Author's Note: Hello, Dear Readers. Thank you for sticking with me on this journey. I appreciate your comments and feedback. Please keep them coming.
This chapter gets a bit graphic in some of its descriptions of violence and its aftermath. We are dealing with the victims of a supernatural creature and the hunt for that creature, after all. It's probably not as graphic as some of the stuff shown on the show, but I wanted to give you a fair warning.
CHAPTER 18
Jody swallowed hard to force the bile that was rising back down her throat. As many visits as she'd made to various morgues during her law enforcement career, the smells and the sight of a morgue attendant pulling the heavy metal tray containing a body from its drawer never ceased to nauseate her.
She must have made a sound or some subtle movement that called Sam's attention to her. "You okay?" he asked when he noticed she'd gone pale.
Jody nodded. "I will be."
He reached out and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before turning his attention back to the body that had been presented to them.
The attendant, whose name tag read "Daniel", unzipped the body bag holding the corpse and laid back the flap, exposing the body of a man who appeared to have been in his early thirties when he'd died. It was obvious the autopsy had already been completed.
"Aside from the obvious," Dean said as he gestured toward the fist-sized hole in the man's chest, " what did the autopsy show?"
Daniel pursued the notes on his clipboard. "Oh, this is a really interesting case," he commented. "The heart was removed from the body. Only it wasn't yanked out like you might imagine based on the wound to the chest cavity," he said in a tone of voice that was a little too excited for the occasion.
"It wasn't?" Sam asked, hoping to prod the man along.
"No," Daniel responded. "It was cut out. Dr. Monroe, the coroner, thinks it was done with a razor sharp blade by someone who knew what they were doing." He looked up from his notes and his gaze met Dean's. "And that isn't the most interesting part."
"What do you mean?" Dean questioned. He was almost afraid to hear the man's answer.
"There were really small pieces of stone found in the wound. Almost like the heart had been removed with a flint blade that was flaking."
"Yeah," Dean commented as he glanced at Sam. Their eyes met as they silently communicated their thoughts. "That is pretty interesting."
He started to step forward to zip the bag shut when Daniel held up a hand. "Wait a minute. You need to see this, too."
He reached over toward a nearby shelf and pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box and handed them to Dean. "Put these on," he instructed. Once Dean had complied with the order, Daniel laid his clipboard on the shelf next to the box of gloves and gestured toward the body. "Help me roll him onto his side."
The back of the man's body showed a massive bite wound on the back of his neck. It had, without a doubt, severed the man's spine and had been his cause of death. There were also deep claw marks that had laid open the skin and muscles on his back.
"Dr. Monroe isn't exactly sure yet, but she thinks those were caused by some kind of big cat like a puma. Only pumas aren't found in this area. We only have bobcats around here, and they aren't big enough to make those kinds of wounds."
Daniel gestured with his head for Dean to help him lower the corpse back onto it's back. He didn't say anything as he zipped the body bag closed and pushed the tray back into the drawer before sealing the door again. "This guy was the fourth body found like this in the past two months. Did you hear about the fifth person?"
"We read about it in the paper last night," Jody said. Her fascination with the mystery that had presented itself had overcome her queasiness.
"They found her and brought her in about two o'clock this morning. I'd show you her body, but it hasn't been processed for evidence yet, and I don't want to risk contaminating it."
"That's probably a good idea," Dean commented dryly. "Have all the victims had similar wounds?"
"I don't know about the lady that was brought in last night, but with the others - yeah." Daniel looked around the room in the manner of someone who was about to impart top secret information and didn't want to be overheard. "I think it's the lake monster, or aliens. It might be aliens."
"We'll keep that in mind," Sam commented. "We appreciate your help."
As they stepped through the front door of the building Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Krissy. "Hey, how's the research going?" he asked. "Find anything interesting?"
"Yeah, actually I have," Krissy replied. Her voice carried an edge of excitement that made Sam grin. He knew that thrill of finding something that might lead to a break in the hunt. "Let me put you on speaker so Dean and Jody can hear you, too." A moment passed before he directed her to go ahead with what she was going to say.
"I just came across this really obscure Native American legend. Apparently, it was told only among the Sioux who inhabited this area. It wasn't known by the people of the other Sioux tribes."
"Okay, so what's the legend?" Dean prompted impatiently.
