We pulled up to the intersection, pulled off the street into a small part and settled in to wait. Sam got out, popped the trunk as I worked my way around to the back.

"Here," he said as he started pulling weapons out of the trunk, "The shotgun with dead man's blood darts will be too obvious so use the crossbows. Hope your aim is still good." He handed me a tiny ass crossbow that had the arms folded up against the stock.

"Oliver?"

"Yup." He added a brace of small arrows that had had tubes of blood worked into them, "As soon as the arrows hit they inject the blood into the skin."

"Sounds good, got bullets for my 1911?"

He frowned, "No, sorry, but I have a spare 9 mil with a silencer you can use that will hold the bullets I do have."

"We going all assassin on monsters now?"

"Less noise, less cops. It works."

I took the gun, shoved the machete into my jacket, and hooked the crossbow around my belt using the clip on the end of stock, it was small enough that my jacket would cover it, then I wrapped the brace of arrows around my wrist. It felt odd carrying all that again. We were there for maybe twenty minutes when Gerald's voice rang in our ears.

"Honda Accord, black, license plate EY1C25 headed your way. Three people in it, two girls and a guy. Once chick is dressed like an emo gypsy complete with black hair, the other has brown hair and is in jeans, knee high black combat boots and a white shirt. The guy is in a grey t-shirt and jeans. He's blonde with a ponytail and is a scrawny tall guy."

"On it." Sam said, we saw the car pass just as we got into our car. Sam gunned the engine and got behind them. I looked over my shoulder and saw Gerald's car swing in behind us.

"Gerald's on our tail."

"See him," Sam replied.

The Accord turned onto the freeway and headed west away from the town we were in. Sam and Gerald played tag with it to keep any suspicion of them being followed to a minimum. About thirty minutes later they pulled off and headed into downtown Broken Arrow. After a few minutes navigating through the more industrial part we ended up in a shadier dive bar district. That got all of our attention, "Hunting ground," I said.

"Definitely."

They pulled up in front of an alley, emo gypsy chick got out, "I'll grab her, you and Gerald follow them."

"Yell if you need help," he said as I got out.

"Sure thing." Emo gypsy chick had on one of those long, flowy, ruffled black skirts, sandals that laced up ankle, a sleeveless block top and a chunky silver belt. Her hair was long but the right half of her head was shaved making her look like a punk emo gypsy which was one genre too many in my opinion. She had a bunch of bracelets on her right arm, a few of them were those charm ones that seemed to have a bunch of things hanging off of them. I stayed behind her and a good distance away as she sidled up to a few guys and seemed to be asking for a smoke. They all turned her down and walked off. She wasn't really in the right neighborhood for what she was wearing. She would have done better wearing a tight skirt, heels and something flashy. She started walking east down the sidewalk and the crowds started to change. More emo, less dive bar. She must be homing in on her people.

As she got closer to what looked like a goth club she hunched her shoulders forward and started walking a bit differently. She was really getting into character for this. By the time she made it to the line to get in she seemed like this sad, hopeless, lost girl who probably spent her days watching Twilight and Vampire Diaries and writing about the darkness of her soul. She blended right in. I stepped into the shadow of an alley as I certainly didn't blend in with this crowd.

It took her about fifteen minutes but she finally got her arms around some guy who'd just walked out staggering and was guiding him over to the alley. I ducked down the alley and crouched behind the garbage dumpster, another thing I hadn't missed. Smelling like trash after a hunt or a stake out.

"You're so stunning, like the pale moon on a stormy night." The guy slurred. "Untouched by the darkness that surrounds as all."

Wow, this was getting painful fast. Poor guy, if he honestly thought he'd score with lines like that he needed some serious help.

"You're the stars to my moon." She managed to say that with a straight face. If she wasn't more than likely a monster I would have given her a round of applause for being able to pull that off.

He leaned down for a kiss, she let him and shoved him into the wall. Here we go. I unhooked the crossbow and tucked an arrow into the groove and pulled back the string.. Sam didn't know I'd actually kept up on my hunting skills when it came to guns and I'd spar with Cougar or Coyote a couple times a month. I wasn't willing to get completely out of shape, not as long as Sam was still hunting. I wasn't at all prepared for the knife she pulled out of her skirt though.

The alley lights flashed off the edge of the blade as she sliced it across his throat then she pulled out a handful of hypodermic needles and started drawing blood from his arm as fast as she could. What the hell? I shot an arrow into her neck.

She pulled the dart out, "What the fuck?"

Then she turned my direction and bared her fangs and I immediately had two problems on my hands. First, they weren't vampire fangs, they were werewolf ones and second I recognized her. Barely but I did, "Kate? What the hell are you doing?

"Dean?" A long second passed. She still hadn't learned to hide her emotions well, she went from sad, to disgusted, to angry then settled on resigned. I was expecting her to talk, but she didn't, she lunged right at me, claws all the way out and growling.

I backed up fast, pulled the gun and shot her in the stomach. She hadn't even bothered to try to dodge it, she could have, wolves can move that fast and it wasn't like she hadn't seen it coming. She tried to hit my gun out of my hands but I blocked her, she wasn't even trying.

