Chapter 36 Under Age
Kabetogama State Forest, Minnesota, 1988
The growl, something between the low chest growl of a wolf and the high-pitched scream of a mountain lion, echoed off the ravine wall and brought Victor out of sleep as completely as a dowsing with a bucket of ice-cold water.
What the fuck was that? His heart was pounding against his ribs with the thought and he glanced at the still hump of his wife in the near-darkness of the tent. He heard the crack of a branch, somewhere close, in the woods on the southern side of the camp site. His breath was ragged, his palms damp, he realised suddenly. And this is what primordial man felt, in the darkness of night, hearing the cave lion hunting, he thought, trying to ridicule himself out of his fear, forcing his hands to curl around the metal tab of the zipper to the sleeping bag and drag it down.
The camp fire was low, glowing embers in their bed of ash as he unzipped the flap of the tent and crawled outside. Despite being mid-June, the night air was cold and he shivered a little in the thin t-shirt and shorts he'd worn to bed. Might as well stir it up, he thought, looking at it. There wasn't much around here that would really threaten them but he glanced at the rifle he'd brought along, lying in its case next to the door of the tent and thought he might as well load it at least, keep it to hand in the nights.
Thunder rumbled, somewhere to the east, and he looked in that direction, seeing the woods and the ridge outlined by the flicker of sheet lightning. Maybe that's what he'd heard, he thought uncertainly, watching the lightning flash again. Just a storm coming.
Crouching beside the fire, he took a long stick and stirred the ashes, adding a handful of tinder to the red coals and waiting impatiently for them to catch. They'd been camping here since Clare had been a toddler, every summer, and they'd never had problems, had always enjoyed the early summer get-away, spending a couple of weeks here before heading down to see Anna's parents and spend a little time with them on the Outer Banks.
The twigs were catching when he heard another crack, in the woods, behind him this time. Closer. Louder. Piling a dozen sticks on top of the small flames, Victor turned on his heel, staring into the blackness surrounding the small clearing. Another roll of thunder and his eyes narrowed as the lightning lit the clearing and he saw the tent he shared with Anna shiver suddenly. Had that been a breeze? A couple of yards from that tent was the one his two daughters and son were sleeping in.
The growl seemed to come from every point of the compass, and Victor swallowed, his hand curling around the stick he held, the rifle forgotten. The children's tent collapsed and he sprang forward, toward it, his own scream ripping out of his throat as he looked up and saw what stood on the other side of the shredded terylene heap. An impossibly long arm swept toward him, so fast that he didn't have time to step away or duck, and he felt himself lifted and thrown across the clearing, his wind gone when he hit the trunk of the tree, blackness shrinking his vision as something sticky ran down his neck.
"No," he croaked. The … thing … the creature … the monster … lifted Ariane, and he watched it swing her high in the air, her high-pitched six-year-old's voice shrieking in terror, the scream cut short as she fell to the ground twenty yards away.
"Daddy! Mommy!" Connor's voice had started to break that year, but it was high now, the words dissolving into a drawn-out scream as the long claws punched through his chest and abdomen and the monster reached out for Clare.
No, no, no, no! Victor screamed with them inside of his head, rolling over, his head throbbing sickeningly as he tried to drag himself closer.
Above, the thunder rumbled, drowning out the sound of the rifle as Anna worked the bolt and fired again, the monster turning and suddenly, impossibly, next to her. Lightning struck the ridge, the crack deafening and Victor's eyes widened as he saw his wife fall limply, dragged off, the rifle lying in the dirt, her eyes open and staring in the blue-white flicker of another strike.
He pushed himself to his knees, the world swaying around him and looked up as a hiss and crackle sounded above him, the ridge no longer dark, outlined now in golden flame.
Wildfire, he thought incoherently. Fire. The thought was remote. His family were in danger, terrible danger and he had to move, had to save them. He felt his leg give way as he tried to put weight on it, pitching him face-down into the soft ground again. Pain crawled through him and thunder shook the earth, a lightning strike strobing the clearing vividly in front of him, white light and golden light suddenly filling his world.
The small river at the side of the camp site held a few deeper pools, here and there amongst the smooth boulders. The fire was racing down the hill toward him, the flames greedily devouring the dry timber and leaves. He would burn up if he stayed here.
He couldn't walk. He could hardly lift his head. He couldn't save his family. For a long moment, he lay on his side, tasting the smoke and ash of the approaching inferno, unable to think of a reason to move. Then he did move, rolling onto his chest, and reaching out to drag himself closer to the river. Starbursts of pain and an oily, roiling nausea filled him, but he reached out again, dragging himself another couple of feet closer to the water.
Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day
Dean leaned against the kitchen counter, looking at the bubbling pot on the stove beside him, the room filled the rich smells of the gumbo.
Once, if he'd felt like the dish, he'd've gotten in the car and driven south, spent a few days down there, pigging out on the food, on the women and the booze and the music, looking around for the jobs that were more often than not to be found. Once he would've thought that was normal and fine, in fact better than fine, a hell of a life … he'd been young and strong and hadn't given a damn about anything except the black car and his weapons and the freedom of the road.
In reality, that time had only been a year or so, when he'd done his own jobs most of the time, his father hunting elsewhere, checking in but not around. In his memory, it felt like a long, long golden-age. Not entirely golden, of course. He'd still worried about his father. Still worried about his brother, on the west coast and as distant as if he'd been on the moon. But most of the time it'd been his life, and no one else's.
He looked up as Sam came in, eyes closing and nostrils flaring appreciatively.
"What are you making?"
"Gumbo," Dean said, giving the pot a stir and walking across the room to the fridge.
"You know how to make gumbo?" Sam slid onto the seat at the island bench and looked at him curiously.