Sam had to suppress a grin. He could just imagine the eye roll the teenager gave at Dean's command.
"It involves a shaman from the time before the Sioux. When the tribe was being threatened by drought or flooding or some other outside force, the shaman would transform into a big cat. Selected candidates, usually captives from other villages or tribes, would be sent out into the wilderness to try to escape. The shaman, in cat form, would hunt them down. When he caught one of then, he would drag them back to the village where he would return to his human form and sacrifice the victim by cutting out their heart." Krissy paused for a moment. "It's pretty gruesome and totally different from the other legends I've found."
The three adults shared a look. "That is pretty interesting," Sam commented before he shared what they had just learned at the morgue.
"Oh, wow," Krissy responded, a little shocked at the possible significance of what she had discovered in her research. "You think these bodies and this legend might be connected somehow?"
"It's possible," Sam replied as he took her off speaker and raised the phone back to his ear. They were walking across the parking lot back to the Impala, and he didn't want to take a chance on someone overhearing too much of their conversation. "We're going to head over to the sheriff's office to see what we can learn there." He opened the car door and slid into the front passenger seat as Dean took his usual spot behind the wheel and Jody slid into the back. "Why don't you see if you can find anything about the people who lived in the area before the Sioux and if there's any connection between them and that legend. Also, if you have the time, look up shapeshifters and read about their strengths and weaknesses and how to kill them."
"I'll get right on it," Krissy responded. As soon as Sam ended the call a moment later, she turned back to the computer, excited about the possibilities of what she might find next.
"You really think it might be a shapeshifter?" Jody asked. The concern was evident in her voice. She'd dealt with zombies, werewolves, a demon or two, and plenty of vampires. But, she'd never been up against a shapeshifter.
"Yeah, I do," Sam responded. "And I suspect it's somehow tied to that legend Krissy found."
"Well, damn," Dean responded as he put the car into gear and drove out of the parking lot. He'd figured this was going to be just a simple werewolf or wendigo that they needed to gank. It was becoming way more complicated than he liked.
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"So, what brings a South Dakota sheriff and a couple of private investigators to this neck of the woods," Sheriff Will Howard asked as he took a seat behind the table in the small conference room at the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department. He'd had the visitors brought there rather than to his office because he was a bit suspicious, especially when they'd arrived unannounced and asked about the recent string of unsolved murders around the lake.
"I'm sorry to show up out of the blue," Jody apologized, "but we're interested in what you can tell us about those people who have been going missing and those bodies found by the lake." She glanced toward where Dean and Sam sat across from her. "We're looking into something similar that has happened in the Black Hills."
"That's a bit out of your jurisdiction, isn't it?" Sheriff Howard asked suspiciously. "And these two aren't exactly law enforcement."
"I'm working on this in an unofficial capacity," Jody stated in a straight forward voice. "I'm supposed to be on vacation. The mayor forced me to take a few weeks off work to burn up some of my accumulated leave time. I was going crazy sitting at home watching daytime talk shows." Jody gave a shrug of her shoulders that clearly said "what else was I gonna do?"
Sheriff Howard snorted. "Yeah, that happened to me a couple of years ago. Thought I'd go bat shit crazy before my vacation was up." He eyed the other two men suspiciously. "That still doesn't explain what you're doing here with these two."
"They're old family friends, almost like my little brothers," Jody commented. "Our mothers were best friends, and we sort of grew up together."
"We travel quite a bit with our work, but our home base is in Kansas. We inherited some property from our father's family and decided to set up a home base there," Sam commented. "When we took this job, I gave Jody a call. We hadn't talked for a while, so I thought I'd check in with her."
"We weren't getting anywhere on our investigation, so we decided to take a break and run over to visit her," Dean picked up the narrative easily. "While we were there, we ran across a news article about what was happening up here. It's pretty similar to what happened in the case we're investigating, so Sammy and I decided to head up here and see what we could learn." He glanced over at his brother. "We're hoping what we learn here might shed some light on what happened in the Black Hills."
"And I decided to tag along," Jody stated.
Sheriff Howard sat back in his seat and studied the three other people for a moment. Their story sounded reasonable, and he'd done a quick Google search before joining them and had found a website for Campbell Investigations operated by Dean Campbell and Sam Campbell out of Lebanon, Kansas. The website stated that they specialized in investigating the bizarre and the unsolved.