"Kate stop!" I had no idea what was going on but she hadn't taken this guys' heart, she wasn't hungry. There was no reason to have killed that guy. The silver was starting to take effect, she was panting and her hand was clutched to her stomach.

"I fucking hate you, all of you." She gasped as she slid to the ground, "Damn you to hell. I tried Dean, I did but between you and them, I had no choice. I had to pick a side."

I tucked my gun back in my waistband and crouched down near her. I stayed out of range of her claws though. "What are you talking about?"

She gave me a weak glare. "Like you don't know. It's Sam's fault. He got all you bastards organized and now no one, not even monsters like me who try to do the right thing are safe. I got chased out of everywhere, I swear their monitoring animal hearts purchases now, or at least it seems like it. I was so tired of running, I was about to just end it when a vampire came to me. Said that they were getting pressured too and that if we could band together we could fight back. I didn't want to at first, I just wanted to die but they had other werewolves with them, other purebloods like me. I..." Her eyes started going out of focus, then she snarled, took a deep breath and kept talking. "I would have a pack, protection or so I thought. I joined them then they came."

"Them who?"

"I don't know who or what they are," she said as her voice grew weaker and blood pooled on the ground next to her. "I never got close enough to smell them but they're the ones giving orders. If we don't do what they say, bad things happen. No feeding," she whispered, "Take blood for vampires to keep them alive, don't make it look like they did it. Only eat animal hearts. Gather information..." she stopped talking.

"Kate! Are they gathering intel on hunters?"

She slowly nodded her head. "They are coming for you, all of you. Like you come for us. Finish it Dean, please. If they find out I saw you and didn't kill you..."

Yes she was a monster, yes she'd just killed a guy, but none of this was her fault. She'd stayed out of trouble, stayed clean yet here she was, bleeding out five feet from a corpse.

"No, I can take that bullet out, you'll heal. Move on like before." She'd killed her own damn sister to save us, I wasn't going to kill her in an alley.

Her claws retracted and she touched my hand. "I'll just get killed by some other hunter or them." Her eyes were pure human as she stared into mine, "Thank you for letting me go all those years ago, giving me a chance but this is how it was going to end one way or other. Please."

I really had no choice here, if it had just been Sam and I on this I could have pulled it off but the others were in on this and they wouldn't be too keen on letting a wolf go. "All right, just tell me, do they know we're here?"

"I don't think so but I'm not all that close to the ones in charge."

"Okay," I drew my gun, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. I put the gun against her chest and pulled the trigger. The silencer kept the sound from filling the alley but I felt the push against my palm and she went limp. "I'm so sorry sweetheart, so sorry this had to happen to you."

I stared at her for a minute, she looked so innocent somehow, I always hated this part of the job. When it sinks in that you've taken a life. Sometimes it doesn't bother you, they came at you, they were killing people, torturing people, whatever. Then, sometimes, it does. When you have to kill someone that had tried to fight, tried to co-exist somehow and all their efforts still end up with them paying the ultimate price and you delivering it.

"Dean," Sam's voice echoed in my ear. "Bagged the chick, she was a vamp. I double checked. Got her in the trunk."

I pushed the button, "Everyone but Gerald and Sam get back to the hotel now. Things have changed. Gerald, are you sure he's a vamp?"

There was a stretch of silence, "Gerald?"

"Sorry man," Gerald replied, "Just giving him a second dose. I got lucky, he tried to take me out so I got an up close look at the teeth."

"Good. Sam, come get me. We need to talk now. I'll turn my phone GPS on."

"Okay."

I turned on my GPS then carried her and the guy behind the dumpster and kept a watch on the street. The alley only had one entrance which was fortunate. Sam rolled up, parked on the street and joined me.

"What's up?"

I didn't say anything, just walked to the dumpster and pointed.

His mouth dropped open for a second, then he got deadly serious, "Is that Kate?"

"Yeah, she knifed the guy and was harvesting the blood for vamps." I gave him the lowdown on what Kate had told me and what I'd done.

"Fuck."

"Putting it mildly," I agreed.

"Who do we think is running this?"

"Don't know," That was kind of a lie, I had an idea, this sounded way too strategic for a run of the mill monster. I just didn't want to say it. Sam shot me that look that told me he knew I was holding back, but, at that moment I just wanted to get back to the Bunker, help Jacob and go home. This was becoming way too similar to the jobs that end up horrifically bad for us. I was done with those. Done.

"Let's get back, tell the others and head home. If we leave now we can be back there tomorrow," I said. He was torn and torn bad, he knew what kind of rabbit hole we were looking at but he'd made a promise to me too. "Look, we can set up the vamps, drain 'em, do the thing with the blade and you can be back out here in two or three days. Put the others in a holding pattern till you get back. Or you can give me your keys, I'll head back to the Bunker, deal with Jacob then bring your car back when we're done. Your choice."

His eyes dropped back down to look at Kate and his face went utterly still for a moment, which reminded me a bit too much of how Oliver can look at times, "I'll drive. Jacob's suffered long enough. I'll deal with this mess afterwards."

We walked out of the alley, I called 911 as we drove off so neither of them had to sit there any longer than needed. It felt wrong, leaving her like that but there wasn't a lot we could do. It was just part of the job, a job where I'd walked away from too many corpses of people that had tried to do the right thing and paid for it in blood.