Strangle Hold

"So we'll rest up here for the night before heading on to St. Louis in the morning." Dean unlocked the room to the motel they had pulled into; it was nicer than most of the places that they stayed in. There was no peeling wallpaper, the beds were already made, there didn't appear to be any stains on the carpet and none of the light bulbs were burnt out. Sam walked over to the table set up on the far side of the room, while Dean dropped his bag onto one of the beds before walking over to the small kitchen set up along the left wall.

"Hey Dean, come and take a look at this." Sam called out to his brother who was leaning into their motel fridge for a beer.

"What?" replied Dean as he straightened up, popping the cap off his drink before turning around and leaning against the counter.

"I think I found us our next gig." Sam reached out, grabbing a pen off the table and circling and article before he stood up and walked over to Dean, leaning back beside him before handing over the local paper he had been skimming through. Dean grabbed the paper from his brother looking at the article circled in blue.

"Local housing developer found dead in rural field…" Dean read out raising one eyebrow skeptically, "Want to tell me how this is our problem? Doesn't exactly scream weird." He turned to face his brother.

Sam looked at him with exasperation before nodding to the article. "Keep reading."

Dean looked back down at the paper, " 'Gregory Ford was found dead two days ago by three sisters who were hiking in the area. They say that they almost didn't see his body due to the way he was wrapped tightly in… vines?' Man you cant be serious?" He looked back over at Sam.

"Look I know, it sounded like a long shot to me to, but I did some digging online." Sam strode back over to the table, sitting down in front of his laptop, opening up the coroners report. "They did the autopsy, he was strangled with what appeared to be rope, but the vines were what they found wrapped around his neck, well that and almost every other part of him." Sam glanced up before continuing, "It also says here that there was sever perimortem bruising underneath the vines. In some places there were even punctures and contusions on his skin like something had cut through." He looked up at Dean, "Man, the things burrowed into his skin, they even had to remove one from his throat, it had wormed its way down into his right lung."

As he said that Deans looked up at him with wide eyes before shaking his head, "That is messed up." He tipped back the beer in his hand, downing the rest of the drink before pushing away from the counter to stand behind Sam, reading the coroners report over his shoulder. "So what are you thinking? This doesn't sound like something we've had to deal with before."

Sam spun around to face his brother before answering, "I'm not sure, there isn't much to go on but we've looked into less. A lot less…"

Dean straightened up before nodding, "We'll check it out."

He walked over to the bed his bag was thrown onto, flopping back against the headboard before reaching over to the nightstand and turning on the radio. The beginning notes of "Shoot to Thrill" played out of the speakers before Dean reached over to crank up the volume. Sam looked up from his laptop, glaring at his brother which only caused Dean to start playing the air guitar and singing along. Sam rolled his eyes up to the ceiling in a clear indication of 'Why me?' before shouting, "Man, come on!"

Dean looked over at Sam in time to see his brother tilt his head and raise his eyebrows at him. Dean rolled his eyes, "Fine…" he reached over and turned the volume down before he leaned back onto the bed, "We'll head out to see the body tomorrow then follow up with the girls that found him." Sam nodded before he flipped his laptop lid closed and got up from the chair, walking over to the empty bed. When he lay down, Sam looked over at his brother and saw that Dean was already asleep. With that he reached over and lowered the volume on the radio a bit more before he to closed his eyes.


Dean woke up the next morning to the sound of water running, as he blearily opened his eyes he saw the door to the bathroom was closed, so Sammy was having a shower then, he just hoped that there was some hot water left for when it was his turn. Dean rolled out of bed glancing at the clock, which read a quarter past six, shaking his head he stood up and stretched out his arms. It never failed to shock him how early his brother got up every day, though he was grateful that Sam didn't feel the need to wake him up as well anymore, those were some rough days, right after the fiasco of the never ending Tuesdays Sam had woken him up every morning as soon as he was coherent, needing to make sure nothing had happened to him during the night.

Dean glanced over at the bathroom door when he heard the water shutting off, he walked over to his bag grabbing a toothbrush and some soap. Once he had his stuff the door opened and Sam walked out mid way through pulling on his t-shirt, when the shirt was covering Sam's face Dean couldn't resist sticking out a foot to trip his brother, which sent Sam sprawling onto his own bed. Once he got his bearings straightened out he turned to face Dean. "What was that for?" Dean only smiled and got up, starting to walk towards the bathroom before turning around in the door.