"Alright," he finally said, "I'll share with you what I can, which isn't much. We just haven't been able to make much headway on this." He shrugged and rose to his feet to move to the full coffee pot sitting on the sideboard. He held up the pot asking if they wanted some, too. At their nods, he filled four mugs and brought them back to the table.
"The first disappearance was about three months ago. Nathan Walker was last seen in town. He lived by himself, so he wasn't reported missing until he didn't show up for work two days in a row. His body was found about a week later in a clearing in the woods on the west side of the lake. His throat had been ripped out, and his heart was missing." The Sheriff took a drink of his coffee. "The second victim, Marty Chaska, was also last seen in town, but it wasn't unusual for him to disappear into the woods for a time. He was found by campers not far from where we found Nathan." He shifted in his chair. "After that, it was hikers and campers who went missing. Their bodies have all turned up in the same general area as the first two."
"You have any idea about what's going on?" Dean asked, genuinely curious as to the sheriff's answer.
The sheriff rubbed his hand across his face and sighed in frustration. "I haven't got a clue," he admitted. "Part of the damage to the body suggests an animal like a big cat. But, there's other things that suggest a human."
"The surgical removal of the heart," Jody commented dryly.
Sheriff Howard nodded in response. "Where did you hear about that?" he asked. "We've kept that detail out of the press."
"We stopped by the morgue before we came here," she responded.
Sheriff Howard started to say something else, but he was interrupted when Sam asked, "did anything happen in the area where the disappearances are occurring or where the bodies are being found? Has anything new or unusual been found there in the last several months?"
The sheriff narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Sam's question, but he thought for a moment. "Now that you mention it, there was an archeological dig not far from there back in the spring. A farmer unearthed what turned out to be an ancient burial mound. I haven't heard if they found anything. It wasn't that big a deal. Burial mounds aren't that unusual around here. If I remember my history correctly, there was a Plains Woodland tribe that inhabited this area about a thousand so years ago. The burial mounds came from them. I think the dig was done through the University of North Dakota. They may be able to tell you more about it."
Sam nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Everyone watched as he opened a note app. "Could you tell us the location of that dig and where the disappearances occurred and the bodies were found? We'd like to go out and take a look around. We'll share anything we discover."
Sheriff Howard signed. "Usually I'd tell you to get the hell out of my office. But at this point, I'm willing to accept any help I can get on this." He opened the file that had been sitting, closed, on the table in front of him during their conversation. He flipped a few pages and read out the coordinates where each body was found. "Other than the two last seen in town, the victims all disappeared from locations within a two mile radius from where the bodies have been found. That dig was in Chester Collins' east pasture just inside the tree line. I heard he found it while he was clearing out the undergrowth in preparation for repairing the fence so he could put cattle in there."
Dean rose and held out his hand to the sheriff. "Thanks." He glanced over at Jody and Sam, who had also come to their feet. "We appreciate your time and the information," he said as the other man accepted his handshake. "We'll definitely let you know what we discover."
"Well, that's interesting," Sam commented a few minutes later as Dean steered the car out of the parking lot and toward the motel.
"What are you thinking?" Jody asked.
"I want to see what Krissy dug up and what I can find out about that dig, but I suspect they released something from that burial mound."
"Like what?" Dean questioned.
"Like a shape shifting shaman who can turn into a big cat," Sam stated in a deadly serious tone of voice.
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"So were you able to find any more information about the legend of that shape shifting shaman?" Sam asked as he closed the styrofoam container that had held his lunch. They had stopped at a diner to pick up a salad for him and burgers for everyone else and brought the food back together the motel room.
"I didn't find much more about it," Krissy responded before sweeping a french fry through a pool of ketchup and popping it into her mouth. "The legend was listed only on that one website about obscure facts and legends. I bookmarked it if you want to read it. But, I decided to look into the ancestors of the Sioux who lived in this area, and I found some information on a group called the Plains Woodland People. They were believed to have practiced elaborate religious rituals. I wasn't able to find a lot of information about those rituals, though. So I guess it's possible that the shape shifting and the human sacrifice were part of that."
She paused to pop the last bite of her burger into her mouth. She wiped her lips with her napkin and balled it up along with the paper wrapper. She tossed the trash into the empty food bag. "Now, the research you had me do on shape shifters was more interesting," she commented.
