We left the cop shop, no monsters in the area as far as Coyote could see. Roy had reported in that three more people had gone into the building they were watching. It was an old warehouse that seemed to be abandoned so they were assuming everyone who headed in there were working together. That made eight possible monsters. I waited to say something until we were in Baby with the windows rolled up and driving back to the motel. "They're like fucking cockroaches I swear. Where the hell are all these guys coming from?"

"No idea," Sam was looking as concerned as I was feeling, "You want to take them out there and bail or head out to the crime scene and keep acting like we're clueless?"

"Let me call Cas, see if he and Dig have found anything out yet, like a mass migration of monsters leaving Oklahoma." I dialed Cas's number.

"Dean."

"Cas." He didn't say anything, as usual, "Find anything?"

"No, which is why I have yet to call you."

I got the feeling I had to clarify that, "No meaning no monsters, or no Gordon?"

"We have found monsters, we have not found Gordon. I thought he was the priority. There are monsters in every city around the world so I didn't feel it was important to report that."

I was half tempted to hand the phone to Sam and just give up, "Are the monsters doing anything odd?"

"Well, by nature, they are odd, compared to humans..."

"Cas!" I tried to rein in my usual irritation, "Sorry, is Dig there? Can I talk to him?"

"Of course."

"Hey there Dean," Dig said.

"Fill me in."

"Right, no Gordon as of yet. According to Cas we're looking at ten vamps and two werewolves. Just like to say I really didn't need to know the percentage of monsters to humans in any given city. Cas filled me on that, wasn't all that comforting. These guys are hanging out by a roadhouse, fortunately there's a motel across the street, that's where we are. They don't seem too happy to be hanging out in such close proximity with each other, get the feeling they're waiting for someone or something. I suggested heading over there to listen in but Cas said they may pick up on him being an angel, figured I'd wait to hear from you before deciding the best course here."

"Hold on," I relayed all that to Sam, then put the phone on speaker, "You're on speaker, Sam's with me. We've got about eight vamps snooping around where we are, Oliver and Roy are watching them. We're deciding if we want to take them out where they stand now or play this game a little longer. Sam?"

I had no idea how they would pick up on Cas being an angel unless he smelled different from people, which could make sense, I guess.

"It depends on how quick we want to put it out there that we're doing things differently. We really still have no idea what's going on other than Gordon and I'm highly doubting he was able to get this many things to follow him. He wasn't exactly the easiest person to get along with. I think he's part of this, but not running it. As soon as we tip our hand they're going to react and change things up, which could make things a lot more complicated."

He had a point, but I kind of wanted to stir them up. "I've always thought the fastest way to get people to screw up was push them. You know that."

He frowned, "Yeah, it's also the fastest way to get in over our heads."

"You both have a point," Dig said, "But both of you are overlooking something, the longer you two are out in the field, wide open like this, the more of them can track you down. They don't have to drive, remember? Talk to Oliver, maybe take on the group there, tag one or two with nanites, snag one for questioning and kill the rest. The ones that get away can lead you to the next rung of the ladder. That's how we usually do it."

"Sounds like a plan to me," I said, Sam looked pretty interested in that option too.

He nodded, "Could work. You guys stay put, just watch for now. We'll talk to Oliver and get back to you. Thanks for the update. Anything changes, let us know."

"Yup, would have called sooner but I agreed with Cas, nothing really interesting was happening yet. We cased the whole town, these were all the bad guys we found."

"All right. Thanks."

"Yup, talk to you soon." Dig hung up.

"Get the feeling that if Cas had ever bothered to tell us about what is really out there monster wise our lives would have been million times more depressing?" I asked.

"How about we not go there? I don't need to know the actual stats on how many monsters exist. Hold on."

I saw him press his ear, or should I say earpiece. "Oliver, call us when you can. Need to plan and easier if we talk on speakerphone." He dropped his hand away and looked at me, "Just in case he's hanging off the side of the building or listening through a window."

"Both of which are distinct possibilities."

Sam's phone rang a few seconds later. He answered it and just dove right in. "Oliver?"

"Yes."

"Talked to Dig, they've got eyes on a group of monsters, no Gordon. Monsters aren't all that thrilled to be rubbing elbows. Dig and Cas are in a motel across from a roadhouse where the monsters are. Dig says we should take this group on, tag a few with nanites and let them report back, take one to talk to and kill the rest. Your thoughts?"

There was nothing but empty air for a minute or two. "I agree," he finally said, "This area is empty, minimal chance for anyone to see us and police response time should be fairly slow. We can call in a fake shots fired call on the other side of town if need be. We're not heavily outnumbered and the building they are in is a smaller warehouse, only two entrances, first floor windows are barred, second floor are not. Roy and I have found sight lines already to cover you when you guys go in. We're still at only eight people inside, we do need Coyote to confirm if they're all monsters though."

