Chapter 17: Killian: Jess, did you forget something?

Well, fate has a sense of irony. For example, the night before, Jessica was discussing with Killian whether if God existed. Now, the next day, she was sitting in a church in Iowa, listening to a Reverend preach.

It wasn't that random. Basically, after handling the Shapeshifter situation, Jessica and the Winchesters got back on the road. The Winchesters were looking for their father, but all the methods have failed to track down the legendary John Winchester.

If the old man didn't want to be found, no one could defy his will.

As Jessica was enjoying a cheeseburger that was not paid with credit cards under made-up names, Dean discovered something that might be one of their cases.

A teenager was killed on the 9-miles road and hung upside down from the bridge. The only witness, who kept his or her name secret, said the teen was killed by an invisible attacker. Sam was a little doubtful, but Dean insisted. When he pulled out the "dad would've checked it out" card, Sam couldn't help but give in to his older brother's demands.

At a frat house in the Eastern Iowa University, the trio had a conversation with a college frat boy painting his whole body purple. Jessica was actually a bit grossed out by the way the boy looked at her. If it was from someone as nice-looking at Sam, or even Dean, then so be it. She might even return a few flirting gazes, but coming from a skinny guy who was dressing up as, what, a purple yam? No thanks.

To this, Jessica could only shrug. What can I say? Appearance is important.

Thankfully, the trip wasn't in vain. He revealed to Jessica and the Winchesters who the anonymous witness was.

Lori Sorenson. A local freshman at the university. The Reverend's daughter. Oh, and according to the frat boy, "super hot". Yep. The last part was super relevant.

So, that was how Jessica ended up in this small Iowa church, listening to the Reverend talk about the unfortunate death of the invisible killer's victim, a guy named Rich.

As the Reverend kept on doing her thing, Jessica turned to Sam.

"Five dollars he's thanking the killer right now out of the bottom of his heart."

Sam glanced at her. He tried to suppress it, but Jessica noticed he flinched instinctively when she got close to him. This made her gaze darken a bit.

"Yeah…" Sam's voice trailed off as he did his best to do a small smile and act as natural as possible. "Hmmm...why?"

Jessica kept her smile on. "Isn't that what every father wants to do to his daughter's boyfriend?"

The Reverend up on the stage coughed, and some of the audience in the seats turned and glanced at the trio not so politely. Dean looked around, saw some old women staring daggers at him, and then sighed in frustration.

Why are you staring at me? I'm the quiet one, for once! This is such a bad idea...

Jessica shrugged and sat back in her seat in silence, but even so, there were hints on her face that suggested she was a believer.

The fact was faith and knowledge were contradicting. The more informed you were about the world, the less you had to turn to the mysterious and omnipresent God for answers. Only those who had no idea why the world was how it was had to put all the mystery and questions on an all-knowing being.

Was Jessica knowledgeable? Hell yeah! She had the best teacher in the world! Well, at least this world. Killian might not be the strongest entity in this world, but he could say with confidence that he knew more about what was really going on than anyone else. He told Jessica tales of factions and entities and wars that transcended anything she could imagine.

When the scales were that big, faith became a bit...weak.

Nonetheless, she kept her mouth shut. She was here to investigate, not cause chaos.

The Four Chaos Gods had nothing on her!

The sermon was long and dull. Thankfully, it eventually came to an end. The audience started leaving. On the side, Lori said goodbye to her roommate. Using this chance, the Winchesters caught up to her and started doing some small talk. At one point, the Reverend walked up, but Dean distracted him, leaving Sam to deal with the girl.

This made Jessica grin a bit. Sam has always been good with girls, not that Dean was that much worse.

"I'm so sorry about what happened. I lost someone too."

Sam did his best to relate with the girl, but it wasn't entirely a facade. As the younger Winchester turned around and glanced at Jessica, who was in deep thoughts, he realized perhaps, that night when he returned to the dorm room, he did lose someone.

Because Jessica Moore after that day was never the same.

Now, normally, Jessica would be a bit concerned by what Sam said, but she was too busy tied up in another conversation. Finally, Jessica suddenly spoke up, cutting Sam off in the middle of the conversation.

