The Taylor County Medical Center was smaller than Kat ever could have expected. She'd seen vets clinics that were bigger—and their patrons took up a lot less space. But it made it easy to navigate and even easier to find Sam.
Kat followed Dean through the deserted lobby, where he flashed a smile at the RN behind the desk.
"Hi there. I'm looking for the office of Dr. Cara Roberts? Trying to catch up with my partner Agent Stiles."
"Can I see some ID?"
"For a pretty face like that, you can see…uh…you can…" Dean trailed off, patting down his jacket pockets. "Sorry, just uh…just a sec. I thought I had it…"
Kat rolled her eyes, edging him aside so she could flash her own badge at the skeptical woman.
"FBI Agent Paige, and my…unfortunate trainee Agent Murdock. They gotta stick the probies with someone right?"
The woman snickered, copying down a few details from Kat's card. Kat turned over her shoulder to smirk at a very grumpy Dean.
"And Murdock? Next time you beg me to let you take point on an investigation, make sure you've still got your badge in your pocket."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Excuse me? Is that anyway to talk to your supervisory agent?"
"Sorry, ma'am," he sneered. "Sir, boss, whatever. Can we go now?"
"Dr. Roberts' office is around the corner to your right," the woman instructed. "Your partner should still be in the meeting."
They nodded their thanks and headed down the hallway. Kat furtively grabbed Dean's elbow, right before he could jab it into her ribs.
"Don't be such a baby. You're the one who forgot your ID."
"Yeah, cause we took your stupid car! I hate your stupid car!"
"Dean, you could've been riding in a taxi. Doesn't change the fact that you forgot to take your badge out of the trunk."
"Which wouldn't be a problem if I was driving my car!"
"God, you are insufferable," Kat groaned. She plastered on a smile as she opened the door to the office. "Hey, sorry we're late. What'd we miss?"
Sam sat back abruptly from the desk, clearing his throat. He was sitting across from a pretty brunette woman dressed in a lab coat. She, at least, didn't bother to hide her flirty smile as her eyes lingered on Sam.
"Oh, hey!" said Sam. "Ah, these are my partners Agents Paige and Murdock."
"Please, 'agent' sounds so formal," Dean chuckled, side stepping Kat. "You can call me Dean."
"Right. I'm Dr. Roberts."
He shot the woman a charming smile and offered her his hand. She took it reluctantly, her smile turning tight and professional before Kat could even blink. Kat repressed a snort.
"Okay, heel, probie." She pulled Dean back, shaking hands with Dr. Roberts herself. "Agent Paige. Thanks for meeting with us."
She took the chair next to Sam and pulled out her notebook. She ignored the way Dean kicked the back of her seat as he was left to stand.
"Not a problem," said Dr. Roberts, turning back to Sam. "So um…can I help you with anything else?"
"Uh, sure. Just one more thing. This chemical, this…"
"Oxytocin."
"…oxytocin, what would cause those high levels that you found?"
"Nothing that I've ever seen," she admitted.
"Sorry, is this in the husbands or the wives?" asked Kat, pulling out her notebook. "I hate to make you guys backtrack, but…"
"The husbands," Dr. Robert confirmed. "I was just telling Agent Stiles here that it's colloquially known as the love hormone."
"Well they definitely weren't feeling a lot of love when they were arrested," Dean joked.
Not a single one of them laughed, and Dean moodily shut his mouth again.
"A hormone," Kat clarified, "so is that something that could have been isolated and injected? Some kind of drug?"
"Well sure, but I'm not sure why. Oxytocin is one a thousand chemicals that help produce pleasure and positivity in the body. I don't know that raised levels of just one would have any correlated effect."
"You said that it's produced in uh…sex," Sam offered. "Is there any way that dosing them would have made them more suggestible? Easily manipulated?"
"What, you think someone told them to do it?" Dr. Roberts laughed, eyeing him openly. "Oxytocin might make some butterflies, but it's not a mind control drug. Just cause you make a girl's heart skip a beat doesn't mean she'll let you boss her around without buying her dinner first, Agent Stiles."
