"He had a tattoo?"

The young woman's dark lashes tangle with the feathery tips of her sandy blonde fringe as she lifts her gaze from her papers to acknowledge the owner of the voice; a teenaged girl, rather prim-looking, stands before her with her blonde hair pulled back into a low ponytail.

"Yeah," Katherine answers.

The other girl looks to her father. "Yeah, you remember? They were just married." Katherine nods, looking back to Harley Jorgeson, local everything-you-need store owner. "How do you know 'em?"

"He's my brother," the huntress replies.

"I do remember him," Harley says, nodding, and hands the flyer back to Katherine. "They weren't here for long, though. Their car had a problem, I think. They grabbed some food for the road and they were on their way."

"Anything else?"

"I told them how to get back to the interstate," Harley says with a shrug, shoving his hands into his khaki pockets.

"Where'd you point them to?"

Within minutes, Katherine is cruising the interstate that passes through the outskirts of this dinky Indiana town named Burkitsville. She shudders at the horrid name.

Any town that ends in '—ville' is bound to be strange.

Amityville, for one.

The EMF detector taped to the dash begins to buzz at a high pitch, effectively stealing the girl's attention from the vacant, freshly-paved road.

"Bingo."

She pulls off of the road, staring out at the grove of trees just beginning to sprout their early spring leaves, and rips the reader from the dash before wading the duct tape up and tossing it to the side. From the trunk, she grabs her beretta and her baseball bat and starts on her way.

She thinks about the Winchesters. She hasn't heard from them in a few days. Not since Dean called that night, anyway, when they were in Illinois. Perhaps they think she's still with Sophia. She did say it would be a few days more. So she's taking her time. Mostly to prepare herself, mentally, for facing Dean after Sophia's thought-provoking statements and observations.

Damn Sophia for screwing it up.

The EMF meter, tucked into Katherine's back pocket, doesn't settle as she walks through the grove, bat slung over her shoulders as she gazes around at the rather healthy-looking trees. Her gut, having never failed her before, tells her something is off.

The crates of apples shouldn't be so full this time of year. So red. So abundant. Growing up, she never liked the red apples. Too mushy.

The crates are pristinely arranged, as if they were...placed. Styled.

With a sigh, she crouches before a crate and picks an apple up, tosses it into the air. It looks real, feels real. She pulls a knife from her pocket and cuts into the flesh before prodding it with the tip of her finger.

Definitely mushy.

Apple trees in the south don't bloom until mid-April at the earliest. It's the second week of it. But the trees here usually don't bloom until mid-May.

Upon inspection of the leaves, she finds no holes. No evidence of bugs around this place. Again—too clean to be nature itself.

With a sigh, the huntress looks up; her eyebrows disappear into her fringe as she rises to her feet, her gaze on a peculiar depiction of a popular field staple. This one has a creepy twist. Very Goosebumps.

"Gross."

The scarecrow looks like Leatherface, only with a porkpie-style hat and...a hook. She frowns, moving closer to inspect the strange feature, before snatching up a ladder and dragging it to the thing with a suspicious eye. Carefully, Katherine scales the ladder and moves the blade with the body of her iron-coated bat. Then she sees an interesting feature.

The sleeve of the thing is ripped, exposing the leather beneath it. Branded on it, almost, is a familiar symbol.

Her skin crawls.

"Nice tattoo, Mr. Parker," she mutters, comparing the tattoo with that on the flyer.

This town is definitely riding the crazy train—perfect for further investigation.

She begins with Emily, the girl from the store earlier. She moved into town after her parents died, and apparently, Katherine isn't the first to come asking about the couple.

A guy under the alias of "John Bonham" rolled into town just hours before she did, searching for his "friends."

Emily's description, verbatim: pretty tall, young, short light brown hair, green eyes and a leather jacket. Kinda hot.

Two options. Some parents seriously might have named their kid after the late drumming legend and stuck it to the guy.

Or, the Winchesters are in town. John Bonham...seriously? She wonders if they've followed her. Or maybe those coordinates were sent their way too.

How funny would it be to happen across them on the case? Observe their work outside of the inner circle? Reflection.

