sammy, he cheered silently. "What else?" he asked out loud. "You must have some leads."

Holden sighed. "No, none. And don't think we haven't tried. But we have no clue. Besides physical things, none of the men had anything in common. Most are from this town, a few aren't. Different jobs, different backgrounds… they don't have one single common point to indicate who took them."

Dean thought or a moment. "And where was Sam taken?" he asked.

"An alley off East Street," Holden answered. "Most of them have been taken around East Street. And, to be perfectly honest, so far none of them have been found. But we're still looking, Mr Connors."

The cop stood and left, taking his folder with him. Dean followed more slowly. Well, he had some things to do. First, see the crime scene. And then… well, it depended on what he found there. He looked in the direction that cop had gone. Local law enforcement, he thought with disdain as he paused in the door of the room.

Shaking his head, he left, closing the door behind him. He had all day to kill as well, which was no help. He couldn't go to the scene, and study it, until nightfall. Sighing, he walked to the library, determined to find out if the town had any history of disappearances.

The day seemed to go by at a crawl. Dean spent a few hours at the library, feeling useless and more lost than he cared to admit. Of all the times for Sam to be taken, it had to be when his kid brother wasn't exactly Mister Perfectly Right In The Head.

But just because the day was slow, didn't mean it was fruitless. Bored by the town's boring history, he expanded the search… and found a few more examples of similar deals. Well, more than a few. Ten, in fact. Ten different towns, in Alabama and the surrounding states, with unsolved disappearances, over the past year. In each case it was all men who were taken, men like Sam, aged between eighteen and thirty, athletic, healthy. What he found out though, made him more than a little anxious.

In each case, the disappearances remained unsolved, and eventually died down until they stopped altogether. Which was annoying, to say the least. What made him anxious though, was the fact that in each case, the bodies weren't found until someone stumbled across them, in factories, homes, warehouses. And in each case, the bodies had been bodies for a long time. Most had been estimated as having been killed a week after disappearing, at the most. And no one could explain what the men had been subjected to.

Well, he decided as he left the library to find lunch, Sam wasn't going to be with them long enough to end up a body.

He ate at a small diner, and used the time waiting to give Joshua a call to see what he knew. He had put it off until then, because he knew he would get the pity. And he really didn't want it. He'd already ignored five or six calls from hunters John had known in his life.

It ended up being useless however. Joshua knew nothing about what was happening, and was full of pity for the younger hunter. It only served to make Dean angry, snapping his phone shut and cursing, before realizing that nearly all of the diner's patrons were staring at him.

He sighed and left, feeling useless. He hated that feeling. Of having no clue what was going on or what he had to do. He needed purpose. And he was only just beginning to realize how much he had actually relied on his family for that.

Sam stood by the front of his cage, staring as vampires appeared from the trap door in the middle of the barn. He couldn't believe there were so many. He could hardly believe they existed at all. His dad had never even mentioned them before. He thought that to himself with a swallow.

As he watched, they began to set the place up. They brought out long, low benches, placing them around the big, raised cage in the centre of the barn. Sam had learnt from Blake, who had learnt from others, that this was where the fighting took place. It looked pretty small, too small to fight easily in.

He started chewing his lip, not realizing what he was doing. More and more vampires were piling in now. The set up was finished, the place was beginning to buzz. He noticed a few of the humans becoming anxious, pacing their cages, looking pale.

Blake came to stand next to him. "It's starting soon," the older man whispered. Sam nodded.

"Yeah, it's getting intense." Though for some reason not as powerful as before, his shining was pulling everyone's anxieties and excitement to him. He could feel the adrenaline starting to rush and welcomed it. Anything was better than the constant guilt.

A new door opened, letting a breeze into the room. Sam only had time to spy another house blocking any view before the door shut behind the vampire leader Marco and the female, Maria. Sam looked around for the vampire, Zane, and was a little disappointed when he didn't see him anywhere.

But there were plenty of others. Sam refused to believe they were all from Cromwell. There would have been more news about it if there had. More bloodless bodies showing up everywhere. Which meant these bloodsuckers had travelled. He found himself frowning. Why hadn't anything like this shown up in any research? Why hadn't someone become suspicious? These vamps had arrived here somehow, and Sam had a feeling they hadn't turned into bats and flown.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Blake spoke up from beside him. "All these in one place, and no one's ever noticed."

Sam was a little surprised the cop was thinking the same thing, but he nodded. "Yeah, it's odd. You think someone would have mentioned something, or seen something."

Their conversation was shut off at that moment as a vampire climbed into the cage in the centre, the ring, which was actually a square. Sam recognised him as Zane and strained to listen above the noisy crowd.

The vampire was grinning, and turned in a circle to look at his congregated kin. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this evening's entertainment," he cried out. Everyone quieted down quickly, and Zane went through the pleasantries, surprising Sam when he thanked Marco for holding the event. The leader and his mate were sitting in proper chairs, instead of on benches, in a cleared space near the cage.

"They're like dignitaries," Sam thought out loud, breaking his concentration on Zane's words. Blake didn't answer and Sam brought his attention back to the speaker, who was getting down to the business of the night.

"Bring out the first contestants!" Zane shouted to an uproar. At the end of each row of cages, two vampires opened a door each and began to drag out the inhabitant. Sam noticed with discomfort how the convict didn't fight back, but allowed the vampire to guide him. They weren't really prisoners. Or they were, but they didn't care. At least here they got to do what they liked to do: Blake had told him each convict was one of the nastiest in the state.

The other man, however, fought as hard as he could. It didn't matter; the vampire all but dragged him into the cage, throwing him to the floor. The man stood slowly, shaking, even though he easily stood at the same height as the convict five feet from him. The difference was, the convict looked like he was going to enjoy this.

Sam barely heard as a few different vampires began to take bets. He couldn't help but concentrate on the overwhelming feelings surrounding him. He could feel the man's terror, the convict's sick apprehension, the excitement, the anxiety, all building up inside his head. He groaned, closing his eyes and ignoring Blake's worry. He had to shut it off.

He put a hand to his head, shaking it as if that was going to loosen the emotional grip on his mind. It was nauseating, a horrible feeling of conflicting… well, feelings. He had to… shut it… off!

The feeling in his head cleared, and he looked up shocked. Blake was looking at him with concern, but Sam didn't care about that. Because at the same time as he got some control over his freaky head, a bell rang once, short and sweet.

And the fight was on.

Okay, so a little boring. Interlude, really. To keep you interested, here's a second chapter for tonight!