"What did you find out?" Sam asked as he rose to his feet and grabbed his laptop from the dresser, where Krissy had moved it when they had come in with the food bags. He brought it back to the table and sat down before pulling the computer out and booting it up.
"They're pretty bad dudes," she said. "They can only be killed with a silver bullet or silver blade to the heart or by decapitation." She glanced first at Dean, then at Sam. "You guys ever go up against one?"
"We have," Dean responded. "You're right, they're pretty bad dudes."
"I've not faced one," Jody said as she sat back in her chair.
"Like the kid said, we go in with silver bullets and blades," Dean commented. He watched what Sam was doing. "You trying to look into that dig?"
"What dig?" Krissy asked curiously.
"The sheriff told us about an archeological dig near where the disappearances have happened and the bodies have been found. Sammy, here, thinks it might have something to do with our shape shifter."
"So, I was right. That legend has something to do with it," Krissy sat up a little straighter in her chair, feeling proud that she had found the information.
"I suspect it might," Sam commented, giving Krissy a grin of approval. "That was a great job finding that." He booted up the computer and connected to the motel's wifi.
"What are you doing?" Jody asked as she watched over Sam's shoulder.
"Something I picked up from a friend of ours," he responded as he quickly gained access to the computer network at the University of North Dakota. "Gotcha," he exclaimed proudly after he'd worked for several minutes.
Jody grinned. "I didn't see a thing, but what did you just find?"
"Looks like that dig Sheriff Howard was telling us about turned up more than just some random artifacts. They found some pottery believed to have been food vessels and totem figures of what they believe were supposed to be big cats." He paused for a moment as he continued to read the notes. "They also found a burial shroud, but no human remains."
Krissy jumped up and grabbed her backpack from where she'd left it on one of the beds. She pulled her own computer out and booted it up. After a moment, she spoke. "Big cats aren't common in this area. Mostly, there are bobcats, but they aren't big enough to do the kind of damage you described. There are cougars in the badlands and the mountains, but not so much in the plains." She looked up at the others in the room. "Cougars are also known as pumas or mountain lions." She glanced back down at what she was reading on her computer screen. "They're big enough to have caused the kind of damage you described. They're also usually nocturnal hunters."
"Okay," Dean said as he rubbed the back of his head with his hand. "It's looking like we're dealing with an ancient shaman shapeshifter who turns into a cougar to kill his victims, then he cuts out their hearts with a stone blade as some weird ass sacrifice. Anything else I'm missing, here?"
Sam looked up as he closed his laptop. "The thought just occurred to me. What if this guy isn't your standard shifter?"
"What do you mean?" Jody asked in a voice heavily laced with concern.
"Think about it," Sam replied as he rubbed his hand against the back of his neck in a gesture that portrayed his concern over the situation. "It looks like this guy may have been the focus of an ancient religious ritual. There's really no way to know for sure, but what if whatever that guy did to discover the burial mound didn't just uncover some artifacts? What if it also somehow woke up an ancient god?"
There was stunned silence in the room that was only broken when Krissy asked, "how do you kill a god?"
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"Are we doing the right thing, bringing the girls along on this hunt?" Dean asked as he glanced in the rear view mirror at the SUV pulling to a stop behind them. They were in a clearing in the woods about half a mile from the GPS coordinates the sheriff had given them for the location where the first body had been found.
Sam glanced over at his brother. "Do you honestly think we could have stopped them? Yeah, we could have forced Krissy to stay behind, but chances are Jody would have fought us on it, or the kid would have done something stupid like follow us. This way we know where she is. Jody may not have been up against a shifter before, but she's an experienced hunter and a law enforcement officer. She knows what she's doing and can help keep Krissy in line."
Dean sighed heavily as he opened the car door and stepped out of the Impala. "Yeah, you're probably right. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though."
Sam nodded as he, too, exited the car and moved to join Dean at the now open trunk. He wasn't that happy with the fact that Krissy was with them either. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen.
Only moments passed before Jody and Krissy joined the two men at the back of the Impala. Jody had a large hunting knife strapped to her side and was carrying a handgun. "I've got about half a dozen silver bullets, but my knife is steel."
Dean nodded and pulled an ammo case out of its place in the trunk. "What caliber are you using?"
"Nine millimeter."