Katherine waits in her car, staring down at the wet road. She sharpens her weapons as she waits for her thoughts to come together, cleans the guns twice over. It's an easy task to get caught up in.

Then she heads to the library just outside of town.

Not many people are impervious to the beautiful nineteen-year-old's influences. Men in particular. A real vixen when she wants to be, at the cost of a little annoyance on her end, though it's starting to wear on her. Manipulation is something that comes horribly easy to her. Really, she should feel terrible about it, exploiting the feeble-minded. Dean knows it's her most lethal weapon.

'The Dazzle.'

Very intimidating.

"You said you were interested in local lore?" The librarian wipes his glasses down before he pushes them back up onto his nose.

"Yes." Katherine beams crookedly at the older man, pushing herself off of the wall. "I know Indiana isn't known for Paganism, but I think people would be surprised at what could be discovered. My great-grandparents were Pagan, actually. Just looking to know more about it." With a shrug, the girl follows him down the staircase.

"Where from?"

"They were Scandinavian," she answers easily. "There was one idol in particular I was curious about. One that might live in a grove or an orchard. A woods god, perhaps."

The man flashes her a smile, moving wordlessly to a section downstairs before pulling an old book from the shelf, and he drops it onto the table before tediously flipping through the worn pages.

The teenager's hand darts out and her ringed index finger taps the illustration of a field occupied with workers and cattle and a scarecrow. "The Vanir?" She unsurely pronounces, and the man shrugs in response to indicate his lack of knowledge.

"That's no woods god," he says to her, shaking his head.

The vanir were Norse gods of protection and prosperity, keeping the local settlements from harm...

That would explain the strange development of the grove, then. A phrase catches her immediate attention.

Human sacrifice—one male and one female.

Its power is derived from a sacred tree.

"Hmm." To throw her interest, she keeps flipping the pages. Her scan took only a second—most unsuspecting people wouldn't guess her interest in it. And if she missed anything, she could look it up.

"What did you say you wanted this for again?"

"College paper," she answers with a dazzling smile. "Family history. Thanks for everything."

"You aren't the first to come 'round here asking about this stuff."

She stops short and turns, brows furrowed. "Really?"

"Yeah—just a few hours ago, a young man, maybe a few years older than you. He asked about the vanir."

Play dumb. "Vanir?"

"The one we looked at briefly."

Slowly, Katherine nods. "Strange," she hums, backtracking, and turns on the heel of her boot to hurry from the library.

So Sam and Dean are heading on the same path as she is. Good to know.

"Ma'am?"

The teenager whirls around, long strands of hair brushing against the chest of the town sheriff. He's a tall man with a weathered face, not much facial hair. She smiles a bit, taking a few steps back. "Sheriff?"

He's all business, though. "I'm gonna need you to come with me."

Her skin ripples and her heart stops. "What for?" He reaches for the handcuffs at his belt. At first, Katherine doesn't protest, but in a quick movement, she rams her palm up into the guy's nose, most likely breaking it, and she swings at his temple. It's not enough to put him to sleep, but enough to knock him on his ass and buy her a few moments.

She sprints to her car and speeds away without buckling, racing for the edge of town. In a woodsy turnoff, just after dark, she parks her car and gnaws on her lip ponderously as she stares into the darkness ahead.

Something in the sheriff's eye was off. Cold. He wasn't gonna take her downtown, she was about to become a meatsuit for some Norse god like Vince Parker did. Which means they could already have someone else lined up for a sacrifice tonight.

Exactly one year ago, the Parkers went missing and Mr. Parker wound up as Leatherface.

Sam and Dean are probably already on it. Maybe she'll find them here tonight.

She promises herself she'll call them in the morning.

Katherine grabs her bat and tucks her beretta into the waistband of her jeans before beginning the trek to the orchard.

This is what he wants her to do, right? Find the bad guys. The monsters.

There's a dull ache in her chest that she forces herself to soldier over. Fear grips her throat as she breaks the orchard's line. Hesitantly, she persists.

Distantly, there are voices—male and female. The male's voice is louder. Familiar. She continues forward with caution, but a quickness in her step.