"I don't need a damned college degree to make a meal, Sam," Dean snapped irritably, passing him a bottle of cold beer and taking his own back to the counter. "It's not that freaking hard."
Sam blinked at the tone. "No, sure. Okay."
Dean dragged in a breath and let it out, tipping his bottle up and swallowing a soothing mouthful as he tried to shut away the thoughts that had been aggravating him. He looked at his brother.
"Anything on the renegade angel?"
Renegade angel, Sam thought, lifting his beer. It was an improvement on the varyingly caustic derogatory terms Dean had been using for Cas over the past two weeks.
"No," he said, putting the bottle down on the bench. "Nothing."
"Anything on demons? Crowley?"
"Nope, that's quiet as well," Sam said, watching him turn off the gas burner and pull a couple of deep bowls from the cupboard.
"Anything even remotely suggestive of what we do?" Dean asked, ladling out the richly aromatic food into the bowls.
Sam shook his head. "A few things going on in Bavaria, a haunting in Sweden. Oh, and there're some kind of weird animal attacks in Brisbane, Australia, but nothing came up here."
Dean set the bowl next to his brother and plunked the other one on the other side of the bench.
"How're your lungs going?"
Sam hesitated with the spoon halfway to his mouth. "Same as they've been for the last few weeks."
Dean nodded.
A couple of hours later, Dean sat in the armchair in the library, watching the flames dancing over the logs in the fireplace moodily. He'd had the best of intentions when he'd agreed to Sam's insistence that the truth-telling be equal. He really had. But the fact was, when it came down to it, the words got stuck somewhere in his throat and he couldn't get them out. Not to his brother. Not to anyone.
He was pissed at the angel. He was pissed at Crowley. There were no words to describe his feelings about Heaven. He was worried like hell about the second trial, the weeks passing and Sam getting weaker and still no word from Kevin.
Looking at the whiskey in the glass he held, the firelight lighting it to a shade of gold, he realised he wasn't using it to drown out the thoughts and memories the way he had before he'd gone to Purgatory. That had to be a positive sign. Of something. But he admitted to himself reluctantly, sometimes he drank it because it was the only thing that could warm him up, could stop him from freezing from the inside out.
He thought of the man he'd been once, barely a man, more of a cocky kid with way too much belief in his own invincibility. That man had disappeared in chunks in '05, vanishing entirely the night they'd burned John Winchester on a pyre.
He didn't even know how that man had ever existed. But he had. And he wasn't enough of a hypocrite to be able to lie to himself about how much he'd loved hunting, back when he'd had his father, and Jim and Caleb, backing him up, giving him a safe place to rest, to recover from whatever injuries he'd managed to get. Even after Sam had left, there'd been plenty of good times, plenty of good memories. He missed them all, and nothing had been the same after they'd gone.
Sam walked up from the war room and dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the hearth.
"Think I found something," he said. "Local, too."
"Lebanon?"
"Not quite that local. Conway Springs," Sam amended. "You want to check it out?"
"Tell me about it," Dean said, rolling his eyes slightly.
"Female vics, throats torn out, blood drained," Sam summarised.
"Vamps?" Dean smiled a little. "Yeah, why not? My swing's been getting rusty."
Conway Springs, Kansas
The radio was playing softly enough that Krissy could still hear the faint roar of the falls, a few hundred yards upriver from the lookout.
The boy kissing her was good, she thought remotely. Not too wet, not cleaning her tonsils, not banging into her teeth with his own. It wasn't an unpleasant way to spend the time. And from time to time, she felt a flash of heat, some deeper longing that she shied from each time it happened, not wanting to lose herself, not tonight.
The shadow that flickered along the car caught her attention immediately.
"What was that?" she asked softly, turning her head to look around the car. Aidan looked around, smiling slightly.
"What?"
Krissy ignored him, twisting in the seat to look through the steamy translucence of the rear windows.
"There's no one here but us, Krissy," Aidan said, cupping his hands around her face again.
For a moment, she felt stupid, the whole damned pretence was stupid and she wanted to slap him. Take it easy, make it look believable, she told herself firmly. They'd tried the decoy tactic before, with Josephine and Aidan just sitting in the car, watching. The vamp had never shown. Just act your part and he'll come for you, she reminded herself.
Aidan's eyes were only half-closed and he saw the shadow race past the passenger side of the car.
"What?!" He let go of Krissy and looked around, rubbing his sleeve across the condensation that covered the windshield. The hood flew up with a bang and both of them flinched backwards.
Aidan looked down at the key, twisting it hard, the starter motor struggling to turn over. Distributor cap, he thought furiously.
Footsteps, hard soles, Krissy thought as they ran past the car. Aidan turned in his seat, reaching into the back to pull out a tyre lever. Looking down at it, her eyes widened.
"No," she said to him. "No, Aidan."
He opened the driver's door and got out, shutting it behind him.
"No! Don't leave me here!"
For a moment the only sound she could hear was her own breath, loud and rasping in her throat. Then the window smashed in behind her, fingers like steel talons gripping her arms and she struggled, not acting anymore, feeling herself lifted out through the broken window, a second's glimpse of red eyes and pointed fangs above her.
The machete swung smoothly, and the head disappeared, bouncing across the asphalt as the body dropped, Krissy falling out of the car on top of it. She rolled to her knees, looking up into Aidan's face as Josephine ran from the shadows on the other side of the parking area.
"You okay?" Josephine asked her, staring down at the head of the vampire.
Krissy looked at her coolly. "That was close," she said. "Next time, someone else can play bait."
The tall black girl shrugged slightly, looking over at Aidan. He still stood beside the body, staring down at the head. Krissy walked up beside him, glancing at the tension in his face, tactfully ignoring the tear that glistened in the overhead light as it crawled down his cheek.