Kat smothered a smirk, staring strictly down at her notebook as Sam fidgeted next to her. Dean huffed, slapping the backs of their chairs.
"Well, thank you so much, Dr. Roberts. This has been…enlightening, but we don't want to take up any more of your time."
"Actually," said Kat, "I had a few more questions about this chemical if…"
"You can Google it. Let's go."
Dean hauled her out of her chair, and looked pointedly at Sam until he followed suit. Still, he stopped in the doorway to look back on his new friend. "By the way, try a greasy breakfast. Best thing for a hangover."
"Watch it, buddy," Dr. Roberts giggled. "I'm the only MD here."
Sam grinned at her and finally joined them in the hallway. He rolled his eyes at their pointed looks—Kat's teasing, and Dean's affronted.
"Dude," he scoffed. "You totally c-blocked me."
"Right," Kat snorted, leading the way back to the lobby. "If that's short for courtesy blocking."
"Excuse me?"
"Come on, she was definitely not interested in you. You were embarrassing yourself."
"I was—excuse me?"
"She was feeling the mop hair. You're just miffed that Sam's got more game than you."
"Ew, don't say it like that. He was dating your sister."
"I rest my case."
"Guys," Sam groaned. "Can you stop talking about me like I'm not here?"
"Sorry, Sammy." Kat reached up and patted him on the shoulder, still chuckling as they walked out into the cold sunlight.
Sam watched her glide down the sidewalk in amusement. "Why are you in such a good mood suddenly?"
"Of course she's in a good mood," Dean grumbled. "She got to terrorize men for an hour. Myself included."
"What'd you guys find out?"
"Well, Whylie and Snyder definitely did it," said Kat. "Confessed to the murders without a fuss, and to the affairs."
"Expensive affairs," Dean added. "One emptied his IRA, the other his kid's college fund. All on the same thing."
"Live nude girls?" asked Sam.
"Yup. Club called The Honey Wagon."
"And let me guess—all of them were cheating with a stripper also known as Jasmine?"
"Nope," sighed Kat. She stripped ahead for her car, parked in front of the Impala. "Since when are cases with you two ever that easy?"
"Well, who wants easy when you can have interesting?" Dean chuckled.
"Hm, at a guess—you, every time you go to a bar?"
He glared at her and turned back to Sam. "See, each dude was banging a different chick. Name, hair, ethnicity. Whole shebang."
"So, what? These girls are all connected somehow?"
"Well they all described their stripper in the same way, the exact same way. Perfect, and everything they wanted."
"Yeah," Sam scoffed. "At least until Dream Barbie convinced them to murder their wives."
"There's that."
"You know, it's almost like they're under some kind of love spell."
"Sure seems that way."
"Which caused them to become totally psychotic."
"Absolutely!"
Dean was beaming as he unlocked his own car, impervious to Kat's look of revolution. Sam looked between them doubtfully.
"Wait, so now it's your turn to be in a good mood?"
"Strippers, Sammy," said Dean wistfully. "Strippers. We are on an actual case involving strippers. Finally."
Without further ado, he winked at Kat and bounced into the driver's seat of the car. Kat didn't even have the energy to flip him off. She pouted at Sam, who at least had the compassion to look sympathetic.
"Guess I know where we're going, huh?"
"Yeah," he said gently. "Sorry, Kat."
"Do I really have to come?"
"Yeah, I think so." She was about to climb into her car when he called her back. "I um…I'm sorry I was hard on you at the precinct. You did a good job getting the confessions, and I think you were right about this case. Needing a…well…"
"Needing a woman?" she finished for him. Sam nodded sheepishly, and she rolled her eyes. "I'm flattered. Very excited to be the voice of reason while you two horn-out over strippers. I'll meet you there."
The Honey Wagon was technically a few towns over. It took them nearly an hour to get there. Still, Kat took her sweet time driving to the club. She knew that she was only delaying the inevitable, but she was having a tough time motivating herself to move when she knew what was waiting for her at the end of the trek. She might even have stopped for food if it hadn't been a murder case. That's what she focused on as she pulled through each intersection. It was the only lead they had, and if they didn't act fast, another dumbass could murder his innocent wife. If that meant that she had to wade through strip club, then that was what she'd have to do.