He sorted through the boxes of ammo until he found what he was looking for. Turning, he held the box out to Jody. "Here, there's a dozen or so in here. Use what you need."
Jody nodded her thanks as she accepted the box. She moved off to stand by the hood of her SUV. She pulled the pistol from its holster and ejected the magazine. After opening the box of bullets, she began feeding them into the magazine until it held a full nine rounds. She pulled her extra magazine from her pocket and filled it as well before returning the box to Dean. "I'll give you back what I don't use."
Dean paused and looked up at her. "Don't worry about it. We've got more back at the bunker." Turning back to the trunk, he opened a small case. "Krissy, come here."
He waited until he was standing beside him before pulling a small pistol out of the case. He checked the magazine to verify that it was unloaded before handing it over to her. "We haven't trained with guns yet, but did your dad or Victor teach you how to use one of these?"
Krissy nodded and demonstrated her comfort with the weapon by holding it pointed toward the ground with her finger resting along the barrel and above the trigger guard. She pulled back the barrel to verify that there was not a bullet in the chamber before ejecting the magazine to verify that it, too, was unloaded. She held her hand out for the box of ammo.
Dean nodded his approval as he handed the box over and watched as she loaded bullets into the magazine. "There's no extra magazine for that one, so make every shot count."
"Got it," she said, looking up from her task.
Dean and Sam took care of their own firearms, then Dean packed all of the ammo and gun boxes back into their places in the Impala's trunk. He reached back into the trunk for another set of boxes. This time, the padded containers held large hunting knives. The razor sharp silver blades gleamed in the light of the dying sun. "Grab one," he instructed as he pulled one of the blades from its nest.
When everyone had a knife, Dean closed the lid of the trunk and turned to face the others. "This is as much a scouting mission as it is a hunt. Jody, you and Krissy head north for about ten minutes or so and see what you can find. Stay together," he instructed as he met Krissy's eyes. "That means you don't go wandering off by yourself." He paused and waited for Krissy to acknowledge what he'd said before continuing. "Look for signs of this puma shifter asshat. Be back here is twenty minutes. Keep your phones on you and call at the first sign of trouble. Sammy and I will do the same."
Dean watched as Jody and Krissy headed into the woods. He couldn't shake the feeling that he should have sent Jody with Sam and kept Krissy with him. He shook his head and reminded himself that Jody was very capable of watching out for herself and the teenager.
"What's up?" Sam asked as he came to stand beside his brother.
"I don't know," Dean responded with a sigh before heading toward an opening in the trees at the south side of the clearing. "My gut's telling something bad is about to happen."
"Yeah, mine, too." Sammy glanced around the clearing. "Want to look around the tree line, them see if we can catch up to them?" He figured he'd rather deal with any backlash from Jody for seemingly not trusting them than ignore both his and his brother's gut warnings.
Dean nodded. "Let's do it."
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Krissy was uneasy. She was a few yards behind Jody. They'd been in the woods for most of their allotted ten minutes, and they hadn't seen any sign of the cougar or puma or shaman or whatever the hell it was they were after.. But, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching her. It was like she felt eyes on the back of her head. She shuddered at the feeling as she paused to look around her.
A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Without stopping to alert Jody, she started toward it. She had taken only a few steps before a faint noise that sounded like something stepping on dried leaves caused her to turn to the side. As she did, a large golden body slammed into her, nearly knocking her off her feet, and sharp claws raked down her left arm from shoulder to elbow. She screamed in surprise and pain. Turning, she saw a huge cat not four feet away.
Time slowed to a crawl. She raised the hunting knife she held in her right hand to a defensive position and crouched to present less of a target. Just as the cougar leapt in her direction a gunshot rang out. Krissy flattened herself onto the ground, and the momentum from the bullet sent the large animal sprawling into the leaf litter a few feet away.
It took her several seconds to realize what was happening. She rose to her knees to see the cougar struggling to get to its feet. She heard footsteps and another shot rang out from close behind her. The animal dropped to the ground and lay still as Jody stepped around her. The older woman fired a third shot, this time into the animal's brain.
Only then did Jody turn and rush to where Krissy still knelt in the dirt. "Are you okay?" She asked as she returned her gun to its holster on her belt while eyeing the teenager for signs of injury.
"It got my arm," Krissy said, turning so Jody could see the limb in question. The sleeve of her shirt was in tatters and blood was flowing freely from three long gashes that ran the length of her upper arm. Krissy swayed at the sight as her adrenaline rush began to wear off and she began feeling pain.