"I'm just keeping you on your toes. I can't have you getting rusty now can I?" Sam looked at him with mock outrage before grabbing his shoe and throwing it at Dean who deftly avoided being wacked upside the head by slamming the bathroom door quickly. Sam could hear laughter coming from the other side of the door before the water turned on again.

Sam kept looking at the door for a minute before chuckling, turning around and grabbing his bag off of the floor to riffle through. They were heading out to see the morgue first thing this morning, from experience they knew the best time to visit was early when people were still slightly out of it, they didn't pay as close of attention to a pair of FBI agents showing up to investigate along side the local police force. He grabbed their latest aliases out of the side pocket, Special Agents Bachman and Turner. Sam rolled his eyes at the names, one day Deans affinity for using band names on their id's would get them found out, though not many people seemed to catch on. He tossed Deans id onto the bed before grabbing his white button up and shrugging it on while walking over to the bathroom door and banging on it, "Would you hurry up!" Sam turned away from the door and finished buttoning up his shirt as Dean came out of the bathroom, hair still dripping.

"Took you long enough." Sam grabbed Deans button up off the bed, tossing it at him while he grabbed his tie, fixing it around his neck and shrugging into his jacket. "I swear you take longer in the bathroom than a girl."

Dean looked up as he finished putting on his own tie, "Bitch." Sam just grinned, "Jerk." With that both of them walked out of the room and headed over to the Impala.


"So why is the FBI looking into Mr. Fords death, I thought local authorities were covering this one?"

Sam turned to the coroner, "There was another death about two months ago, a few states over with similar circumstances. We wanted to follow up here." The man took Sam at his word.

"Well I have to say I'm glad that you did, this one has our cops stumped." The coroner was leading them along a hallway in the hospital to the morgue, "I've never seen anything like it." He let them into the morgue, walking to the far wall and opening up the metal compartment on the far left. The coroner reached in and pulled out the slab, reveling Fords body still covered in a white sheet.

Sam turned to the coroner; "We can take it from here." The man nodded and walked back out the door, leaving the two of them alone in the room. Sam turned back to face the body, before reaching out and flipping the white sheet down to revel Fords face and torso.

"Ugh, man that's just nasty." Dean scrunched up his face and turned to face the other direction, Sam rolled his eyes at his brothers theatrics and looked down to examine the damage on Fords body. The wounds looked even worse than they had sounded in the online record the police had kept, there were bruises wrapping around Fords arms, legs and torso, continuing all the way up to his neck. Spaced out along the bruises were punctures in the skin, as well as cuts where something had pushed through his skin leaving wide gashes in the flesh.

"Whatever it is that got to this guy really did a number on him." Dean commented as he went back over to stand beside his brother. Sam nodded in agreement before he flipped the sheet back up to cover the body and pushed the slab back into its compartment.

Dean took a quick look around the room and spotted the vines of ivy laying out on one of the autopsy tables, most likely waiting to be stored in a police evidence file. He walked over to the table and picked up one of the vines looking at it a bit closer, "Hey Sam, come take a look at this." Dean turned to his brother holding out the vine for him to take.

"This isn't right…" Sam tilted his head and squinted at the vine.

"What do you mean?" Dean walked up beside his brother and Sam held up the vine so he could see.

"Well look at this." Sam took a small section of the vine between two fingers and pulled it apart, "See how easy that was?" Dean looked at him like he was nuts.

"Well yeah, its ivy not steel, what did you expect?" He asked.

"Exactly!" Dean raised one eyebrow in clear indication of 'What the hell are you talking about?' Sam backtracked quickly seeing that Dean didn't know what he meant.

"Look at the rest of the ivy." He quickly held up a piece for Dean to see, "None of the leaves are missing or damaged, the stem isn't ripped or scratched anywhere."

He could see what Sam meant, the ivy on the table looked pristine, almost like it had been cut for one of those flower arrangements. "But if someone used it to strangle Ford…" Dean tried to work it out in his head.

"Exactly, parts of it would be broken, the ends ripped where whoever strangled him held onto it." Sam explained.

