>HOUSE OF HOLY<

"Good morning. You're not the usual guy." The woman on the bed spoke in a calm, peaceful voice that Karoline found slightly unnerving. She glanced at the book the woman was reading to find it was the bible, which fit into the description she'd gotten from the doctors outside the room.

"No, I'm filling in for him." Karoline lied easily with a sweet smile that the woman seemed to accept. Karoline walked towards her, clipboard in hand. "So, are you feeling okay, Gloria? Any more messages from angels?"

"I've never felt better." Gloria ignored the skepticism in Karolines voice as she asked that last question. "And no. If the question you want to ask me is if I'm stark-raving cuckoo for cocoa puffs, the answer is also no."

"I never said that." Karolines eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The thing was, Karoline kinda did believe her. Her and Alayna both believed in angels. But, ever since Daryll died... Alayna gave up on believing. How could there be such awful things in this world if their was things that were supposed to be full of light and grace. Karoline still believed though. She learned that there is always at least one good monster for each type. Not that she'd encountered them all, but she'd met quite a few who had proven themselves. So, she simply continued to believe that there is good and bad everything. But, truth be told, the only reason she was there was because she was the only one with a fake Doctor's Licensee from a hunt with Axel and Daryll a while back, and Alayna and Dean were being kept on house arrest... -er hotel arrest. So Sam had begged her to come up here and do this.

"It's all right. I know what people must think." She shrugged, smiling slightly. Karoline frowned at her but didn't say anything about it. Instead, she asked a question she had a genuine curiosity for.

"What about you? What do you think happened?" Karoline made eye-contact with the woman. She seemed extremely calm for someone who'd 'murdered' another person, but she also didn't appear to be prone to violence. That thought alone was more than a little confusing.

"I think what I saw was real." Gloria replied confidently.

"Sit down and talk more with her about it. Ask her what she saw." Alayna's voice came through the small earpiece that Karoline was wearing, making her jump slightly. She had forgotten that Alayna was monitoring and listening to the conversation. Karoline closed the clipboard and threw it on the table at the far side of the room, before sitting in the chair next to Gloria.

"And what did you see?" Karoline asked. Gloria smiled slightly again while Karoline tilted her head slightly to the side in encouragement to explain.

"It was all over the news." She evaded answering the question. "I stabbed a man in the heart."

"I asked you what you saw. Not what you did." Karoline brushed aside her attempt at dodging the question.

"What could have made her stab that man...?" Alaynas voice came through at a whisper. Karoline looked back at the woman.

"What did you see? What made you stab the man?" Karoline asked.

"It was God's will." Gloria spoke tranquilly, as if telling Karoline what she was making for dinner. Karoline -though slightly creeped out- accepted the answer. Alayna scoffed. "I get the sense God's a little busy for house calls." Gloria informed Karoline, a slight smile tugging at her lips. "No, he - he sent someone." Karoline raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. "An Angel."

"And there it is." Alaynas dry, annoyed voice came through.

"It came to me in this beautiful white light, and it filled me with this.... feeling." Gloria sighed, her eyes obtaining a far off look. "It's - it's hard to describe." She focused back on Karoline, shaking her head slightly.

"So the angel...?" Karoline questioned, not sure how to put it.

"Spoke God's word." Gloria supplied her with and Karoline nodded.

"And the word was to murder the man by stabbing him in the heart?" Karoline checked, walking over to the table to grab her clipboard.

"I know it sounds strange." The woman acknowledged how odd it sounded. "But, what I did was very  important." She continued, her voice becoming passionate. "I helped him smite an evil man. I was chosen for redemption."

"So, the angel told you the name of a man and you went out and killed him?" Karoline summarized, an undertone of doubt lining her words.

"No." Karoline glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow and Gloria shook her head. "The angel told me to wait for the sign. And the very next day, I saw it right beside the mans doorway, and I knew."

"....There was a sign...? Really?" Alaynas voice came through and Karoline almost smiled at her sisters tone.

"You said he was evil. What did he do?" Karoline asked and all Gloria did was shake her head.

"I just know what the angel told me - that this man was guilty to his deepest foundations. And that was good enough for me," She gave a small shrug, and Karoline merely nodded.

"Okay. We're done with this session," Karoline stood, picking up the clipboard she discarded and headed out the door. "I'm leaving now, Sammy and I will be back soon."

"Kay." Was the only response Alayna gave before Karoline pulled out the ear piece and tucked it into her Hobo bag. She descended the stairs of the psych ward and walked out the double doors into the sunshine. Sam was leaning against the side of the Buick, having insisted on coming with even though there wasn't much he could do.

"What happened? How'd it go? What'd she say?" Karoline held up a hand to cut Sam's ramble short as she opened the driver's and door and got into, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Pretty much the exact same thing the article said," She informed him as he sat down in the passenger's seat and shut the door. "Visited by an Angel that told her to kill a man. Mm, plus she said that it gave her a sign."

"That wasn't in the papers." Sam realized and the blonde nodded. "What was the sign."

"She didn't say exactly," She answered with a light shrug. "But, she did say when she saw this Angel she was filled with this feeling, couldn't describe it exactly. Said the Angel said the man was evil and when she saw him the next day-" She let the sentence hang drawing a line across her neck with her finger and clicking her tongue.

