The city of Taos, New Mexico nestled against the foot of a mountain range like a knot of baby chicks around the feet of a mother hen. The mountains themselves were scarred in long swaths of open space where the vegetation was cut back to make trails for skiers.

In early January, the wide, white slopes were dotted with the rainbow ski-wear of holiday tourists. From a distance they looked like really colorful, really cold ants.

As Dean steered the Impala into town, he frowned at the buildings. Chloe had Googled Taos when they were back at the canyon, so he'd been treated to a half-hour travelogue on the historic, touristy and artsy-fartsy blah-blah blah blah of the town. Now, looking at the sameness of the adobe buildings with blue trim, Dean couldn't help but think of it as 'enforced artistic."

Anything that uniform had to have some kind of city ordinance behind it. Human nature was too individual to foster that kind of institutional sameness. It was cute, in that way that made his teeth ache.

"If I had to live here, I'd blow my brains out," he complained as he slowed the Impala to crawl past city streets that were lined with upscale art galleries, Native jewelry boutiques, clothing stores and souvenir shop that were full-to-overflowing with vacationing skiers.

He had to slow further as pedestrians around him stopped to stare at the Impala's sleek body and start at the sound of low-pitched engine rumble. Normally, he would have taken pride in the way that people were admiring his baby, but right now the forced-crawl just set his teeth on edge.

"What?" he yelled through the rolled up window. "You'd think these guys have never seen a classic car."

"Little grumpy?" Chloe asked with a curious tilt of her head. "What's with you?"

Dean shrugged. "I never had much use for places like this." As a general rule, Dean was good at fitting in anywhere. Mostly by not caring what other people thought about him. But places like this were a little too full of the kind of folks who looked down on people like him. As if a few extra dollars made them a better class of person.

But now – he glanced surreptitiously at Chloe. Now he had a classy girlfriend. One who could not only blend in a place like this with no problem, but with all her wealthy Justice League connections, probably was comfortable while doing so.

A few weeks back, while she’d been mentally-regressed to nine-years-old, she’d confessed a girlish wish to him. I hope he marries me. He doubted that as an adult, she gave it much thought. But little girls usually left themselves room to dream romantic dreams. When he’d been nine, the girls in school wrote things like Mrs. Donnie Whalberg on their notebooks.

Then, he’d confessed to her father thoughts about Chloe that he hadn’t privately admitted to himself. That he wanted with her what his dad had with his mom. He wanted her to be his only girl. Ever.

What it added up to was that for the first time, he could let himself think about the future beyond the next case, the next mile of pavement, the next hotel room. Which meant that he was looking at the way they lived: the cheap motel rooms, bad food and cash made by fraudulent credit cards, and couldn’t help but feel that he should do better for his family.

.

He knew that Chloe would probably kick his ass for even thinking this, but there were times when he wanted to be able to give her something more than just what they had. He didn't want to think that, in choosing him, she'd settled.

Being in a place like this made him think of the differences between what he could give her, and what he couldn't.

"Look on the bright side," Sam said, gently breaking in to Dean's musings. "Tourists are easy marks. We can probably rake in the cash while we're working this job."

"At least 'till the sheriff tells us that he doesn't like our kind around here and escorts us to the city limit sign," Dean muttered.

"In which case, we sneak back after sunset and get the job done," Sam said matter-of-factly while shooting him a confused look.

"There is that," Dean sighed as he wrenched his thoughts out of their ruts and down a new road. They were on a case now. Vampires being murdered.

Then he eyeballed the picturesque little streets and the quaint and arty little shops again. This town was exactly the type of place that monsters didn’t hide. Unless they were trying to integrate back into society, like that vampire chick that Gordon had been hunting.

"If there are vampires here, they’re probably going to stick out like a sore thumb."

"What makes you say that?" Chloe asked.

"Well, for one thing, tourists notice if the crime rate goes up. Who wants to vacation in Murderville?"

"Depends on the atmosphere," Chloe said. "New Orleans didn’t used to do so bad for itself."

"Right," Dean snorted. "Vampires hate the Big Easy," he said. "Between the hoodoo practitioners down there and the hunters that breeze through town all the friggin’ time. It’s not really safe to have a nest down in ‘Nawlins."

Chloe raised her eyebrows at that. "So all the fiction that comes out of that region --"

"Less vampires with literary pretensions than literati with Gothic pretensions," Sam shook his head. "Real vampires aren’t anything like what you’ve read about in the books, Chloe."