"That's him," Aidan said, his voice shaking.
"One down," Krissy told him, keeping her voice firm and matter-of-fact. "Two to go."
I-35 S, Kansas
Dean's fingers drummed on the wheel impatiently as he listened to his brother.
"No, all I'm saying is that what happened with us, with our family, doesn't happen to everyone."
"It happened to our grandparents," Dean countered tightly. "All killed."
"Because of Yellow Eyes," Sam pointed out. "Because he was looking for a certain kind of person. He picked plenty of people who weren't hunters."
Sam watched his brother's face harden and sighed inwardly. Despite the fact that he'd enjoyed his year of normality, he was coming to the conclusion that doing what they did no longer precluded having some kind of life. Seeing Prometheus, seeing him with Haley and Oliver, it'd turned his thinking around. Made him wonder.
"What about Ellen and Jo?" Dean flicked a glance at him. "Bill died – hunting. Fighting demons."
"If he'd been a cop, he might've died," Sam suggested reasonably. "Or a fireman. Or a soldier. You saying that all the people in those professions are cursed too? That they can't have normal lives, families?"
"Their odds are better than ours."
"Not that much," Sam said, shrugging.
"Why are you defending this life, Sam?" Dean finally asked in exasperation. "You hated it since you were three!"
"And you used to love it."
"It's taken everything from us," Dean snapped. "Everyone we ever cared about is dead because of us!"
"Not because of us, Dean," Sam said tiredly. "Because they were in the life and they ran out of luck."
Dean scowled at the road. "It they hadn't been in our life, they would still be alive."
"But it was their choice." Sam looked at him. "Don't you think people have the right to decide what to fight for? What to live or die for?"
"No," Dean growled quellingly. "Where are we going?"
"Police station," Sam answered, giving up. "Second on the right when we come into town."
Conway Springs, Kansas
Dean pulled into the parking lot and found a clear slot near the entrance. He nosed into it, turning off the engine and pulling on the brake. He stayed in the car, glancing at Sam who was looking at him questioningly.
"Sam, you want to hang back on this one, you know, that's fine," he said, shifting his gaze to the building.
"What?"
"You know, the trials, what Cas said … that what you have, he can't cure," Dean said, gesturing vaguely.
"Which means what, exactly?" Sam asked.
"I don't know, you tell me. Are you okay?" Dean turned to look at him.
"I'm fine," Sam said carefully. "Why? Are you okay?"
"Me?" Dean's brows rose slightly.
"Yeah, Cas dinged you up pretty good."
"And?"
"And I just want to make sure you're okay," Sam told him. "You know, because we did say we'd be honest."
Dean shook his head. "What, like my feelings?"
"If that's what you want to talk about, sure," Sam agreed noncommittally.
There was a moment's silence as Dean realised he'd been neatly trapped. Again.
"Okay," he said slowly. "Well, I'll tell you what … why don't I go and get some herbal tea –"
"Okay," Sam said, opening the door beside him.
"– and you can find some 'Cowboy Junkies' on the dial, and –"
"Eat me, Dean," Sam threw over his shoulder as he got out.
"– and you know what? We'll just talk it out," Dean said, raising his voice as Sam slammed the door behind him. "Good talk."
He got out of the car and walked after his brother. "Great talk! Very healthy."
"FBI? You boys were quick," the sheriff said, looking at their badges. "What did you say your jurisdiction was here again?"
"Just checking to see if the two female victims you've had have anything in common with several murders in Ohio," Dean said.
"Huh." The sheriff turned and walked into the bullpen, going to the end, Dean and Sam following him. "Well, you saw the reports, right? Under twenty-one, both female, extensive tissue damage to their throats –"
"Both drained of blood," Sam finished for him as he walked around the end of the last desk in the room.
"Yeah," the sheriff nodded. "We found that strange also. But last night, things got even stranger."
"Last night?" Sam asked.
"Yeah," the sheriff gestured to the monitor in front of him, turning it toward them. "We set up a security camera at Fullers Point – for safety purposes – it's where our local young people like to go make out." He hit a key on the keyboard and the security footage loaded. "Last night … things got crazy."
Sam and Dean looked at the monitor. The picture showed a car, a nondescript-looking hatchback sitting by the raised kerb at the edge of the parking lot. A minute went by and nothing changed. Dean glanced at the sheriff.
"Oh, hell, sorry," the sheriff said, cuing up the correct time. "There we go."
The blur on the camera was impossible to make out and both men's attention sharpened. They watched a young man get out of the car, heading out of the camera's field of vision. A minute later, a man walked up to the passenger side of the car rapidly, elbowing the window and reaching in to pull a girl from the passenger seat. From behind him, the young man who'd been in the car ran back into view, swinging smoothly, sending the attacker's head from his shoulders.
"Helluva thing, ain't it?" the sheriff said, shaking his head.
"Uh … you ID any of these people?" Sam asked. On the screen, there were three young people, all looking down at the body. The taller girl at the end of the loose line held a police-issue pump action shotgun. Dean frowned at the screen.
"Well, not yet," the sheriff hedged. "Crime scene was empty when we got there – no vic, no nuthin'." He hit a couple of keys and froze the picture, catching the middle girl with her face turned up to the camera. "I'm thinking it's some kind of cult, or drug thing. So I put out a statewide APB on these three about an hour ago."
Dean stared at the image, his frown deepening as recognition strengthened. He knew that face. Knew the girl.
"Gonna need you to call that off," he said to the sheriff. "And we're gonna need this footage."
"What?" The sheriff looked at him doubtfully.