"Lori, can I see the trinket? The one around your neck?" She pointed at a metal cross hanging from Lori's neck. The girl frowned, looked down, and pulled the trinket out from under her t-shirt. "Sure. It's a church heirloom. My father gave it to me."

Oh...church heirloom. Jessica suddenly grinned. Yep. Totally normal. A Reverend father gave a metal cross necklace to his daughter as a gift. Fair enough. Nothing wrong with that.

Except that, according to Killian, this heirloom was home to an extremely hostile spirit more than capable of slaying all the petty little human beings that inhabit in this town.

Sam looked at Jessica. He wasn't foolish enough to believe she just suddenly saw something shiny and had to ask about it. Even the old Jessica Moore wouldn't do that. Neither should this imposter. But he kept his mouth shut. Like what he said to Dean, the Winchesters had to wait for Jessica to make the first move.

The two exchanged more talk. Finally, when the trio met up again, the Winchesters had a plan in mind.

"Lori told the police about an invisible killer. I believe her." Sam started. "We should go check out the local library. Go through the database. Find what we can about any violent deaths in the past."

Dean nodded. This was perhaps his least favorite part of the job: Research.

"Yeah...you two go to that." Jessica flickered her tongue and looked around. "I have something else to attend to. I'll find you when I'm done."

Research? Hell no! Why go through all the books and computers when she already knew what and where the culprit was? Now, she would tell the Winchesters, except she couldn't explain how. So, change of plan. She would let the Winchesters run around on their own and go handle this threat herself.

She had to admit, deep down in her heart, she would enjoy seeing the Winchesters run around chasing leads while she was punching the spirit or whatever it was into the ground. Hmmm...just the thought of that made her smile.

The Winchesters glanced at each other. Now what was this imposter up to?

"Well, we are two seperate groups. You said it yourself, Jess." Dean said quietly before turning and getting into his car. Sam glanced at Jessica once again and entered the black Impala from the passenger's seat.

The vehicle sped out onto the road. Finally, when she was finally left alone, Jessica stretched her arms like no one was watching.

"So," She turned to a few people who attended the sermon. "can someone please point me to the most expensive hotel in the area?"

---

"I don't get it. Why would she even follow us if she's just going to leave us like this?" When the car got out far enough, Sam finally complained in frustration. "Maybe she's toying with us?"

"I don't know. I checked dad's journal and I didn't find anything resembling what she has shown." Dean was as calm as ever, but his voice was dangerously low. "I have been thinking. We've been trying to locate dad. What if she's trying to do the same thing?"

"Wait…" Sam sprang up from his seat. "are you saying she's following us so we can lead her to dad? That...that makes sense!"

The Winchester brothers each had different opinions on their father, the legendary hunter, but in the end, they were still family, and the brothers would do anything to save John Winchester. If staying with Jessica meant putting their dad at risk, then they should be looking for a way to get rid of her at once.

But after the realization, the depressing fact sank in: whatever Jessica was after, the Winchesters didn't know how to kill her. In fact, if they did, or even if they had any clue at all, they would've tried it already. But Jessica seemed to be invincible to anything they have tried. Holy Water. Silver. She even bested a Demon that night.

"Let's focus on this case first." Dean was the one that said grimly. As much as he hated it, he had to throw the problem to a later date to think about.

Sam sighed. As the black Impala pulled to a stop near the town's library, the man's eyes darkened. One question lingered in his head. Where was Jessica? The real one? Was she still alive? Could she be tied up somewhere, like the victims impostered by the Shapeshifter? But the Shapeshifter only feigned identity for hours while this Jessica has been here for weeks.

He refused to admit it, but chances were the Jessica he loved was dead already.

Each with their own concerns, the Winchesters walked into the library. After some narrowing down, they realized the killer could be related to the "Hookman" legend, one of the most famous urban legends there was. Going through a stack, yes, a literal stack, of arrest records yielded impressive results: a preacher named Jacob Karns murdered 13 prostitutes in 1962 with a silver hook.