"We'll assume they are for now," Sam said, "The chances of a human being in there and not being food is pretty low."

"Roy said the same thing," Oliver continued. "We'll text you the address, send your eta. Anything else?"

"No, hang tight, we'll change and be there asap," I told him.

"Fine." He hung up.

I texted Coyote what the plan was and to hang back while we changed at the motel, then I got Oliver's text with the address and forwarded it to her. She replied that no one was tailing us so she'd coordinate with Oliver to make sure we indeed had eight monsters on our hands, she also said that they'd grabbed all of Roy's weapons from the armory and enough machetes for the three of them along with picking up Oliver's bow and arrows from the UPS place so they were set. We hustled to the motel, changed hopped back into Baby and looked up the address. It wasn't too far.

"Be there in 15." I texted Oliver.

He called almost immediately after I sent it, I accepted the call and he was all business. "Since we're trying to keep our existence hidden till the last second, you and Sam planning to bust in the front and go in guns blazing which is how I hear you used to act or do you want to be subtle. It will make a difference on how we cover you. Roy reminded me you two aren't used to working with backup so let's take a second to plan our moves here."

"They aren't expecting us," Sam said, "They have no idea we know where they are. Let's go in full on assault mode, catch them flat footed. Add in the new shells and we have even more of advantage."

"How are we tagging them with nanites?" I asked. "Sam and I...wait, nanite arrows?"

"Of course," Oliver replied, not sounding the least bit awkward about it. Who knew you could do so much with arrows? Seriously.

"Sam and I will go in the front, stir them up. You and Roy tag a few, hopefully they'll be too focused on us tearing them to shreds to try to figure out where the arrows are coming from."

"Roy says to tell you that he got the skunk shit too," Oliver said, "Whatever that is."

Sam grinned, "Good, fair warning. It's strong as hell but the vamps won't pick up your scent. I'd forgotten about it. Tell Roy good job."

"Skunk shit?" I asked.

"Eau de Vamps Can't Smell You," Sam replied, "Got tired of dragging along all the herbs required to make that shit Dad used, plus it was a pain using it in a city. This stuff just rubs on. Smells horrible but seems to work.

"Okay, we using it?"

"Nope, we want them to smell us."

"Good." Roy was thinking way ahead then, he'd definitely learned a lot over the past year. "All right, that's the plan. We plow in, old school style, you guys do your ninja thing. Coyote should be there soon, tell her the plan, work her into the cover fire set up. Sound good?"

"Yes," Oliver stated, "We'll be ready by the time you get here. Don't call or signal anything, just act normal. They have someone keeping an eye on the front door. We're hidden, wind is going the wrong direction so I doubt he's smelled us either. I'll tell Coyote how to get here and stay out of sight. We have your backs. See you in fifteen." He hung up.

I started Baby up and turned onto the street. Oliver's last words rang in my head, the idea of people having our backs on a hunt wasn't something I was used to and I was a lot calmer heading into a fight with eight vamps than I normally would be. Sure, we'd worked together a few times in the past, Oliver's crew and Sam and I, but that was for one off weird jobs. This was a weird job too, but it was fairly obvious that Oliver and the rest were in it for the duration, which took a ton of weight off my shoulders. Another little piece of why Sam had been more relaxed over the last year clicked. He had other people to watch his back, not just me or Roy. All the new toys, the site, the email, he'd incorporated Oliver's team into hunting, it wasn't he and Roy against the world like it had been for us. It hit me just how good it felt to not be alone in this job, it also brought back a sea of memories about Bobby and I had to clamp those down quick. Not the time or place for them.

The adrenaline kicked in as I made the last turn and headed into a shady, run down industrial district. Ah home sweet hunt, all it needed was a few flickering lights and it'd be perfect. It was still early in the afternoon though so no street lights were on. We checked the addresses as we drove.

"Dean, see him?"

"Yeah." Pinstripe shirt guy had been standing in the middle of the sidewalk about two blocks away, he was the only person out and about so wasn't too hard to miss. He spotted us and ditched inside a building as we pulled up. I shoved the gas pedal down, I wasn't about to let them get set for something, "Nope, not happening." I slammed on the brakes just as we pulled even with the door. Sam and I had tossed the shotguns on the floor of the backseat under some blankets. As soon as I'd accelerated Sam had leaned over the seat, threw the blankets off and grabbed the guns. Baby screeched to stop, I slammed her into park, pulled the keys out, shoved them in my pocket and bolted out of the door. I barely looked back as Sam tossed me a gun over her roof. I yanked the door wide open, idiots hadn't locked it and Sam fired off a shot to clear the space in front of us.