"Sheriff, this investigation is under federal jurisdiction as of now," Dean said, looking at him. "These match the Ohio cases, we're talking killers crossing state lines, and that's our baby. I suggest that you co-operate, and call off your APB … or you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt."
Sam forced his features into a bland mask of agreement as the sheriff's gaze shifted to him.
"Right." The sheriff turned away to copy the camera footage.
"So what was all that about, G-man?" Sam followed Dean out of the building. "You find it that easy to forget that all we've got at the other end of the numbers on our business cards is Garth?"
Dean shook his head. "You remember Krissy Chambers?"
Sam slowed, waiting for the name to register. "Yeah … the vetala case, they were working that truck stop by the freeway."
"Right, and her dad promised to go civilian so she wouldn't grow up to be a hunter," Dean continued. "Well, guess who the star of this snuff film is."
"Come on," Sam said, looking at him as they crossed the parking lot. "Well, maybe her father doesn't know she's doing this?"
Dean stopped by the car. "What? Sneaking out in the middle of the night to go hunting monsters with her BFFs? That's what kids are doing for kicks these days?"
"Okay, maybe he knows and he's helping her out."
"And he lets her get caught on candid camera?" Dean looked at him impatiently and shook his head. "Let's just go find her before she gets into any more trouble."
Sam looked at him. "We're in luck, only two accommodation places in town."
"Split up?"
Sam nodded. "One hotel, centre of town, one motel, other end. What do you want?"
"I'll take the hotel," Dean said, his expression souring. "Drop me off and meet me back there when you've checked the other one."
They switched places and Sam stopped in front of the ugly, square hotel to let his brother out, pulling back into the traffic as soon as the door had shut.
Dean walked into the lobby, sizing up the clerk behind the desk in a glance, and pulling out his wallet. He had a clear printout of Krissy's face, taken from the footage and a growing impatience to find her and get her out of whatever she was into. Lee had promised that he'd get them both out of the life, go live normal, let his daughter get an education. He wanted to find the sonofabitch and have it out with him.
"Hey," he said, leaning on the counter as the man raised an eyebrow at him. "Looking for three kids." He pulled out the printout and set it flat on the counter. "Might have been only one of them checking in. My niece and her friends, we're all real worried about them."
"Your niece? Riiiggght … mister, our guests are entitled to their privacy –" the clerk started to say and Dean sighed, pulling out two fifties and sliding them across the counter next to the printout.
"I believe that your … niece … and her friends have taken Room 307, sir," the clerk said unsmilingly, making the money disappear.
"Thank you," Dean said, glancing at the stairs. He turned around and walked back out, dialling Sam.
Sam parked the car under the overhanging shop awning and walked up to the hotel's entrance, as per his brother's instructions. Krissy had been fourteen when they'd met her. She'd be sixteen now, he thought uneasily, not much more than a kid really.
"Straight up?" he asked Dean as he walked up to him in the lobby.
"No." Dean shook his head. "She's young and dumb, but not that dumb. You go in the front, make some noise. I'll take the back way, in case she's not that happy to see us."
Sam's brow creased up. "What are you thinking?"
Dean looked at him and shrugged. "She and this little gang of hers are smart enough to take down a vamp but not smart enough to check out their stakeout area for cameras," he pointed out. "That's just young, but there's no point giving her an easy way to push us out if she doesn't want to listen to reason. She's in 307. Don't be so quiet you give her a scare."
Sighing, Sam turned for the stairs as Dean walked out through the rear.
At the side of the building on the other street, the firestairs climbed the brickwork and Dean used the dumpster under it to get to the lowest platform. He looked up, climbing the stairs to the third floor and counting the windows. Two were lit. Edging along the narrow gantry, he slid his knife along the crack between the window frames and felt the lock turn. The edges of the lower frame had been thoroughly painted to the surrounding frame and he ran the knife along the joins, breaking the seal and lifting the window slowly enough to be near-silent, slipping through as soon as it was wide enough. The room was a suite, he noticed. He froze as he saw a shadow in the short, narrow hall between the room he'd come into and the brightly lit living room.
Sam heard the lock click and turned the knob, pushing the door open and walking in. On the table, a laptop sat open, grainy black and white video playing and he moved closer, eyes narrowing as he took in the scene playing. He stopped and turned when he heard the gun cock.
"Hi Krissy," he said to the girl who stood at the hallway to the other rooms. "Sam Winchester."
The girl stared at him, her shoulders slumping as she lowered the gun. "What are you doing here?"
She didn't hear anything from behind her as Dean ghosted out of the darkness of the bedroom, his arm catching her wrist and pulling the gun from her, breaking open the revolver, the bullets dropping to the floor.
"You're still a little young to be playing with guns," he said quietly against her hair, handing her back the gun as she spun around to face him.
"How'd you find me?" she asked incredulously, her gaze dropping from his face to the bullets lying at her feet. "I paid cash – everywhere!"
"Uh huh," Dean said, nodding as he walked around her to her brother. "And you leave your face on a police security camera when you're working." He shrugged. "Two hotels in a twenty mile radius and we pay cash too."
"Krissy, where's your dad?" Sam asked.
She crouched on the floor, picking up the bullets and shoving them into her pocket, not answering for a moment. When she stood, her face was shuttered and hard.
"Dead."
"When?" Sam asked.
"How?" Dean added.
"I don't have time for this," she said, turning away from them and walking to the table. "We're in the middle of something."
"In the middle of something?" Dean repeated, with a bemused glance at Sam. He followed her to the table, stopping behind her. "In the middle of what?"
"Vampire," she said shortly, leaning on the table as she watched the screen.
"You're hunting a vampire?" Sam walked around to the table.
Krissy tapped the volume key as the footage showed a door opening into a large single room, a woman bound to the bed opposite the doorway, gagged.