"But they pulled this from his body, it was wrapped around his neck for Gods sake!" Dean exclaimed.

Sam examined the vine carefully. "Yeah I know, but no one pulled on this to choke him."

Dean looked at him skeptically, "So what, you think they just crawled around his neck on their own?" He started to laugh before seeing the expression on his brothers' face. "What? Your serious!"

Sam shrugged, "We've seen stranger."

Dean looked shocked; "Yeah but vines don't just wrap around peoples necks by themselves!"

Sam nodded, "Yeah, but something could make them."

Dean looked resigned, "One of ours?"

Sam let out a weak laugh, "Yeah I'd say so."

Dean sighed, "So, time to go and see those three sisters that found this guy?"

Sam nodded, "That sounds good, yeah."


The two of them pulled up in the Impala outside of a cottage near the edge of town.

"Hey, isn't that the field where they found Fords body?" Sam said pointing to the expanse of green space beside the little house.

"Yeah it is." Dean turned to his brother, "Well these three might be more help than we thought." The two of them walked up to the porch and Sam reached out to knock on the door.

After a few seconds a girl, probably in her early 20's opened the door. "Can I help you."

Sam reached into his pocket, pulling out his id badge, "I'm Agent Turner, this is my partner Agent Bachman." He nodded to Dean who had also pulled his badge. "We were wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions?"

She smiled and moved away from the door, "Sure, no problem." Sam and Dean walked into the little house and stepped aside so that the woman could close the door behind them. "I'm Dawn by the way, my sisters are in the living room." She turned to face them, "I'm assuming you want to talk to them as well. You are here about Mr. Ford, aren't you?"

Sam looked over at Dean before smiling at Dawn, "Yes we are."

Dean cut in, "It would be a great help to be able to talk to all of you, if it's not to much trouble."

Dawn waved him off just as they got to the living room, "It's no trouble at all." The brothers saw two girls sitting on the couch chatting when the walked in. "Terra, Celeste, these are Agents Turner and Bachman, their working on Mr. Fords case. Agents, these are my sisters, Terra and Celeste."

Sam and Dean reached out to shake the sisters hands before moving to sit on the couch opposite them. Sam started talking, "We just have a couple of questions for you. Are you sure it's not to soon? We can come back…"

Celeste cut him off, "Oh no, its fine really, we'll tell you everything we remember."

Dean smiled; "Thank you now, when was it that you found Mr. Fords body?" he pulled out a notepad and pen. Terra was the one who answered him.

"It was probably 8 o'clock in the morning." She looked to her sisters for confirmation, "We always go for a walk around the field after breakfast, it's so peaceful there in the morning." Terra chocked up a bit and Celeste reached out to hold her shoulders.

Dawn spoke up then, "We found him on the far side of the field, he was laying on the ground covered in ivy. I almost didn't see him, but he had this bright orange tie on, that's what caught my eye." She looked up at them. "That's all that happened, Celeste ran back here and phoned the police as soon as we found him."

Dean nodded, pretending to jot down notes while Sam spoke up, "What about the night before that?"

Dawn looked confused, "What do you mean?"

"Well you live right beside the field, did you hear anything strange that night maybe see something out the window?" Sam leaned forwards.

Dawn looked to her sisters, "I don't think so…" She turned back to Sam, "I can't remember anything out of the ordinary." Dean nodded, putting away the note pad and pen before standing up, Sam followed his lead, handing over a card with his alias and cell phone number on it.

"Well thank you for your time, if you remember anything you think is important give us a call." Sam nodded to the girls once more before heading out the door after Dean.

"Well that got us a big fat load of nothing." That comment caused Sam to look over at his brother as they left the house.

"I don't know…" Sam trailed off looking thoughtful.

Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother once they were seated in, "What's not to know? They gave us jack squat, same as in the police report, walking in a field, body covered in vines, nothing unusual the night before." Sam still looked concerned.

"Yeah I guess, it was just something about them…" He shook his head and turned to look out the car window.


Sam looked up when Dean drove past the hotel that they were set up at and kept going towards the other side of town.

"Um Dean, you kind of missed the motel..." Sam looked over at his brother.

"Yeah I know genius, we're going to see Fords daughter. The two of them worked together, the office is a few streets over. Maybe she'll be more help than those three." Dean explained as he saw an open parking spot and pulled the Impala up to the curb.