"Before I met you guys, vampires were one of the things that I tried to do research on," she said ruefully. "Sounds like most of it was bad information."

"Not surprising," Dean said. "We didn’t realize that vampires were still alive until a few years ago."

"Most of the information that’s out there is kind of contradictory," Sam said. "What we know comes from Daniel Elkins, the hunter who trained Dad. Vampires aren’t much like Carmilla, Varney, Vlad or Vampire the Masquerade."

"So no crosses and garlic?"

"Dead man’s blood and decapitation," Dean said. "Hey, Sammy. Think we should rent From Dusk Till Dawn?"

"No half-naked Selma Hayek," Chloe said teasingly.

"It’s for research purposes," Dean protested.

"No half-naked Selma Hayek for research purposes," Chloe grinned.

"Buzzkill." Dean hid his own grin.

"If there are vampires here, then they’re being very discrete. I checked the police blotter,." Chloe shook her head. "There aren’t any unexplained deaths due to blood loss, or even localized disappearances."

"When they want to, vampires are good at being sneaky. They like to kidnap their victims and keep them alive as long as possible," Dean said. "Or as long as the vampires don’t kill them in a feeding frenzy."

"If there is a nest here in town, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got a human source elsewhere," he continued. "One that wouldn’t be missed. They maybe even grab a few illegals as they come up from Mexico. They could be dumping bodies all over the desert. There are places out there that you could hide a body and never find it again."

"Or maybe they’re not feeding on humans," Sam said.

Dean nodded in acknowledgment of Sam’s suggestion. "Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve run into humanitarians."

"First thing we need to do is examine the headless corpses," Sam said. "Then maybe we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with."

"So think your friends at the CDC could get us in to look at those headless bodies?" Dean asked.

"Maybe," Chloe said "I can make some calls and see what pans out. In the meantime, where are we going to stay?"

"Good question." Dean slowed the Impala as they rolled past a vacant two-story shop with soaped windows. He eyed it thoughtfully. There was probably an apartment up on the second floor. Maybe it even had furniture. Not like they'd let that stop them before.

Then he looked hesitantly at Chloe. Then back at the shop again before cursing his indecision. He was being a whiny little emo bitch over this whole thing, when he needed to be focusing on the job. "Don’t they rent out living space over these arty stores?"

Chloe narrowed her eyes thoughtfully before nodding. "Some. I lived in an apartment like that over a coffee house once. But isn’t that a little conspicuous?" Chloe asked.

"There’s no one in the store to hear us walking around," Dean said. "I bet I could even get the electric and hot water turned back on in no time."

"What about if someone sees a light on and gets suspicious?"

"Couple notes on the door, and we’ll tell the neighbors that we’re renovators," Dean said. "You’d be surprised how quick people go back to minding their own when they have a good reason to."

Chloe frowned and looked questioningly at Sam. Mentally, Dean kicked himself.

"We may as well," Sam shrugged. "It’s not the first time we’ve squatted, and anyway, it may be our best bet during ski season."

"Point taken," Chloe sighed. "They didn’t cover this in J-School."

"Well, school’s out," Dean said sourly. "Right now we need to focus on the job. We can do that better if we’re not worried about where we’re staying."

Chloe favored Dean with another curious stare. Then she looked at Sam and shrugged. Dean wondered how someone who could read people so well, and who understood him on so many levels, could still be kinda oblivious on others.

"Okay, fine," she said. You check us in to Casa De Winchester there, and Sam and I will worry about checking out the headless corpses."

"Sounds like a plan," Dean nodded. Mentally, he tried to tally up the leftover funds that they had to see them through this investigation. He and Chloe were both making decent scratch from their work at The Planet, but gas, car maintenance, rock salt and bullets didn't come cheap. Even after Caleb's nephew Jack gave them the distracted by Chloe discount. "Maybe I’ll try to hustle up some cash, too."

"Try to stay low-key," Sam said. "If there was one thing I remembered from my time at Stanford, it’s that a drunk fraternity brother is three times as likely to try and start something as a biker who can hold his liquor. The last thing I want to do is patch you up because you were being a smart ass and the guy you were beating at pool decided to clunk you over the head with a beer bottle."

"When hell freezes over," Dean glared at Sam.

"Just sayin’." Sam held up his hands in a placating manner.

"Dude! I know my job. Just . . . focus on things on your end."

"Fine," Sam sighed.