I heard someone scream, and keep screaming as their voice hit an almost supersonic pitch. I thought I was going to have two punctured eardrums in another second or two. I yanked my sunglasses off, I'd worn them so it wouldn't take my eyes so long to adjust to the dark, and wasn't at all prepared for the vampire's reaction, judging by the open mouthed, terrified looks on the other vamps faces, they hadn't been either.

Sam had gotten damn lucky and nailed a black haired, dark skinned, male vamp who was now writhing on the floor, literally smoking and sweating blood. His eyes were bulging out of his head, his skin was shriveling an aging as we watched and more and more smoke started filling the air around him. He couldn't even form words, all he was doing was howling in sheer agony. He went completely stiff, fingers locked into place as his back arched. Then a huge mass of blood came hurtling out his mouth, projectile vomit style and his screams stopped, just stopped. They didn't fade out, one minute I thought my ears were going to bleed, the next it was completely silent. Fucking Magnus could have mentioned this somewhere, a footnote would have been nice. Damn bastard.

"Tell Gordon that's what happens when he comes after our people," Sam said, cold as fucking ice. Holy shit, where the hell had that come from. He fired again and another vamp started howling, that was my cue. I nailed another one before they scattered. Three down. Sam got close to my ear, he had to so I could hear him over the howling.

"All vamps."

I heard arrows fly out of somewhere and saw two of them sprout arrows out of their chests. They turned to run but fell over before they got too far. Dead Man's Blood hits pretty quick. The rest had disappeared behind boxes and abandoned equipment. The warehouse was medium sized, two stories and had the usual dust covered floors and cracked windows, you've seen one, you've seen them all. There were stacks of boxes scattered here and there. We had our two to talk to, three were dead which left three unaccounted for.

"You missed bastard!" A male voice came from the back right hand corner.

"No, he didn't," Sam muttered, "Oliver tagged him."

"Time to make them run home to Daddy then."

Sam signaled two were hiding behind the boxes to the right and one was close to the back door, Oliver or Roy must have been relaying positions to him. I leaned close to his ear, "Go over the top, you're tall enough, I'll come from the side."

The boxes were stacked maybe seven feet up, there was a smaller stack of boxes in front of the ones where the vamps were hiding. Sam nodded and kicked at a box as we walked toward the stack. It sounded solid enough to hold his weight. He bolted towards the stack, I dodged around the only open side. The boxes were stacked up against the wall so there was only two ways for them to run. Back towards the door, or straight at me. Either way I'd hit them. The box held Sam's weight just fine, he was over the top and firing just as I cleared the stack. The last two were female, one red head and one who's hair was dyed purple. They lunged to try to avoid the shots, the red head I aimed at almost did but the nails still drove into her arm, Sam nailed the purple haired chick through the forehead as she looked up at him. They didn't die any quieter or easier than the other three had. I almost felt sorry for them, almost.

We heard the back door slam shut. I stared at the barrel of the shotgun, "Holy fucking shit! Why the hell didn't the Men of Letters tell hunters about this shit? Were they complete fucking idiots?"

Now that the threat was gone, Sam could gape at the charred and smoking corpses in front of us. "They must have really hated Magnus to discount something like this."

I remembered Henry's first comments to us and the hours of reading their personal journals over the years, "No, it wasn't Magnus they discounted, it was hunters. They probably saw no reason to share it. Remember, we were mindless apes to them. Fucking bastards. The amount of lives this could have saved over the years." Almost every single on of them had thought hunters were second, hell, third class citizens. We didn't contribute anything useful to the world of magic or research, just killed things. Something like this, if any of them had actually bothered to read Magnus's research, would have been seen as an idle, useless, discovery. They'd never seen vamps up close, they were all safe in their little warded worlds. As much as I hated Abaddon, there were times I was glad she gotten the best of them. This was one of them. Arrogant assholes.

"Get pissed about that later," Sam said as he walked towards the two that were laying on the ground moaning. I followed him and we each put a barrel to their heads. The one my gun was resting on was a guy, looked to be late forties, he was in jeans, a black t-shirt and tennis shoes. Sam's soon to be corpse just happened to be pinstripe guy.

"How?" Pinstripe guy gasped.

Sam slammed his foot into the guy's chest. "No, I ask, you answer."

I had no idea where this side of Sam had come from, whether it was being responsible for someone else or not having me there to do the threatening for him over the last year but it was downright scary how cold he was. I knew he still had his soul, but damn.

"First question," I took over, "Where the hell is Gordon?"

"Fuck off," Pinstripe replied.

I nudged my guy, "Your turn. Three seconds, same question."

He tried to look tough but that's hard to do when you're half zoned out and in pain, "Gordon's the least of your worries Winchesters," he slurred, "We're coming for you, for all of you."