Even if Dean Winchester was going to be there too.
"Finally!" he shouted the moment she stepped out of her car. "Chop chop, Kit Kat. We've got a case to solve."
"Hold up," she said, looking around. "Where's Sam?"
"Where d'ya think? He's on the phone. Again."
They headed around from the parking lot to the front of the building. It wasn't anything special. A black brick building with flashy neon lights, and one of those tacky signs of a naked woman with stars over her tits. Kat scrunched her nose at the ten or so people waiting on the sidewalk. She hadn't expected there to be a line. It was barely dinnertime.
Dean flashed his badge at the door, and the bouncer waved them through without any questions.
It was unbearably loud. The club music must've been rattling the rafters, not that it was possible to hear anything like that between the classic rock beat and the peals of laughter on every side of them. Red and blue neon lights crisscrossed over the ceiling, wrapping around strobe lights, spotlights, flood lights galore. The bar stretched out on their left, a balcony of tables and servers on their right, and in the valley between, ten to fifteen different island stages, each with a pole and a girl performing gymnastic feats that could barely be fathomed. The entire building was full of people—sipping drinks, getting lap dances, waving money, and enjoying the entertainment.
It only took one look to confirm that Dean was in heaven.
"Oh, yeah," he sighed blissfully. "Daddy's home. Come on, Kat. We've got a lot of canvasing to do."
Kat looked around disparagingly, but followed him into the fray.
"I have a question!" Kat wasn't sure if Dean could hear her over the music, but he waved over his shoulder, which she took as confirmation. "What is a place like this doing in a community this small? I mean, cities I get, but here?"
"What else have they got to do?" he called back to her. "You rather go cow-tipping or get your rocks off? I—Sorry, please don't answer that. That was rhetorical."
She punched him in the back, which she could feel was shaking with laughter. The hit barely fazed him. He was too busy staring at the dancers with shining admiration.
"I meant the population size," she corrected. "You said most places are looking for anonymity, right? Wouldn't you be afraid of bumping into someone you knew?"
"Yeah, I guess that's always up for debate. But what are you gonna do? If someone sees you, they know you've seen them. Vegas rules, baby. What happens at the strip club, stays at the strip club."
This silenced Kat for a while. She followed Dean around the club, staring up at the different girls on the platform, peering into the faces of the waitresses as they passed. The perps hadn't given them much to go on in their descriptions—they were far too busy being rapturously in love to notice something as trivial as appearances—but they'd given a rough estimate for height and hair color.
The problem was that there were a lot of girls, and not a lot of light. It wouldn't have helped much anyway. Not that Kat was one to judge, but most of the girls had heavy stage makeup and hair extensions, all part of the job. It wouldn't be difficult for one girl to become another in the dim, alcohol-soaked club. How hard was it to don a wig and a pair of heels?
Kat kept this thought to herself. She had another question, but it wasn't one that she wanted to ask. She could wait around until she got the answer the hard way, or she could hold her breath and get it over with. Rip it off like a bandaid. That was the option she went with.
"So how do we do this?"
"Do what?" asked Dean absently. Most of his attention was on the pretty blonde schoolgirl who had just taken the stage in front of them.
"This, uh…this undercover thing. I mean, naughty schoolgirl, slutty nurse, barely-there cowgirl. Do I at least get to pick, or is that up to you?"
Now Dean was looking at her. His brow was deeply furrowed, his mouth agape. He searched her face and almost smiled, but his lips never made it all the way.
"Kat, I…I wasn't being serious."
"You weren't?"
"Wha—no! No, of course not. Look, I—I know I'm a dick, but I'm not a complete asshole. What with all the—the guys and the costumes and the dancing. Just, no. I would never ask you to do something like that, no matter what the deal was."
"Oh." Kat fumbled with her words. He'd gone from horny to genuine so quickly it was alarming. "Well, um…thanks."
"Yeah, you got it." He nodded stiffly, and looked around the bar. "And these guys, I mean. I can't even imagine how these girls put up with it. I'm not gonna dangle you in front of a bunch of desperate, horny losers."