"Jody! Krissy! Where are you," Dean's deep voice carried through the trees. Sam's voice followed seconds later as he yelled the same thing.
"Here!" Jody shouted. "We're over here."
Only a moment or two passed before the two men came rushing through the trees. "What happened?" Dean demanded as he came to a halt and took in the scene before him.
"Guys!" Sam called, drawing their attention to where he stood beside the creature. It was in the process of morphing from its feline form to its human form, that of a small man with dark golden colored skin and long dark hair liberally streaked with grey. He wore a necklace made from animal teeth and claws and an animal hide around his hips.
Sam wasted no time as he pulled his hunting knife from the sheath on his belt and swiftly severed the man's head from his body. He moved to nudge the head a few feet away with the toe of his boot.
Krissy gagged at the sight. She looked around frantically before lunging for the nearby bushes. She dropped to her knees and supported herself with her uninjured right arm as she began vomiting. She barely noticed as Jody came up to her and swept her hair back out of the way.
It seemed like she heaved forever until she had emptied everything out of her stomach. She sat back on her haunches and wiped her mouth with her shirt sleeve before allowing Jody to help her to her feet.
"You okay?" Dean asked as he approached the two women. Sam followed closely behind. He frowned when Krissy just shook her head.
"That thing got her with its claws," Jody reported as she continued to steady Krissy, who was swaying on her feet. "Her left arm is torn to shreds."
"Let me see," Sam demanded as he stepped closer. He gently ran a hand across Krissy check and down the back of her neck in a comforting gesture. He lifted Krissy's arm from where she had been cradling it against her chest. She gasped in pain at the movement, and he apologized for hurting her.
Sam gently released her arm and removed his flannel shirt, revealing the short sleeve t-shirt he wore underneath. He tore two long strips of fabric from the hem of the flannel before handing the remaining fabric to Jody. "Hold this," he instructed.
Turning back to Krissy, he again reached for her arm. "I'm sorry, this is going to hurt. But, I have to wrap your arm to try and staunch some of the bleeding." He waited until she had nodded her consent before he began tightly wrapping the strips of fabric around her arm. Krissy let out a groan at the pain but stayed still while he worked. When he was finished Sam smiled and nodded at her in approval before he asked for the remainder of his shirt back from Jody. He then used it to fashion a sling and secure Krissy's arm to her chest.
"How is she?" Dean asked as he moved to join them. Krissy started to say that she was right there and could answer for herself when a wave of dizziness hit. She closed her eyes and clinched her teeth against it. "Her arm is going to need stitches, and she's a bit woozy," she heard Sam reply at the same time she felt him lift her into his arms. She let her head fall against his shoulder.
Sam shifted Krissy slightly in his arms. He was concerned about the adrenaline crash that was setting in and wanted to get her back to the Impala. He glanced over at the body of the now dead shifter and saw that Dean had already set out the salt and lighter fluid he'd carried in his backpack. "Why don't you two finish up here, and I'll carry her back to the vehicles."
Jody followed Sam's gaze and immediately understood his meaning. She nodded and reached out to rest her hand on the top of Krissy's head where it lay against Sam's shoulder. Krissy opened her eyes and gave the sheriff a weak smile.
"Go on," Dean said. "We'll meet you back there in twenty minutes or so." He watched as Sam, with Krissy cradled in his arms, disappeared into the trees. He sighed heavily before meeting Jody's gaze. "What happened?"
"She was a few yards behind. I'd stepped into that stand of trees over there." She indicated the trees about ten feet or so beyond where the shifter's body still lay. "I heard her scream and came running back. The cat had already clawed her, and it was getting ready to pounce again." She gave a quick laugh and shook her head in amusement. "Krissy was going to take it on with her knife. Anyway, I shot it out of the air just as it leapt and twice more after that. You and Sam arrived at that point."
Dean nodded, satisfied at what she'd told him. "I don't know if you just got lucky or if you're that good of a shot," he said with a cheeky grin that clearly told Jody he was being sarcastic. "Either way, Krissy is one lucky kid."
Jody grinned and slapped Dean on the back as she started toward the dead shifter. "You going to stand around all day admiring my shooting skills, or are we going to salt and burn this bastard?"