The next morning at 6:30, Amelia knocked at the hotel door. She wore clothes a policeman had brought her from her house. Jeans, a t-shirt and sweatshirt, running shoes. Her left arm was in a sling, but other than that, she betrayed no sign of injury. Just the pinch of her lips.

After a pause, the door opened to a bleary looking Dean, who motioned her in. She took a breath and stepped into the motel room. Clothes lay strewn about. Plaid, mainly. Paper and a computer sat at the table in front of the tall one, who looked more tired than Dean. Empty coffee cups surrounded him.

She nodded to him.

"Well, I think we have something of an idea of what we're up against," he said.

Dean sipped some coffee. "Any idea where to get ash or hawthorn in this town?"

"What?" she raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said you were going to kill these things, not build a freaking deck."

They looked at each other. Their silent conversation were really starting to annoy her.

"Alright, what the hell is going on? What are they? How is ash going to help?"

"Sit down," Dean motioned to the table.

She thought about refusing, but she saw the tired look in his eyes. Amelia sat.

"Amelia, right? I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam."

Sam gave her a quick smile, and returned to his computer.

"We're hunters. We hunt the things that go bump in the night."

He let her process that for a few moments.

"The creatures that attacked your family are apparently a type of vampire called a strigoi."

The look on her face suggested that she was an inch away from walking out the door.

"Sam?"

Sam spun the computer so she could see a web page, some vampire blog.

"Red hair, blue eyes. Two hearts, apparently. Undead, most of the lore says they're witches in life brought back in death by other witches."

"Witches," she echoed.

"Most of the lore says they can be killed like any other vampires, which means beheading," Dean took over. "But some also says they can be killed by stabbing with ash or hawthorn and then burning the bodies at a crossroads, and it never hurts to have a couple options with witches involved."

She looked from one to the other, then back again. "You're not joking."

"We're dead serious, you really don't want to mess around with witches," Dean said, innocently.

"So," she rubbed her head. "You're telling me vampires and witches are real. What else? Ghosts, werewolves, demons?"

Sam sighed. "Yes."

Amelia laughed, humorlessly. "And you kill them."

"If they're hurting people," Dean said.

"Well, it explains the eating part, I'll give you that," she sighed. "Fine, whatever. Just as long as I get to help kill the... strogi?"

"Strigoi," corrected Sam, "Eastern European origin, looks like."

"There's a cabinet store in town that carries a lot of different woods, there might be some ash or hawthorn there," she suggested. "Other than that, there's parks. I honestly don't have any idea what ash or hawthorn even look like."

Dean nodded. "Alright, we'll check out the wood, Sammy keep researching and let us know if you find anything new."

Sam nodded, already absorbed in his computer again.

Dean pulled on a leather jacket, and walked out of the motel, Amelia trailing behind him.

"You took it pretty well," he told her. "Usually takes people longer to accept the truth."

"I saw them eat my family," she said, quietly, and that seemed to settle it.

Dean walked to his car, an old black muscle car, and unlocked it. She hopped in the passenger side. It was definitely a guy's car. She almost gagged at the thick smell of old pizza and unwashed socks. Wrappers from a burger joint were strewn on the floor, with newspaper clippings and a few shell casings. Amelia swallowed. What had she gotten herself into.

The engine roared to life, and Amelia could have sworn Dean's fond smile was directed toward the steering wheel. Some sort of heavy metal blared from the speakers, but he turned the volume down.

"Alright, where to?"

She gave him directions to the hardware store, but other than that didn't say a word. When the pulled up, he hopped out of the car, and went in. She didn't feel like following. He emerged empty handed a few minutes later.

"No luck," he told her as he sat back down. "You said there's ash at a park?"

"There might be," she shrugged. "I'm not very good with trees."

"Well, we'll see, which way?"

Again, she gave him directions, and she climbed out with him this time.

He gave the small park a once over, and nodded. "Yep, that's ash all right." Dean headed for the trunk.

"How are you going to-" He pulled out a shiny axe out of the trunk.

"Oh."

He smiled at her. "Be right back."

He walked to the tree, and hacked off a few decent sized branches. After taking off some of the smaller twigs, he walked back to the car and tossed the branches and axe in the back seat.

"Awesome, there's our ash," he started the car up again. "Now we just have to track down the sunsabitches and we can gank 'em."

"Yay," Amelia volunteered.

"So shouldn't you be with family or something?" Dean asked, as he drove. "Aunts or uncles or friends or something? Isn't anyone worried about you?"

She looked out the window. "No aunts or uncles, my family is all dead now. Some neighbors are probably freaking out over the crime rate rising and lowering property values. That's about it."

"I am sorry," he said, staring straight ahead. "About your family, I mean. I'm sorry I couldn't save them."

"Yea," she said, quietly, and it seemed like there was nothing else to say.

Sam still sat at the computer when they returned. He nibbled on a sad looking muffin.

"We found some ash," Dean announced, brandishing the sticks.

"It looks like our best bet is still machetes," he told them as they entered. "Hard to beat beheading for killing things. But it won't hurt."

"Let's get tracking. When did you last see them?" Dean asked Amelia.

She had to think. "I'm not really sure. It was a while before you showed up, though. They stayed pretty close in the beginning, but then they started to leave for a while."

"So they're on the move," Dean thought out loud. "They had food, they were relatively safe, why are they moving?"

Sam shrugged. "We spooked them, maybe?"

"Could be," Dean considered it.

"I think our best bet is going back to the warehouse," Sam said. "See if they've come back, or wait for them to show. We can always try tracking them from the warehouse if nothing else."

Dean nodded. "Sounds good."

Sam stood, and stretched. He really was tall. "Will you be alright with going back there?"

Amelia shrugged.

"Awesome," Dean grunted. He had been whittling away at his sticks, and now had sharp points on each. "Here, kid," he tossed her one. She caught it clumsily with her one hand.

"You won't be any good with a machete one handed," he told her. "But you have a chance with stabbing them. Go for the heart or chest. Or head."

She swung it back and forth experimentally, and nodded without a word.

"Let's get going, then."

They loaded back into the car, Amelia hopped in the back without a word, and Sam settled in the passenger seat.

"We'll grab our machetes at the warehouse. Sam, here's a stake."

"Thanks," he tucked it inside his jacket.

"Now inside," Dean started lecturing her, "stick close to us, don't go off by yourself, whatever you do. Try and stay quiet. And don't be a hero. We have experience with this kind of shit. We can handle it. I know you want to kill these things, but it would be nice if you didn't get us killed in the deal."

Amelia nodded.

"Alright then, here we are."

Sam headed for the trunk, and pulled out two dangerous looking machetes, tossing one to his brother, who had the ash stake tucked inside his own jacket.

Amelia climbed out, wincing as she joggled her shoulder, clutching her own stake in her good arm.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sam asked her.

She gave him a withering look, and he sighed.

"Stick close to me," Dean told her again, and led the way in.