"Careful there, Dean. That's pretty self-incriminating."
He whipped around to look at her again, but relaxed when he saw her teasing smile. "Please. I have a professional interest in the matter. That's it."
"Uh huh. Right. Well, I don't know about you, Agent, but I haven't seen anyone that matches these descriptions we got."
"Nah, me either." He craned his neck to look over the crowd, then tapped her on the shoulder. He pointed across the room to a short, balding man in a sports jacket. "Think that's the manager? Could always try our luck with him."
"Yeah, you go ahead. I think I'll steer clear, try my luck at the bar."
"What? Why?"
"He owns a strip club, Dean," Kat said, deadpan. "I doubt he responds well to women in positions of power."
Dean cocked his head in agreement, and they split ways to wade through the crowd.
Luckily for Kat, most of the mob was in the middle of the club. The men thinned out as she approached the bar, but she still had to elbow her way to get a stool. She flagged down the bartender with a wave—a tiny Asian girl in a little black dress. The woman barely looked at her.
"Dressing room's in the back, sweetheart."
"Flattered, but I'm actually here for a shot of tequila," Kat said, forcing a smile. "Well, and the girls."
The bartender raised an eyebrow, the shaker in her hand falling still. "Wait. You're Sapphic?"
"Ha! Uh, sure. That's one way to put it."
"Sorry," the girl replied with a grin. "Most girls aren't into this kinda scene. You know there's a gay bar on the other side of town, right?"
"I did not. Unfortunately, I'm not on the market. I'm actually looking for my girlfriend? She dances here, goes by Jasmine?"
"Hm, not ringing any bells. We get a lot of turnover in places like this."
"Fair enough. She's usually running with two other girls—Aurora and Ariel?"
"I'm not surprised," the bartender said with a laugh. "All those Disney-type girls, they tend to run in cliques."
Kat smirked. "Not your style, I take it?"
"Not really." She offered her hand, her excessive bangles clinking gently. "Diana."
"Kat," she replied, accepting the shake. "So are you just a fan of pretty names, or is there some reference I'm not getting?"
"Roman goddess of virginity. I like the irony."
"Wow. She's pretty, smart, and witty. You must be quite the catch, Diana."
"More than you know."
She winked, grabbing a shot glass and pouring out Kat's tequila. Kat reached for the glass, but only got to brush Diana's hand before the woman retracted the shot and tossed it back herself. Then she poured a second into the glass and slid it over to Kat.
"It's a shame you're spoken for. That one's on me."
With a sultry smile, Diana retreated to the other end of the bar, returning to the customers she'd been neglecting. Kat couldn't help but frown appreciatively. She still wasn't a fan of these kinds of clubs. But the women were definitely good at their jobs.
She grabbed the shot, but barely lifted it before she was interrupted again.
"Isn't there some rule about not drinking on the job?" asked Sam, sidling up to the bar.
"Probably," Kat said with a pout. "But it was free."
"Kat."
She rolled her eyes, pushing the alcohol away. "Like you two ever abstain on a case."
"I always try to. Can't speak for Dean, I guess. Where is he?"
"Talking to the manager," she said, nodding toward the pair. Even from this distance, she could tell Dean's annoyance was mounting. "Looks like he's not having much more luck than me. What about you? Who called?"
"Bobby. Come on."
He waved to Dean over the crowd, and lead Kat over to a slightly more private table along the wall. A minute later, Dean joined them.
"You know what sucks? Knowing the people in charge of such a great place fucking suck."
"Welcome to my life," said Kat. "No dice?"
"Nope. What about you two?"
"A little," said Sam. "I just talked to Bobby, and we officially have a theory—a siren."
"Like Greek myth siren?" asked Dean. "The Odyssey?"
Sam and Kat both turned to him in surprise, and Dean shrugged.
"Hey, I read."
He punctuated this with a wink to Kat, who rolled her eyes. "Great. Can someone do a recap for those of us who didn't do our book reports?"
"They're beautiful creatures that prey on men," Sam explained. "Some myths describe them as women crossed with birds, others as women crossed with fish."
"Like a killer Little Mermaid," Dean added.
