Chapter 3:

"What?" Brennan exclaimed. It was one thing if these two had delusions; it was another if they were going to murder people because of them. Just because these people had some plastic fangs, it didn't mean they were vampires. Brennan stood as well, pushing away the dizziness. "You are not going to kill these people!"

"Vampires, lady," Dean told her. "They're not people, they're vampires. You saw the teeth yourself, I heard you. You know I'm telling the truth. And if your FBI buddy here takes them into custody, you'll have a massacre on your hands."

Brennan's heart started to beat faster again. She desperately wished Booth would wake up. She wasn't sure what she could do if these two young men ganged up against her if she refused to believe their delusion. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Booth's weapon on the ground.

"I am a scientist," she told him firmly. "I see things, and then I believe them. If you allow me to examine his teeth, maybe I will believe you."

"Fair enough," Dean replied with a shrug.

Brennan pushed past him and walked to the man who was lying on the ground, shot…and kept walking, until she swiped up the gun from the ground, aiming at Sam.

"Whoa, okay!" Dean exclaimed, holding up his hands as a sign to calm down.

"Dr. Brennan—."

"Don't," she interrupted Sam. "Hands on your head, up against the car."

"My brother and I just saved your life, this is how you're repaying us?" Dean asked, narrowing his eyes.

Brennan faltered at that one, but motioned to the car. "Hands on your head, up against the car," she repeated.

"First you check on Dracula over there," Dean told her.

Brennan stared at him. "I'll do that once you do what I asked."

Dean and Sam both sighed, but did as they were told. Brennan kept the gun trained on them as she walked back over to the unconscious man on the ground, keeping an eye on Booth out of the corner of her eye. She kneeled down and opened the man's mouth, pulling back his top lip. And was shocked at what she saw.



"What in the world…?" she whispered. Another set of teeth. They emerged from the gums on top of two normal rows of teeth. Pulling the lip farther up, she saw that they weren't just plastic. They weren't just put onto the mouth. They came out of the gums. They looked natural. They looked like….

"No…" she murmured, standing up quickly and wiping her hand on her pants, backing up. "No there has to be a…a reasonable explanation for this…a cellular mutation or—."

"You wanted to know how my bullets hurt him when your partner's didn't," Sam said. Brennan looked up to him and realized he and his brother were facing her again, hands down at their sides. "My bullets had been soaked in dead man's blood. It's like poison to vampires."

Brennan stared at him for a few seconds, then swallowed.

"You want to maybe put the gun down?" Dean asked, motioning to the gun in her hands. "Kinda kills the mood."

"I…" Brennan started, looking back to the man on the ground. "No…no this isn't rational. Vampires do not exist," she told him in a firm, yet shaky voice. She fought back the terrified tears that had started to come to her eyes. "They-They're legends created in the Balkans and Eastern Europe when things like bloating and blood leaking from the mouth after someone had died were mistaken as signs of vampirism," she said, her voice speeding up. "They-They thought hair and nails continued to grow after death when one was a vampire but it was just skin receding giving the illusion of—."

"Dr. Brennan," Sam said.

"—vampirism. Some thought that-that vampires were witches who—."

"Dr. Brennan," Sam said softly. "You're becoming hysterical." Brennan blinked, sending tears sliding down her cheeks. She swallowed again, looking from Sam to Dean. "You strike me as a very logical person, Dr. Brennan."

"I am," she said with a sniffle. "I am logical. I'm very…."

"When you take into account the evidence presented to you, and evaluate it, what do you conclude is a possibility?"

Brennan shifted her gaze to the man on the ground, and then back to Sam. "It…you don't understand. It goes against everything I believe in," she whispered. "Everything I base science on."

"It doesn't have to," Sam told her. "Dean and I don't know where vampirism originated. It could be a mutation spread as a virus through blood to blood contact. All we know is that this nest of vampires was killing people and the American justice system was not prepared to deal 

with them. Look, we call ourselves hunters. We hunt things we consider supernatural. But as a scientist, you don't have to think of it as supernatural. Some cultures thought that they had to make sacrifices to Gods to keep the sun rising every morning after it set every night. We know now, because of science, that the sun rises and sets because the Earth revolves around it."

Brennan blinked at him.

"Your world doesn't have to fall apart because of this. You just have to accept the possibility that there are things out there you don't know about because humanity just isn't ready to know about them yet. You said you couldn't let us kill these people. But they aren't people anymore. They crossed that line a long time ago."

Brennan stared at him for a few more seconds before slowly lowering the gun to her side. "Logically—." Brennan's voice cracked, so she cleared her throat. "Logically, that is understandable. For humans who develop fangs to feed on other humans to survive, the American justice system cannot bring them to justice." She looked down to the man. "I know this man hurt Booth. I know those men hurt me. And from the evidence I was given, I know they planned on killing us." Her shoulders seemed to slump a little. "So…it is necessary for you to kill them."