The two of them got out of the car and walked down the street, checking the building numbers as they went.

"How'd you even know this was here? I haven't looked up Fords family yet?" Sam asked Dean.

"What?" Dean looked vaguely insulted, "I know how to work a computer…" He huffed and turned away for Sam as he spotted the building they were looking for and walked over to the door.

Sam rolled his eyes as he followed his brother, "Could have fooled me." He muttered.

The two of them walked through the door and came out into a little waiting room. Dean glanced around the room and spotting the pretty blonde sitting at the front desk he immediately donned his most charming smile and made a beeline for the counter. Sam rolled his eyes but followed his brother over anyways. Dean reached into his jacket pocket as he headed over to the receptionist, pulling out his FBI badge, with Sam only a few steps behind him. The girl, Hannah her nametag read, looked up as they approached.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" She smiles politely and looked back and forth between the two, waiting for a reply.

"Oh you most definitely can." Dean said as he let his eyes rake up and down the woman in front of him. Hannah blushed under his gaze her cheeks turning a light pink. Sam stepped in to save the poor girl before Dean completely terrified her.

"We're investigation the death of Mr. Ford, we just wanted to ask his daughter a couple of questions." As Sam explained he held up his badge, nudging Dean in the side to get him to concentrate as he did so.

Dean was jolted out of his thoughts quickly, looking around at Sam for a second before he raised his own badge for Hannah to inspect. She smiled a little sadly, the kind of look that you get when talking to a family at a loved ones funeral. The kind of look that says you're sad that their gone, but want to remember the good times.

"Of course, she's in her fathers office." Hannah stood up leading them down a hallway to the back of the building. They stopped in front of a room with the words "Ford Contracting" on the door, she raised her hand and nocked softly before opening up the door to peer in. "Rachel, there are two men here from the FBI, they want to ask you a few questions."

Rachel looked up and said in a small voice, "Yes, no problem. Send them in."

Hannah stepped away from the door, leaving it open so that the two of them could walk in, before heading back to the front desk.

Rachel gave them a tight smile once they were inside the room, "What can I do for you two?"

Sam and Dean both sat down and shared a quick glance before Dean started talking. "Ms. Ford we just wanted to ask if you knew why your father was out at the development site last night?"

Rachel sighed looking down before she answered, "I don't know, we weren't supposed to meet up with the builders there until tomorrow." She let out a broken chuckle, "I'm going to have to go alone now." Rachel looked back up at Dean, "Dad would always go to the build sites alone a few days before we broke ground, I think he wanted to make sure that the place was perfect before we did anything permanent to the land. It was just one of those things that he did…" Her voice choked up a bit near the end.

Sam cut in, "I know this must be hard for you Ms. Ford but can you think of your father mentioning anything strange in the last few weeks?"

Rachel looked over to Sam, "What do you mean?"

"Well if he saw anything strange, maybe he felt like someone was watching or following him?" he asked leaning forwards to Rachel.

"No nothing like that…" she answered, "He was so excited about this site, he kept going on about the great history of the area and how it was a shame no one had tried to put a development on it before." She smiled slightly at the memory.

Sam looked over to Dean, nodding before moving to stand up, "Well that should be all Ms. Fords, thank you for your time."

Rachel stood as well reaching out to stop Sam before he could turn to follow Dean out of the office. "Please find whoever did this." She asked, looking him in the eye.

Sam gave her a small smile, "We'll be in touch." He said before nodding to her and following Dean out of the room.


"Well that was a productive day." Dean muttered as he flopped down onto his bed in their motel room. "There was nothing off about this guy, no strange things happening around him, no bad feelings, nothing."

Sam contemplated that, "Okay well, if there's nothing off about the guy then it has to be the area…" he finished taking off his shoes and rolled to lay down on the bed.

"Yeah well we can check out the guys place tomorrow just to be sure." Dean said before he reached over and shut off the lamp beside his bed.


Dean pulled the Impala up in front of a house near the middle of town.

"Well this should be Fords house." Sam said as he double-checked the address on his phone. The two of them got out of the car and headed up the walkway to the door before knocking.

After a few minute with no sign of life inside the house Dean turned to his brother, "No one home?" Sam walked over to the window checking inside.