"Right." I pulled out a shotgun shell, broke it open and pulled one of the nails out. "Let's see what this does." I stabbed mine in the hand, he went through a quieter version of what his fellow vamps had but no smoke rose from him, "Here's the deal, this will pass in about fifteen minutes," I was pulling that out of my ass, "if you answer, I don't dose you again, if you don't, I do. Your choice." Then I stabbed pinstripe guy with a nail and let them writhe and scream. "Well?" It took them less than two minutes. By then they were ripping chunks of their skin off with their claws, their fangs were fully showing but they couldn't coordinate themselves enough to get upright or take a shot at us.

My guy broke first, "Montana! He's in Montana! That's all I know! Make it stop! Please!"

Pinstripe guy managed to hiss at my guy and somehow got enough control of his arm back to take a swipe at Sam, a slow and clumsy swipe, but a swipe nonetheless. Sam stepped back and shot him. He skipped over the supersonic screams and just went limp. Magnus had said if you stacked doses it acted faster.

"Anything else?" I asked without skipping a beat, "Who are the Alphas?"

"D..don't know...no one does..."

"How many of there are you?" Sam asked.

"More than enough," he managed to bluster a bit, the dose must be starting to wear off.

"Where in Montana?" I wanted specifics and I couldn't dose him again.

"Don't know."

Time to bluff, I leaned towards him again, "You sure you don't."

He raised his head up, I pushed him back using the barrel of the gun. He managed to fight back enough to not end up flat on his back, "You hunters will soon cower in the darkened spaces hiding from us. The tide is turning Winchesters." Then he committed suicide by hunter, he growled and came straight for me. I pulled the trigger and turned away.

Oliver, Roy and Coyote walked up from various directions while he screamed. By the time they reached me the screams had ended. "Well, those are definitely effective," Oliver said.

Coyote nudged one of them with her boot, "We need to share that recipe, immediately. At least to Gerald and his crew. We gave them some but it wouldn't hurt for them to know what's in it and that it works."

"We'll make it public knowledge after we stop whatever this is," I said. "But yeah, we'll tell Gerald. It won't be so easy next time. We got lucky."

"No," Oliver disagreed, "You planned ahead. Makes a difference. Next move?"

"Back to the Bunker, see what the fallout of this..." My phone rang, it was Dig. "Yeah?"

"I think you made an impression. They all just smoked tires getting out of here. Want us to follow?"

"Yeah."

"All right."

I hung up that time. I was getting tired of everyone else hanging up first. "Looks like we got someone's attention, Dig's group just bailed in a hurry. He's following them."

"Well," Oliver said as his bow just folded itself up while he held it. No doubt about it, he's Batman. "That answers that question. These groups are all connected."

Sam leaned his shotgun against his shoulder as he looked at the still smoking corpses of pinstripe guy and his buddy. I felt like I had no idea who I was looking at anymore, all hint of his usual compassion or empathy was gone. "Cower in the dark spaces, really? The dark spaces are where we hunt you assholes down." He looked at the rest of us. "Montana?"

He and I were having a long talk on the way home. "Let's try to confirm that first. I don't want to be three states away from where we need to be. Bunker first."

"Fine." He didn't say another word as he stalked towards the door. Oliver followed but I stopped Roy, "Has he been like before?"

Roy's jaw was tight as he watched Sam walk away. "No. Never seen that side of him. I thought you were the one we'd have to worry about."

"Me too. Thanks."

He nodded and headed out. I looked at Coyote, "You..." She suddenly swayed and leaned against a stack of boxes, "Hey! Honey? You okay?"

Her eyes were closed tight and she was pressing her hand against her forehead, "God it hurts."

"What?" I set my gun down and wrapped my arms around her waist. "Talk to me."

"Opening myself up to see them, I had to keep scanning everyone to see who was what...I...I." Her knees buckled.

"Sam!"

All three of them came running back. "What's wrong?" And just like that old Sam was back. He was right there, hand on my shoulder, face filled with concern. I remembered all the times I switched back and forth between all my sides over the years, no wonder it used to piss him the hell off.

"Not sure. Grab the shotgun. Something to do with her scanning for monsters. I'll carry her, get the back door open."

Roy and Oliver followed us, I slid her into the backseat. "Honey, you still with us?"

She barely nodded, "Just need rest, focus, aspirin."

"Got it. Oliver, tail us, make sure no one's on our ass. We'll hit the hotel, grab our shit, get some aspirins in her and head home."

"On it." He and Roy faded into the shadows, a minute or two later they pulled up behind us.

I tossed Sam the keys. "You drive, I'm sitting in the back."

He didn't say a word. I gently lifted her head, slid in, set her head on my lap and closed the door as softly as I could. As we pulled away I covered her eyes with my hands and tried to figure out what the hell was up with Sam.