"We're in," a girl's voice said from the speaker. "Room's clear. Nobody here but the vic."
The cameras were at the eye-level of the two kids carrying them, Sam noted distantly. Head-mounted. They watched the tall girl from the police security footage walk to the edge of the bed. Behind them, the door burst inward, both cameras swinging around, the flare blocking their view for a moment then resolving into a figure standing in the doorway, shadowed by the hall lights. It vanished from the screen at the same time as the dark girl went flying into a wall, the boy's camera picking up her scream.
"What room!?" Dean yelled at Krissy who was staring at the screen, her knuckles white against the edge of the table. "Room, goddammit!"
"215."
He shot out of the suite, boots pounding for the stairs, hearing his brother behind him. Taking the stairs in landing leaps, he used the heavy, old-fashioned newel posts to slingshot around to the next landing and raced down the hall of the first floor, accelerating as the first two door numbers flashed by and gave him the right direction.
The vampire's back was to them as a kick smashed the lock and sent the door crashing back against the wall, and Dean lifted his gun as he came in, seeing it turn for him, lips drawn back from a mouthful of fangs, eyes lined in red. It was still in line with the other kid, the boy, and Dean's finger stayed tight on the trigger without pulling back as he got closer.
The vampire broke right, moving fast but clumsily as it jumped through the window. The glass and frame exploded outwards as it took them with it and the curtains fluttered in the night air. Dean was beside the window and looking down, seeing the creature racing along the road, a dark-coloured van sitting under the streetlight a half-block up, taillights glowing red. Not black, the thought flashed irrelevantly through his mind. Blue maybe.
"I got him," Krissy said from the doorway, spinning around and running down the hall.
The words registered belately and Dean snapped back from the window. "Sonofabitch!"
He accelerated across the room after her and Sam looked at the stunned face of the boy in front of him. "We need to call an ambulance."
The kid nodded, pulling out his phone and dialling. Sam crossed the room and dragged the other girl up from the debris of the nightstand, lamp and wall plaster covering her.
"You alright?" he asked her.
She nodded, shaking her head a little and looking at the woman on the bed.
"Ambulance on its way," the boy said, walking to the bed as Sam pulled the gag out of the woman's mouth.
"It's okay, you're gonna be okay, help's coming," he said and turned to the other two. "Come on, out of here, now."
Dean hit the pavement fifty yards behind Krissy, seeing her stop and aim, no gun retort but a hiss of air and the vampire hit the ground, skidding along the concrete walk on the other side of the road. The van had gone, he noticed as he slowed down to come up behind her.
The vampire was moaning. "Please … I'm so hungry, what's happening to me?"
"How'd you drop him so quickly?" Dean looked from the vampire to the gun in her hand, seeing the elongated barrel, nodding as his question was answered at the same as Krissy told him.
"Darts. Filled with dead man's blood," she said dryly.
"Where's the van?" Dean looked up the street, brows drawing together as he recognised the white pickup that had been parked in front of it.
"What van?"
"There was a dark van here, blue I think," Dean said, gesturing to the vampire and the place where the van had been parked. "That's where this thing was headed." He looked at her, seeing her lack of comprehension and realised it must've been gone even before she'd hit the street. "Never mind."
He undid the narrow strap holding the long knife he carried at the back of his hip and pulled it out.
"Wait! Stop," Krissy said, her gaze dropping to the knife and lifting again to him. "This is not your kill."
Dean frowned at her. "What are you talking about?"
He and Krissy turned as they heard the footsteps clocking over the asphalt and coming toward them. The tall, dark-skinned girl was leading, long legs striding across the street, her face hard and tight. Sam and the boy followed her, stopping next to Dean as the girl halted abruptly next to the vampire on the ground, paying no attention at all to either Dean or Krissy, her attention riveted on the man lying on the ground.
"Sixth months ago," she said to the vampire, her voice vibrating with the tension, the words coming out through clenched teeth. "You came into a house and killed three people in their sleep."
The vampire stared up at her, his face slack and uncomprehending with shock and the effects of the dead man's blood coursing through him.
"No, no," he slurred at her. "I didn't kill … haven't killed … anyone."
"One was a woman," the girl said, leaning closer to him, her voice deepening. "Never hurt anyone!"
Sam looked at Dean and back to the girl as her breathing got louder, rasping in and out of her throat.
"There was a boy and … a girl," she said and her chest hitched helplessly, the machete in her hand shedding spears of light as it trembled in her hand. "A brother. And a sister."
"Nooooo," the vampire moaned, the red gone from his eyes as they rolled up. "I don't know … what you're talking about."
"I came home, from a friend's place, and I found them," the girl continued relentlessly, the blade steadying, her breathing getting deeper. "They were my family."
The vampire grimaced, doubling as the hunger inside clawed and tore at him. "I don't know – I didn't do anything – I didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't do –"
It looked up her and red filled its eyes, the fangs descending as a groan ripped out of its throat. "I'm –"
The girl's face tightened. Dean watched her lips pull back from her teeth as she lifted the machete suddenly, the blade flashing in the white light and whistling as it descended, the sound drowned out by the girl's low scream when it met the neck of the vampire.
Execution, Dean thought, staring at the headless body on the pavement. Like the other one. He glanced at Sam, watching his brother's face twitch in revulsion at the sight. The vamp had not been old. He was pretty sure of that. The hunger, the disorientation. But the girl had said that her family was killed six months ago. What the fuck was going on here?
Krissy walked slowly to the vampire, pulling out the two darts she'd fired at him. She tucked them into her pocket as she straightened up by the other girl's side, resting a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, it's over now."
Sam looked at the lit windows around them nervously. "Let's get this wrapped up and get out of here."