A miniature militia, armed with guns and flashlights, surrounds three others—two tall figures and one smaller one. She recognizes Harley Jorgeson easily. He's facing her direction, holding a shotgun while his wife points the flashlight.

"Uncle Harley, no!"

Katherine charges, watching the old man raise his shotgun to point at one of the taller men.

She'd recognize Sam Winchester's ass anywhere.

The sheriff's back is turned to her, pumping his shotgun once in preparation to shoot. She takes one final step forward and just as the man turns around, she catches a glimpse of his bruised under-eyes and stark white bandage across his nose. She swings, hitting him in the back, perhaps breaking a few ribs and maybe even his spine, and Emily shrieks.

Everyone stares at the huntress in shock. Jaws dropped, eyes bugged, panic discoloring their skin.

"What?" She shrugs lightly. Emily is still screaming. "Okay, look, he was gonna shoot! No head trauma, no blood." She looks down at the sheriff with a frown, head cocked to the side a bit. "A few broken ribs, sure, but he'll make it...I think."

Mrs. Jorgeson screams bloody murder, and Katherine impatiently, judgmentally, looks up with an expression that is obviously disapproving of her theatrical screaming. The scarecrow—the vanir—stands behind Mr. Jorgeson though, with a glistening hook through his chest. The scarecrow grabs a screaming Mrs. Jorgeson, and the only person wise enough to have fled is the old college professor. The sheriff is on the ground, screaming.

"Idiots one through three!" Katherine shouts, and the Winchesters—and Emily—turn to her. "Let's go, shall we?" They sprint after her, following the teenager's lead out of the grove.

"What about the sheriff?!" Emily cries.

"Dude's gonna be dead in the morning," Katherine responds. "If he isn't, I'll take him to a hospital, no worries."

"Wait, wait!" Dean skids to a stop. "I think it's gone."

"And you want to stick around to find out?" The huntress' eye twitches. "Have you ever seen a horror movie?"

Dean stares at her for a moment. Then he smiles and starts forward, arms open. Katherine chuckles, wrapping her arms around Dean's back. He swings her a little bit, laughing too. "Man am I glad to see you."

"You're always glad when I save your bacon."

"If I recall properly," he begins, pulling away from her. "And I do, this is the first time you've saved my bacon."

Katherine lets out a heavy sigh and then nods. Then she holds her bat up with a grin. "And you said it was useless."

"Well, I meant unless you wanted to bludgeon someone."

"Dude," Katherine mutters. "It's coated with iron." Sam approaches the two and winds an arm arond her neck. "Tell 'em, Sam."

"I'm grateful for the bat," he chirps.

"Yeah, you're always grateful," Katherine hums, her right eye dropping in a smooth wink.

Shit.

Katherine starts away from the three and nods her head to the road. "So are we standing here all night or are we getting the hell out of Dodge?"

"Where are you going?" Dean calls after her.

"To get to my car."

"We'll take you." His voice is suddenly behind her.

"I can walk. I'm not far."

"Like you said, that thing could come back." Dean shrugs. "You seriously want to risk it?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm well equipped."

"Yeah, a baseball bat is enough to fend that thing off."

The girl grins. "It's more than what you have."

His eyes narrow. "Every time I tell you to get in the car, you've got to be a brat."

✕

It's morning.

She was the first one up, sandy blonde hair dried in waves and feathered fringe hanging neatly at her brow. She greeted the boys with a smile and coffee, dressed in a berry henley and Levis and a light denim jacket with a pair of black and white adidas on her feet.

It was comforting to see her again. She looked better. Bright skin and eyes. Recharged.

"Boys," she said, leaning against her car with a grin. Her beautiful, beautiful car. Dean hadn't seen it in daylight. The black paint seemed glossier then. The streak-free glistening windshield. There's a stripe along the trunk of the car, candy apple red. "I'd like you to meet my Baby."

So they took a minute—Dean took a minute—to look under the hood. He was all happy laughs and marveling at how well taken care of she was.

That morning, they ventured back to the grove with Emily to find the sacred tree and let it burn. Katherine lingered for a few more hours to talk to the girl, find out her plans, and ensure the sheriff was taken care of before her Charger was trailing behind a slightly older Impala out of the town.