The Impala cruises slowly past a sorority house, two ambulances and a police car parked out front while people swarm the front yard. Lori Sorenson is sitting in the back of one ambulance, looking relatively unharmed with a gray blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "I'd say it's a safe bet that this is the place we're lookin' for," Elizabeth states, watching as a stretcher is loaded into the back of the second ambulance. "I wonder who bit the dust."
"Seriously," Sam asks, turning in his seat in order to give her a world class bitch face. Unaffected, Elizabeth shrugs and tosses her heels onto the seat beside her. They may be cute, but they make her toes feel as though they're suffering through the Spanish Inquisition. Wow, okay, bad example, but my point is valid.
"I'll call Zane and see if he can dig up anything." Digging her phone out is easier said than done, but it's a task she accomplishes and Zane's speaking in her ear a moment later.
"Buddy the Elf," he greets happily," what's your favorite color?"
"If I say purple, are you gonna hang up on me again?"
"Nah, purple is way better than orange." Elizabeth rolls her eyes as Dean begins to circle the block, pulling up to the curb at the back of the house. "What can I do ya for, Liza?"
"The usual. I wanna know everything about the girl that was recently murdered at a sorority here in Ankeny Iowa." He lets out a low whistle, tapping away at his computer. "She was found recently, so I doubt she'd be in a database, but I'll take a look-see in her room to find out what I can, then text it to ya."
"Sounds good, baby girl." She hangs up and stuffs her phone inside one of her shoes before getting out of the car alongside the boys. The three of them tread carefully so they don't attract unwanted attention, Elizabeth suddenly glad that she blends in with the mob of twenty-somethings.
"Why would Hook come here," Sam wonders in a quiet whisper. "I mean, this is pretty far from Nine Mile Road."
"Maybe Lori summoned him, ya know? Now she's just playing the part of frightened sorority girl," Elizabeth suggests with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Maybe it's not Nine Mile Road he's haunting," Dean adds. "Maybe it's about something else entirely." A couple of girls come out of the house and Dean instantly sticks his arm out to push the younger hunters behind him against the house where none of them can be seen. Sam nods at the small balcony overhead, Elizabeth shrugging in response and gesturing for him to go first. "Dude, you guys think we'll see a naked pillow fight?"
No one answers him, the other two already using the few foot- and hand-holds they can find to climb up to the small overhang with Dean following directly behind them. Climbing's one thing Elizabeth never really has problems with, spending most of her childhood in treehouses or, as her uncle will swear, trying to find new ways to make Bobby have a heart attack. As she's pulling herself up onto the balcony, she can feel a warm hand on her ass that's doing more squeezing than pushing.
"Seriously? You're picking now of all times to do that?" Dean gives her a shit-eating grin in return, knowing exactly what he's doing to her as her legs twitch.
"Just helping you up, Liza." Yeah, and I'm Elvis in disguise. She rolls her eyes and follows Sam through an unlocked window, landing on her belly with a wince. Dean lands beside her with a loud thump and a groan that makes Sam break out the third bitch face of the afternoon.
"Be quiet," he hisses.
"Me be quiet? You be quiet."
"Both of you need to shut the hell up," Elizabeth growls, looking around the closet they've ended up in. She stands right behind Sam, cheek resting against the side of his arm so she can look past the door and see the police officer slowly moving out of the bedroom on the other side of the door. "We clear?"
"Looks like it," Sam confirms, easing the door the rest of the way open and stepping into the next room. The room looks like every dorm on TV, though more like a Halloween special considering all the blood; the sheets and comforter of one bed soaked through with crimson, a puddle of it drying on the floor, and some of it splattered over the far wall in an arterial spray. Talk about overkill, holy shit. "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light," Sam says, reading the quote that has been carved into the blood-splattered wall.
"Oh, come on, that's not even part of the legend."
"What? Yeah it is."
"No, this is from that one where the roommate thinks her buddy's asleep and doesn't realize there's a murderer lingering in the corner. Hook Man ended with the couple driving off and the silver hook hanging off the door handle or the girl accidentally hanging the boyfriend when she tries to drive off in a panic. Whatever spirit's doin' this is a little rusty on their urban legends."
"God, you're such a nerd."
"A nerd that spent a good chunk of her childhood reading ghost stories." Elizabeth's gaze drifts down to another marking, a large cross that has been carved right beneath the words with four smaller crosses bracketing it. A nagging voice in the back of her mind says she should know that symbol, that she's seen it before, but she can't place it. She smacks Sammy's arm and points at it, Sam nodding when he spots it.
"Dean, check this out." Dean wanders over from where he'd been staring out the window, squinting a little when he spots the cross. "That look familiar?"
"Annoyingly so," Dean nods. As the boys try to come up with places they've seen the symbol before, Elizabeth drifts over to the nightstand, digging through it for anything she can send to Zane for researching. She settles on a picture of the victim and Lori standing outside the sorority and a post card the victim was going to send her mother, taking a picture of both and sending them off in a text.