It also happened that he was buried on the same road the boy Rich was killed.

So, the spirit of Jacob Karnes has to be the murderer, right? All the parts added up. Silver hook. Hookman. The emotion powering the spirit was probably something in the realm of fighting against moral indecency?

And what do we do with bad spirits? Repeat after me: we burn their bones and set them to rest!

Honestly, the Winchesters were literal experts at grave-digging, which was actually quite a serious crime.

"Should we tell Jessica?" As the pair started pulling out their grave-digging equipment, Sam raised the question.

"Nope." Dean didn't even think about it. "No way I'm gonna let her get in the way of our jobs."

They were hunters. Yes. Having some sort of monster by their side could probably help, but at this line of work, there had to be total trust. Sam and Dean trusted each other with their lives, but with Jessica...they were already trying very hard not to shoot her.

If Jessica was here, she would literally tell the Winchesters didn't need to worry about this, at all. If they wanted her gone, she would be gone with the snap of a finger. Perhaps even literally. The only reason she was here and not out there on her own was because she wanted to help.

That was it. C'est tout. It was never her intention to make the Winchesters feel like they had a knife hanging above their head that could fall down and cut them open any second.

Meanwhile, as the Winchesters were busy, so was Jessica...sort of.

"Wow! You know, for a hotel in some random town in Iowa, this is actually pretty good!"

That was Jessica's response when she pushed open the door to her Presidential Suite.

"You do realize this is the Presidential Suite, right? You paid several hundred dollars for it. That's like a numerical percent of your net worth." Killian did his thing and started raining all over Jessica's parade, but this time, it wasn't enough to ruin her mood.

"How big do you think this is?" The girl started walking across the living room and into the master's bedroom. "Wow! That's a King sized bed!" She suddenly paused, turned around, and then ran forward and leaped right onto the bed like a child.

"It's amazing what money can get you!" She concluded as her body started sinking into the bed itself.

"Indeed." This notion made Killian smile slightly. "There was a faction in the Infinite Realms that basically acted as a shop for, well, anyone for the Infinite Realms. You can find anything you can possibly dream for, as long as you can pay for it."

"Oh…you never told me about it! It would be fun to visit there someday."

"Yeah…" Killian trailed off. "I don't think that's gonna happen."

"Why not?" Jessica got off the bed and walked to the bar. There, on the bar, were two bottles of water. The blonde woman growled. "Oh god...I hate these! Hotels put these bottled water in rooms and you think it's free, so you drink it, but then it's not actually free and when you check out, they charge you! Ridiculous...oh wait. Never mind. They are free. Please, proceed. You were saying?"

"I was saying…"

"Oh wait! Were they destroyed by the Protector Corps too?"

Jessica remembered a lot of factions in Killian's stories, but most of them suffered the same fate: Death by Protector.

"It's actually an interesting story." Killian replied thoughtfully. "The official story is they, and everyone they were involved with, got wiped out. Erased without a trace left. But rumors say they somehow managed to evade the grasp of the Protectors. Sealed themselves off or something. Anyways. If the Protectors can't find them, then neither can we."

"Bummer." Jessica, now with water in hand, tossed herself back onto the bed.

A few hours passed by just like that. Jessica had to admit she hasn't been this relaxed for a long time. The giant, soft bed just engulfed her, and all her problems seemed so far away now. That was until Killian woke her back up from her dreamy slumber.

"Umm...Jessica?"

"Yes?"

"Are you forgetting something?"

"What?" Jessica snapped around. "I've got my wallet! My water's here. My car is downstairs. Wait, is my car stolen?"

"It's your rented car...and no!" Killian growled. "Remember? Murderous spirit? Cross? Metal trinket? Gal named Lori?"

"Oh…" The blonde girl's mouth hung open briefly. "Well, nope! Of course not! I had everything under control!" She stood right up, stretched her legs, and then collapsed right back down into the bed. "I'm fine! I'm fine! I just got up too quickly and got a bit dizzy. Kil...a little help here?"

If Killian had a body, he would've been palming his face off.