"It doesn't look like. We should probably come back after…" he turned back to see Dean finishing picking the lock and opening the door. He grinned at Sam, holding the door open.

"Ladies first?" Dean only had a second to laugh before he got shoved through the open doorway. He turned back to see Sam walking in and closing the door behind him, a perfectly innocent expression on his face.

"What?" he asked before turning and walking up the stairs to the second floor in search of Fords office. Dean grumbled and walked away to take a quick look at the main floor.

Sam looked in a couple of the doors along the second floor hallway before finding the office. He walked in to the room, throwing a quick glance around before heading to the desk set up against the far wall. Sam sat down at the desk before riffling through the drawers. In the bottom left drawer he found Fords files for his development sites and it only took a few seconds of flipping through the envelopes to find the housing development proposal for the field they had found his body in. Sam scanned his eyes over the sheets looking for anything that popped out. He stopped abruptly on the history of the site. "Dean!" he launched himself out of the chair and back down to the main floor.

Dean met him at the bottom of the stairs, "What?"

"I know what it is that went after Ford." Sam continued into the kitchen where he put the sheet in his hand down on the countertop, "The land Ford was going to develop, it used to be Iroquois territory in the town." Sam pointed out the information on the page. "When settlers first moved here the natives stayed around, near the outskirts but no one bothered to make them leave until about twenty years later when the townsfolk decided that they had to go. Almost the entire tribe was slaughtered and guess where?"

"Shouldn't we be dealing with vengeful spirits then?" Dean asked.

Sam replied, "Yeah I thought so at first to but there was a bonfire to burn the bodies, it was easier than a mass grave at that time."

Dean looked over at Sam, "Well then what the hell are we dealing with?"

"A Deohako, it's a guardian spirit, it protects the land of the tribe it's attached to. Normally it would be looking after crop fields, corn or beans, but I think this one was poisoned. When the tribe got killed on that field the blood would have soaked into the ground, generally that would just give a vengeful spirit something to hold onto but I think the Deohako absorbed it." Sam theorized.

Dean looked at his brother skeptically, "Why are you so set on this? You just said yourself that this is the perfect situation for vengeful spirits."

Sam walked over to the far side of the counter and grabbed the cordless phone there, "Because the Deohako tend to stay on the land that they protect, in groups of three in the physical form of young women."

Deans eyes widened, "The girls that found his body."

"Exactly." Sam reached out for the paper looking at it before beginning to type a number into the phone. "There's something wrong with them and right now it's not safe for anyone to be at that development site."

Dean seemed to calm down a bit when Sam said that, "Well Ford ran the company right, and he was then one that surveyed the area, so we've got a few days before they send anyone else out."

Sam looked up at his brother, "Not exactly. You heard Rachel, she's taking over her dads position. She'll be going to the site Dean, she'll want the distraction, something to do so she doesn't have to just sit around missing her father. We have to get to her before they do." Sam hit call and held the phone up to his ear, tapping his foot on the ground as he waited for someone to pick up on the other end, but the call went to voicemail. He quickly disconnected the line and tossed the phone back on the counter before rounding on Dean and saying, "We have to go!" before quickly exiting the house and running out to the car.

Dean followed him out of the house, and got into the driver seat of the Impala before turning to Sam, "How do you even know she's there, maybe she's just not answering the damn phone." Still as he said that he was starting up the car and pulling a U-turn in the middle of the street to head back to the field.

"Do you really want to take the chance? All that will happen is her ending up dead as well." Sam said. Dean nodded and pushed the gas pedal down to the floor.


Sam jumped out of the car before it had even fully stopped, spotting the little hybrid car parked across the street in front of the field. He quickly spun around to the trunk springing the latch before grabbing out the first gun he could reach and taking off at breakneck speed towards the field, Dean hot on his heels, gun already in his hands. They got over the first hill in the field before they saw Rachel; she was walking towards them, looking down at her phone. Sam scanned the tree line, not seeing any movement he rushed over to the girl, grabbing her by the arm to get her attention, "Hey!" Sam let go of her arm to move in behind her, pushing her to try and get her to move faster.

"Rachel you need to listen to me. You need to get out of here!" Sam yelled.

Rachel turned around to face him. "What is your problem?"