Dean looked at Krissy. "Can I have a word with you? Privately."
She looked at him and nodded, walking past Aidan. "Krissy, you know this guy?"
Glancing back over her shoulder at Aidan, she nodded. "Yeah, we have a history."
Dean suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, and turned back to his brother. "You get this squared away?"
Sam nodded. "I'll get the car."
Krissy stopped beyond a car further up the street, leaning back against it as she waited for him.
"Alright, you're going to have to catch me up a bit," he said, flicking a glance back at the two kids still staring down at the dead vampire, his gaze returning to the kid in front of him. "What? Your dad couldn't quit the life?"
She shook her head. "He did. And for awhile …" Krissy looked up at him, her face softening. "It was amazing. We had … dinner, every night, at a table. We watched TV, went for walks." She snorted softly, the sound edged with self-deprecation as she looked away. "I even went to the mall."
"And then?"
"And then …" she hesitated, her eyes fluttering shut against a memory that was still too fresh, too raw. "The past came a'knockin' … I woke up one morning, and I found him dead. His throat had been … ripped out."
Dean's gaze cut away momentarily as his imagination furnished the image to match the words. "Well, I'm sorry," he said. What else was there to say?
Krissy's gaze lifted, her eyes dry. "Me too."
She shivered and looked away, filling her lungs and letting the breath out as she looked back over the car's roof to her friends. "If it hadn't been for Josephine and Aidan, I don't know how I would have made it."
Dean followed her gaze, a crease appearing between his brows. "So they both lost their families as well?"
"Yeah," she said. "The same vamps were hunting together … a nest."
Dean licked his lips as he thought about that. "Krissy, there're a few things not adding up here. But the bottom line, you –" He looked at the other kids. "And those two, are way too young to be doing this."
Krissy smiled derisively. "You were sixteen when you killed your first vamp, Dean. You told me."
He scowled at the ground. He'd told her about his childhood, on the long drive to find his brother and her father, to put her off hunting. "That was different."
She snorted. "You're never too young to be killing monsters," she retorted. "Especially when they've taken everything from you."
He dragged in a breath. "Hunting isn't about killing and revenge, Krissy –"
"Really? So, two years ago, your serious crap – your 'revenge crap' – that wasn't you?"
No question she was female, he thought irritably. Memory like a fucking elephant. "Like I said, that was different."
"No, it's not different. It's the same. Like you. Still full of the same crap."
He smiled tightly. "You got any other family?"
Frowning at the change in topic, Krissy answered automatically. "There's an aunt, in Cincinnati, I think. Why?"
"'Cause you're going to pack a bag and we're taking you there," Dean told her.
"Victor might have a problem with that," Krissy told him blandly.
"Who's Victor?"
"He's the one who took us in," she said. "Showed us everything we know."
"What?" Dean looked at her disbelievingly. "Some kind of hunter's school for kids?"
Krissy's face screwed up. "Victor's helping us to learn. To get revenge for what happened to us."
"And you think that's fine?" he asked, shaking his head. "I don't care what he is, he sucks at his job. You know that you and your friends got caught on a security camera taking down the other vamp? If it wasn't for me, your faces would be splashed over every law enforcement office and every newspaper and news report in Kansas by now."
"So what? Maybe it's time that people really knew the truth about what goes bump in the night!" Krissy said fiercely to him. "Maybe if people knew –"
"You know what would happen if people knew, Krissy?" he cut her off sharply. "This country, this world, would collapse under its own fucking panic. That tape? It didn't show the vamp in close enough detail to see what it was – it showed your boyfriend taking its head off with a machete. You three look like deranged serial killers, not hunters."
She looked away, the muscle in her jaw jumping at the image. "I don't need you to save me, Dean," she said coldly, looking back at him. "I'm not a little kid anymore."
He watched her stalk away to her friends. He'd managed to totally forget the arrogance of teenagers, he thought. Know everything. Don't need to listen to the oldies. He needed a different approach.
Sam looked at him as he walked back to his brother. "What happened?"
"Teenager," Dean told him sourly. "And it gets worse."
He looked at the wrapped body the kids were putting into the back of the hatchback. "They got a place to burn that?"
Sam nodded. "Out of town. I already told them to trade the car in for something else."
"Cops got a pretty good fix on the make, model and plate," Dean agreed tiredly. "We can figure that bit out later."
"She tell you about Victor?" Sam asked him.
"Yeah," Dean said. "What do we think?"
"I'm wondering if it's not the same Victor we met in 2012, in Spokane," Sam said, forehead wrinkling. "The rugaru job that got tangled up with our Levis."
Dean looked at him thoughtfully. "The guy who lost his family."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Maybe he's compensating?"
"God, nothing would surprise me now," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Guess we're going to renew our acquaintanceship."
Dean shucked his jacket and pulled out a clean one from his duffle as the body and pyre fell to ashes. The unlovely scent of burning meat tended to cling to clothing a lot longer and more conspicuously than just wood smoke. Cops would probably find the bones, sometime, he thought. They weren't all that far out of town.
"Well, they're competent enough at that," Sam walked over to him, changing his jacket as well.
"This hunter, Victor, he got started kind of adhoc, didn't he?" Dean said, getting into the car as the three kids piled into the hatchback and started their engine.
"Yeah, said he went nuts for a while, then began to research wendigos," Sam confirmed, sliding into the passenger seat.
"Didn't buddy up with anyone, did he?"
"Not that I recall him saying."
"Might explain why he doesn't teach them to do their recon properly," Dean mused, following the red car back along the roads into the town.
"You know, that kid, Aidan, he froze when the vamp attacked them, in that room," Sam pointed out. "And that was a young vamp; he was easy enough to see."