"Okay," said Kat. "So what's their MO?"
"Well, we haven't run into one before," said Sam. "In the stories, sirens lived on islands, and they would sing a kind of song to lure passing sailors."
"Let me guess, 'Welcome to the Jungle,'" Dean snorted. "No, wait. Warrant's 'Cherry Pie.'"
"They're women, Dean," Kat scoffed. "I think they've probably got better taste in music than you."
"Hey, they're trying to lure men. Take a look around, sweetheart. That's what guys like."
"Well actually the song's probably more of a metaphor," Sam interrupted, "for like their call, their allure."
"Fine. So they shake their thing and the guys zombie out."
"Basically, yeah. The sirens would sing, sailors would chase 'em, completely ignoring the rocky shores, and…dash themselves to pieces."
"Sounds like Adam and his friends," Dean conceded.
"But why do they do it?" asked Kat. "I mean, do they absorb the life force or something? Eat the bodies?"
"No one knows," answered Sam. "None of the lore talks about anything like that, so most scholars say they were just doing it for kicks. Watching men destroy themselves for fun."
"Huh. Good for them."
"Yeah," said Dean, giving her a pointed look. "Not so good for the wives. Looks like this siren's stepped up their game."
"Seems like it," Sam agreed. He looked around the bar with the same distaste at Kat. "If you were a siren in '08 looking to ruin a bunch of morons, where would you set up shop?"
"Okay, but none of these women look like mermaids," said Kat, glancing at the different dancers. "Or bird women. Wouldn't that be kind of hard to hide?"
"Well sirens can cloak themselves," said Sam. "Otherwise the sailors never would have jumped off the boat either."
"So what?" asked Dean. "Whatever floats the guy's boat, that's what they look like?"
"Yeah. See, sirens can read minds. They see what you want most, and then they can change to reflect it. Kinda like an illusion."
"So it's like the shifter case," said Kat. "Everyone thinks it's three different things, but it's just one creature morphing into different girls."
"Exactly," Sam said with a small smile. "Just like the shifter case."
"Alright, so do we kill it like a shifter?" asked Dean. "How do we get rid of this thing?"
"Bobby's working on it," Sam sighed. "But even if we do figure it out…"
"How the hell are we gonna find it?" asked Dean. "Could be anyone."
"Well, there's one easy way to canvas," Kat suggested. "Dean buys a lap dance from every stripper in the club and we kill the one he likes best."
Sam snorted as Dean glowered at her. "Ha, ha. You're cute. Thank you."
"In the meantime," she said, grabbing her coat, "I'm heading back to the hotel. I'm starved, and clearly I have a lot of Greek mythology to read up on."
"Hey, can I catch a lift?" asked Sam.
"Yeah, sure. I was thinking Chinese food?"
"God, that sounds great right now. I'm starved."
"Whoa, hold on," Dean snapped as they tried to leave the table. "Why are you riding with Kat? The Impala not good enough for you anymore?"
"Uh…no," Sam said uncertainly. "I just figured I'd leave you the Impala so you didn't have to call a cab."
"What do you mean? I'm coming with you. Like Kat said, we got homework to do."
Sam stared at him for a few seconds before he actually started to laugh.
"Dude, a few hours ago you were practically skipping you were so excited to be on a case with strippers. I figured you'd basically be moving in until it was case closed."
"Well, excuse me, but I—I have professional standards. Where the hell are yours?"
He did not love the way the both Sam and Kat raised their eyebrows at that, or how poorly they were smothering their smiles.
"Gee, sorry," said Sam. "Didn't realize you felt so passionately about it."
"Damn right, I do."
"Awesome," said Kat. She patted the top of the bar table with finality. "Then you can use those lap dance savings of yours, buy us dinner, and we'll meet you back at the hotel."
"My…? Yeah. I can do that. Sure."
They were both grinning superiorly as they headed out of the club, leaving him alone and regretful at their table. Dean looked longingly toward the stage, where a woman in a skimpy cop uniform had just joined the cast of dancers. But he bit his tongue and grabbed his jacket.
"Idiot," he grumbled to himself. "Always trying to make a point."