"You just have to trust me, you need to go, get in you car and drive away from here as fast as you can." Just as he finished talking he heard Dean call out, "Get down!" before firing off two shots at something behind them. Sam whipped around to see the Deohako walking towards them, he raised his gun and sent off a shot towards them, only to see a slight shimmer in the air around them before the bullet fell to the ground, a good five feet from its target.

He turned to Rachel saying, "Run." Sam started to back away from the three girls before turning around only to see them blocking their way.

Dean chose this moment to come up behind the Deohako, taking the end of his gun to the back of ones head, making it turn around to face him, stepping away from its sisters. Sam saw the air around the two that remained together shimmer slightly before it became a bit lighter, he sent off another shot at the two still standing in their way, this time the bullet stopped only three feet from its intended target. "They have to stay together…" just as he said that, he felt something crawling up his leg, looking down Sam saw a vine winding its way up his leg. He reached to his belt, pulling out a knife before slashing down to cut away the plant, he called out to Dean, "Watch out for the plants!"

Dean looked down to see vines sliding across the ground towards him, abandoning his gun he drew Rubys knife from his belt, slicing through the vines whenever they got to close. The one girl was still walking towards him as he back further and further from the group, he had seen the same thing as Sam, how the wavering light around them diminished the further they were drawn apart. "Hey now, we can just talk this out right, I mean from what we read you sound like your good people. I'm sure that whatever happened can be put behind us." She kept walking forwards, the vines coming at him faster and faster with every step, then the light around the girl went out, "Not one for talking then? Okay then, your loss." Dean lunged forward burying the blade deep in the Deohakos' chest; the creatures' eyes flashed an unearthly green before it crumpled to the ground. Upon seeing their sister killed, the two remaining creatures lunged forwards at Sam who managed to get off a shot, hitting one of them in the middle of its forehead, causing it to collapse to the ground.

He turned quickly to Rachel, "Get back to your car now!" She nodded frantically before turning and running off to the other side of the field. Sam turned back to see that the other was still coming and Sam managed to kick it back a few steps, but the momentum propelled him to the ground in the process. Before he could regain his footing, he felt a sharp constricting around his wrists, pulling his hands out from under him and leaving it so that he was pinned to the ground as more vines wrapped up his arms and legs.

"Sam!" Dean struggled against vines that had wrapped around his own legs, trying to get to his brother.

The one remaining Deohako, the one that had called herself Dawn stood over him, hand stretched out, moving upwards, the vines crawling up his body as her hand moved through the air. Sam felt the vines reach his throat, sliding around his neck before the Deohako clenched her fist and the vines contracted cutting off his airway. Sam struggled against the plants, pulling his arms and gasping for air that couldn't pass through his strangled neck. Black spots began to appear across his vision as his eyes slowly dropped closed only just seeing the tip of a knife pierce through the front of the creature, its eyes flashing green and falling to the ground. Sam gasped for air as the vines loosened their hold from around his throat, and looked up to see Dean standing where Dawn had been previously, bloodied knife clutched in his hand. Sam shrugged his arms and legs out of the vines before reaching up and yanking at the strands that had looped around his neck. "Thanks for that." Sam reached up for the hand Dean was holding out to him, and let him be pulled to his feet.

"Ah no problem, I'm used to having to save your sorry ass." Sam shoved his brother for that comment, rolling his eyes before he began to walk away towards the road, they had to check on Rachel and hope she saw enough not to try and report them to the cops.


Dean was already waiting in the Impala as Sam checked on Rachel, him being the saint he was, he had to make sure she wasn't hurt. He rolled his eyes, could Sam be any more of a girl? He flipped on the radio and grinned at what he heard, Dean reached a hand up and began tapping along with the beat of 'Stairway to Heaven' on the steering wheel while he waited for Sammy to walk over to the car. Dean glanced out the window just in time to see Rachel pull his brother down into a hug; he burst out laughing at uncomfortable expression on his face as he extracted himself from the girls grip.

When Sam got into the car he turned to him, "Well, she seemed grateful." He looked over to see his brother doing up his seatbelt, "You going to let her express that gratitude?" He wagged his eyebrows.

Sam shoved Deans shoulder, "Oh shut up." Dean laughed and turned his attention back to the road as he pulled away from the field and out of town.