Dean nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that."
"They're going to get killed, hunting like that," Sam said uneasily. "Vamps aren't easy to start with."
"There's nothing that's easy to start with," Dean countered. "We did how many salt'n'burns before Dad let us anywhere near anything else, and you just about died on one of those."
"That wasn't inexperience," Sam said, remembering the job with a shiver. The furnace pipe had punched into him and he'd woken four days later on a ventilator. "That was bad luck."
Dean shook his head. "No, it wasn't. We hadn't checked deep enough."
"In any case, Dad was with us on every single hunt."
Flicking a glance at him, Dean wondered at his brother's memories of their childhood. There'd been more than a couple of occasions when they'd stumbled, deliberately or accidentally, into situations that had almost gotten them killed as kids, when their father had been away or busy with something else.
He pulled up behind the hatchback and turned off the engine, glancing at the house across the street. It was on a corner, big yard, two-and-a-half storey with plenty of room. Paintwork was neat and fresh. Garden well-tended. He got out of the car and waited for Sam as the kids closed their doors and walked across the street and through the lych-gate at the fence.
"Not what I'd call a compound," he remarked as they followed them.
Krissy unlocked the front door and walked through a hall and an archway into the big living room. Josephine and Aidan followed her in, dumping their bags with the casual carelessness of any kid coming home.
Dean looked around. The hall continued down to the rear of the house, a wide staircase taking up half its width, the stairs starting from opposite the living room doorway. Muted colours, Middle-Eastern carpets glowing with jewel-bright colours under the soft gold of the lamps in the room, shelves full of books relieved the primary tones of the dark, stained wood panelling and detail. The floors were spotless, the living area comfortable and tidy.
Sam smiled slightly as he closed the front door behind them. Family home, he thought, glancing around. It felt welcoming.
"Huh," Dean murmured as he and Sam came into the living room.
Krissy glanced over at him. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "Just not what I expected."
"And what was that?" she asked, walking to the end of the room.
"A little more 'Lord of the Flies' … less Huxtables," Dean said distractedly.
Sam turned as a man came down the stairs to his right.
"Sorry to disappoint," the man said, as he turned at the bottom and came into the living room. He was in his early fifties, five ten or eleven, a lean build and a pronounced limp.
Seeing him, the memory of Spokane came back clearly. Victor'd had the limp then too, had told him it was what he'd taken away from surviving the attack on his family. Dark eyes crinkled up as he smiled at them.
"Winchester, Sam and Dean, right?" he said, holding out his hand to them. "It's good to see you both, there were a lot of rumours flying around after the levis disappeared."
Sam glanced at his brother and nodded. "Got confusing, getting rid of their structure."
"Well, you did a good job," Victor said, turning as Josephine came up to them. He looked at her, opening his arms.
She stepped into them, and they embraced for a moment, Victor pulling away gently and looking down into her face. "Better now?"
"Much," she agreed, her exhale audible.
"And what do we always say?"
"Move on," she said, looking up at him. "But never forget."
"Good," he said softly. "Now, don't you have a trig test in the morning?"
She smiled reluctantly, walking around him and heading up the stairs. Aidan sauntered down the hall, raising the apple he held in his hand to Victor.
"I'm good, Victor, no tests, just need some chill time, play some games," he said casually.
Victor smiled wryly. "Oh yeah? Well, keep dreaming, Aidan, because I asked you to clean your room twice and you still haven't done it. You can chill as soon as you're done with that."
The boy's eyes widened and his face fell as he nodded slowly. Sam recognised the 'caught' expression with a pang of nostalgia. Not that his father would have phrased a reprimand quite that lightly, he thought.
"And you," Victor turned to Krissy as she walked up.
"Full report, on your desk, by morning," she said, glancing at the brothers. Victor caught the quick look and looked back at her, clasping his hands together over his heart and making a small bow. "'Kay, I'll be in my room."
He watched her go for a moment, then turned back to Sam and Dean, one brow lifted.
"Drink?"
Dean looked around the room uncomfortably and nodded. "Sure."
"Have a seat," Victor said, walking to the sideboard against the wall and pouring out three glasses from a cut-glass decanter.
"So these kids, they go to school? Real school?" Sam asked, sitting down on the long, plush sofa.
Victor handed Dean his glass, and Sam his, and sat down opposite them in an armchair. "Yes. And they're doing incredibly well, considering all they've been through."
Dean put the glass on the low table beside him. "Okay, so how does this work? Ah … after soccer practice and … the bake sale … they chop vampire's heads off?"
Victor leaned back in the chair, looking at him. "They go to school, and they have the same responsibilities as any kid of their age does there. Here, at home, they learn more. Combat training. Weaponry. The lore of the creatures they will find. It doesn't interfere with their scholastic schedule – or their essential social development. I think a balanced approach is best, don't you?"
Dean stared at him. "They're kids. They shouldn't be hunting at all. You gotta break this up, right now."
Victor sighed. "When I found them, Dean, they were lost. They were confused and they were angry. I gave them a family and a purpose," he said carefully. "And you want to take all that away? Why?"
"So they don't get killed," Sam said.
"They know the risks," Victor said, looking at him.
"Yeah, but why take them?"
For a moment, Victor said nothing, his eyes dark and his face expressionless.
"Because the next generation of hunters has to be better," he said finally.
"Better than what?" Sam frowned.
"Better than us," Victor replied, his expression cool. He looked over at Dean. "Most of us, we're thrust into this life by … chance, let's say. Something comes out of the dark and takes everything we loved, every hope we had. And we struggle to find out the truth, to learn the lore, to get the weapons and learn to use them. Most hunters who get into the life like that die, within a year. Those who manage somehow to survive that learning curve are embittered, drowning the memories that won't let them go in quantities of alcohol or in drugs or the sort of reckless behaviour that will get them killed within the next two, or three, or five years."