"Victim's name was Sarah Barnes," Elizabeth informs the others. "She looks like a party girl to me, but I'm not one to judge." Sarah is beautiful and fit with a light brown skin tone and dark brown eyes that seem to dance with mischief. "Pretty much fits in with our little theory about Hook Man goin' after kids with loose morals, right?"
"At least that part's consistent." Dean heaves a sigh and rocks up onto the balls of his feet, looking out the bedroom door at the stairs. "Alright, let's get back to the car before someone realizes we're snooping."
"Yeah, I doubt the cops would believe we're not connected if we show up at another crime scene." Elizabeth's the first one out the window this time, the climb slower as she tries to keep from falling and breaking her dignity. Sam and Dean follow after her quickly, their long legs giving them an advantage that Hobbit-sized blondes don't possess.
"Is it clear?" Elizabeth peers around the side of the house, not spotting any cops as the yard slowly empties of people. Most of the sorority girls have wandered across the street to the frat house that's handing out spare shirts and hot chocolate while the cops are mostly filing inside the house.
"We're good." The three of them jog back to the Impala without getting stopped and Elizabeth's never been happier to have luck on their side. There's few things worse than suspicious cops and she likes to avoid them whenever she can. As Sam begins to dig through his bag, the other two settle down on the hood of the car, Elizabeth enjoying the warm sunlight and the dimming pain in her abdomen.
"Looks like we have seen that symbol before," Sam says, holding up a few pages victoriously. They're the scans from the library, grainy black and white images that show the silver hook prosthetic with a little charm hanging off the cuff of it that boasts the same crosses that have been carved into the wall. "It's gotta be the spirit of Jacob Karns."
"So we'll salt and burn the fucker, then we'll all go out for pie to celebrate," Dean shrugs.
"That'd be a great plan if he wasn't buried in an unmarked grave." Elizabeth drops her head in her hands, letting out a long frustrated groan.
"Seriously? Does it at least mention the cemetery he was planted in?"
"Uh, yeah, right here." Sam taps a new page, holding it up so that the others can read it along with him. "Old North Cemetery on the edge of town. So, we know who our dead guy is, but we don't know why he shows up or how he picks his victims."
"Easy, he shows up wherever your little girlfriend is and his victims are always people who want to do immoral stuff. Rich wanted to do her in the back of his car and he ended up with a noose around his neck and I'm guessing Taylor was trying to get Lori to party a little and she ended up with her blood being used in a finger painting. And what do all those things have in common?"
"The preacher's kid," Elizabeth answers, sliding into the backseat.
"You see, she gets it."
"She's also never even talked to Lori," Sam points out.
"Makes her unbiased."
"It also means she doesn't know how sweet Lori is."
"Could you two argue later," Elizabeth asks, leaning forward to look at the pair of them over the bench seat. "Maybe when college kids aren't in danger of being viciously murdered by a hook-wielding psychopath?"
Turns out frat parties are exactly as ridiculous as the ones you see in movies. The party is in full swing when the hunters arrive, beer being passed out like it's going out of style and the music loud enough to make the floor vibrate. "You've been holding out," Dean smirks at his younger brother. "This college thing is awesome!" Sam looks uncomfortable as hell, probably skipping most of these things when he was in college.
"This wasn't really my experience," he says, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.
"Same boring, studious guy as you were in high school," Elizabeth asks, swaying slightly with the beat of the music. When Sam nods, she and Dean share an exasperated look. Sam really needs to lighten up and if a beer and half-naked girls can't do it, then nothing can. "Jesus, dude, you need to relax."
"Some of us would rather graduate than do body shots every Saturday."
"I did that one time and it wasn't even that big of a deal. Stop being such a prude and find a cute girl to make out with." He rolls his eyes, grabbing the sleeve of her shirt and pulling her after him towards a room that's mostly empty of drunk students. Dean follows after them, taking a rolled up sheet of paper from his brother to read over.
"While you two were doing pre-party shots, I was doing something that was actually useful. I think I found out why Lori seems to be connected to all of this." Elizabeth reads the copies as well as she can, Dean shuffling through them slowly as the nice buzz they have going begins to wear off.
"A lot of religious guys offed a lot of people," Dean concludes, raising his brows.
"Yeah, it's a pattern. In both cases, the suspect was a man of religion who openly preached against immorality and then found himself wanted for killings he claimed were done by an invisible force. To top it off, all the killings were done with a sharp instrument.
"You think the spirit's working through her dad," Elizabeth asks, brows drawn together.
"Exactly. Think about it, his daughter's leaving home for the first time and she's surrounded by people who are terrible influences; a roommate that goes to parties and probably drinks a little too much, a boyfriend with wandering hands, and her freakin' sorority is right across the street from a frat house that throws the best parties."
"So the Rev is more interested in saving the only person he has left instead of the entire town," Dean realizes. "Old Jacob latches onto the Reverend, feeds off the repressed emotions, and the guy doesn't even realize what's happening."
"What should we do?"
"Tell you what, you keep an eye on Lori tonight while Liza and I try to find that grave."