He leaned forward in the chair, his face tightening. "The best hunters, the ones with the best chance of survival and more, they were raised in the life. They learned from an early age all that they needed to know, with the same lack of effort with which they learned to tie their shoelaces. And throughout their childhoods and their formative years, they had the backup of family, of friendships. They have connections to people. They don't find the journey as lonely and soul-crushing as the rest of us."
Dean frowned at him. "We grew up in the life, and let me tell you, that's not how it works."
Sam glanced at him and back at Victor. He understood what the man meant. A memory of the roadhouse flashed into his mind, Ellen and Jo and Ash, talking and joking around with the other hunters, comfortable and easy in their lives, despite what they knew, what they felt.
"You two are … atypical, I'll grant you that," Victor said slowly. "But the fact remains that you are considered by many of the hunters still around to be the best. And your track record proves it."
Dean ignored the look his felt from his brother. It wasn't right, no matter what came out of it.
"Josephine is an All-State athlete and National Merit scholar. Aidan is so fast he can pick your pocket in the time it takes to blink. And Krissy …" He shifted in the chair. "She's a natural leader, and her father gave her enough background that she is already a superb hunter."
"And they got caught by a police security camera in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere," Dean snapped. "How is that good training – on your part or theirs? Sheriff in town had already issued a state-wide APB on all their faces."
Victor looked away. "There are some aspects of hunting we haven't dealt with yet."
Dean shook his head. "They aren't ready for vamps, either. Not even new ones."
"They're learning."
"They'll die!" Dean bit out, picking up his glass. "That the plan? Sort out the cream through a life-and-death test?"
"No," Victor said. "I thought they were –"
"Yeah, well you were wrong," Dean said. "You want to talk about hunting with family – well our Dad was with us on those hunts when we were learning, with us every step of the way. Where were you tonight?"
"I have other responsibilities that I can't leave, Dean," Victor said coolly.
"They're just kids, Victor," Sam said to him. "They don't have the experience to judge situations as well as an adult, not yet, not for years."
He glanced at his brother. "I know, I remember how I felt at sixteen, or seventeen, going out with my father and my brother. I felt like I knew it all, knew what I was doing, damn near invincible. And as long as everything went to plan, it usually worked out okay. When it didn't, when whatever it was we were after changed the rules, I floundered. I had no idea what to do about it. And if Dad hadn't been there, or Dean … I'd've died."
Silence filled the room when Sam stopped. Victor looked down at the floor, rubbing his temple with one hand. Dean swallowed his whiskey, his own memories of those times Sam had been too close to death crowding thickly in his mind.
"You're right," Victor said, nodding. "We'll make sure –"
Dean shook his head. "No, just stop them."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because they need this," Victor said, looking down at the liquid in his glass. "They need to have a way to get past what happened to them, to their families. They want it. They won't let it go and I wouldn't make them." He looked up at them. "Could you have lived a normal life – let go of what happened to you and just put it aside, put it behind you, when you were that age?"
"They'll get over it," Dean pressed, mouth compressing.
"No, they won't." Victor exhaled audibly. "I didn't. You didn't. Your father didn't. None of us do. Until we get our justice."
He stood abruptly. "It's getting late, and I have a lot to do tomorrow," he said, turning and gesturing to the stairs. "We have room, if you need a place to stay tonight."
"Uh … thanks," Dean said slowly, turning over that possibility in his mind as he stood. "Sam'll take you up on that."
"But not you?" Victor looked at him curiously.
"I have a few errands to get through, probably take me a while," Dean lied, shrugging.
Sam glanced at him quizzically. "I'll get my stuff."
They walked out the front door, and up the path, Dean glancing over his shoulder at the house.
"This is crazy," Dean muttered as they came onto the pavement.
"Is it?" Sam looked at the house. "They've got a pretty good life."
"Kids aren't supposed to hunt, Sam."
"We did."
"Yeah, look what that did for us."
"Maybe they'll do alright," Sam said. "Maybe they can hunt and have a real life."
"You know that's not true," Dean said bitterly.
"Why? 'Cause it didn't work for us?" Sam stopped on the kerb, staring at his back.
"Because it doesn't work for anybody," Dean said, his voice rising slightly as he turned around.
"It didn't work for us because our family was targeted, Dean," Sam said quietly. "We weren't just a hunting family, we were different and you know that."
"I am not having this conversation again."
Sam looked away, shrugging. "Fine, what do you want to do? Victor's not going to stop this."
Dean looked at him suspiciously for a moment then glanced back at the house. "They said they were hunting a nest, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, how 'bout we hunt it for them," he said. "That way, until we figure out what to do about Victor, they stay safe."
Sam nodded, looking away. "Alright. What's your move?"
"I want to talk to that girl who was tied up at the hotel," he said, brows drawing together pensively. "Something didn't smell right about that."
"And I'm on babysitting here?"
"See what else you can find out," Dean said. "Make sure that those kids stay away from the vamps."
He turned away, crossing the street to the car and getting in. Sam watched him go, and turned back to the house, wondering if Dean would ever admit that it had been Heaven and Hell that had screwed their lives, not simply the life they'd grown up in.
He smiled inwardly at himself. Once, he'd been convinced that their lives had been platinum-plated sucksville. He knew what'd changed, knew that for himself, he wouldn't stop hunting now, not as long as there was something to hunt. Finding a way to live a life that wasn't completely hunting would be a challenge, however. Civilians couldn't deal. That was something that had become completely clear to him. Hunters needed each other because no one else could understand and that understanding was the key.