"So, what're you thinking?" Karoline glanced at Sam briefly before returning her eyes on the road.

"I think it's likely she popped one too many happy pills and thought she saw an Angel," before Sam could say anything else Karoline continued. "But I also think, there could be a chance it actually was an Avenging Angel."

"Really?"

Karoline shrugged as she parked the car in front of the motel room they had gotten, "There's gotta be at least some good in the world, it can't be all bad, right?" She asked rhetorically, pulling the keys from the ignition. They both got out and Karoline locked up her car as Sam opened his and Dean's motel room door. Inside Alayna was sitting at the table on her phone while Dean was laying on the bed with his eyes closed and headphones in, the bed vibrated, massaging his body.

"Hey," Karoline called their attention, but Alayna was the only one to look up. Karoline looked over at Alayna then to Dean, "Hey!" She tried again, same result.

"It's not gonna work," Alayna informed her sister. "He's been glued to that thing for almost an hour now." Karoline looked from her sister to Dean, her eyes narrowed in thought.

"Okay," She shrugged, throwing off her jacket and tossing her purse onto the bed next to her. Sam and Alayna shared a look waiting for whatever the blonde had planned. "DEAN!" She shrilled, throwing herself on top of him, and grabbing his arms as they both went tumbling off the side of the bed with a loud thud. Sam and Alayna's eyes widened and they hurried over to where the two had fallen, both of them sprawled out on the carpet.

"What the hell?" Dean finally asked after he realized exactly what happened.

"You were ignoring me, I didn't like it." She answered simply, sitting up and dusting herself off. Dean let out a groan, dropping his head back against the carpet, to lazy to get up. Sam held out a hand to his brother and helped him up, the older Winchester letting out a deep sigh as he dusted himself off.

"You got to try this bed," Dean told them with a grin, rolling back onto the bed. "I mean, there really is magic in the magic fingers."

"Dean, you're enjoying that way too much," Sam told his brother. "It's kind of making me uncomfortable," He added, making Alayna and Karoline laugh.

"What am I supposed to do? You both got me on lockdown here and Alayna is probably the most boring roommate ever. I'm bored out of my skull," He complained, frowning at his brother and Karoline.

Alayna gasped over dramatically, "I am not boring!"

"You're right," Dean conceded. "You were entertaining for the first twenty minutes. Then you started reading on your phone and it was like you weren't even here." Alayna opened her mouth to retort, but couldn't come up with anything so instead she clamped her mouth shut and dropped into the chair with a pout. "Exactly."

"Whatever, the point is Sammy and I weren't the Bank Robbers all over the news," Karoline pointed out. "You two were."

"And we couldn't risk either of you just walking into a government facility," Sam added to her point, but Dean just let out an annoyed noise from the back of his throat. Sam rolled his eyes waving a hand at him before turning away and walking into the bathroom. Karoline stood up from her seat and glanced over at the shut bathroom door before looking over at Dean.

"So-" her words turned to a surprise gasp as Dean jerked up and snaked an arm around her waist to pull her down onto the bed next to him.

"It's awesome, you have to try it." Dean grinned at the blonde, settling back onto the bed with a content sigh. Karoline let out a breathy laugh, but made no move to get up, just turned over to face Dean with an arm tucked under her head. He had his eyes closed and his face just looked so relax, it was a nice sight, different from his constant worrying. They had only been there for half a minute or so when there was a dull clink and the machine that was vibrating the bed slowly stopped. "Damn it. That was my last quarter," Dean muttered before raising his voice to yell, "Hey, Sammy. You got any quarters?"

"No," Sam stated from where he was washing his hands in the bathroom, his voice still containing the irritation from earlier.

"How about you?" He glanced from Karoline to Alayna and both girls shook their head in response as Sam walked out of the bathroom to sit on one of the seats. "So, did you get in to see that crazy hooker?" Dean asked Karoline as she got up to make herself some coffee.

"Gloria Sitnik," She corrected Dean. "And yeah, I did,"

"And we're not so sure she's crazy," Sam added, making Alayna glanced at them sharply.

"But, she seriously believes that she was... touched by an angel?" Karoline turned from the coffee machine to see Dean was now up from the bed and leaning on a wall.

"Yeah, she does," Karoline confirmed without a doubt. "Blinding light, feelings, the usual. She's living in a locked ward, and she seemed totally at peace."

"Oh, yeah, you're right - sounds completely sane," Dean stated, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "What about the dude she stabbed?"

"Carl Gulley," Alayna added, remembering his name from the papers.

Karoline nodded, "Apparently she killed him cause he was evil."

"Was he?" Dean questioned.

"We don't know," Sam answered for the blonde. "We looked. We couldn't find any dirt on him," Him and the two girls had searched before Karoline and Sam went to the psych ward, for they'd thought that maybe they could get more information out of her if they knew something.

"He didn't have a criminal record," Alayna spoke up, leaning forward on her arms. "He had a job at the campus as a librarian, had lots of friends, was a churchgoer," Dean hummed thoughtfully at her words.

"So, Gloria's just your standard-issue wacko?" Dean summed up. "I mean, she wouldn't be the first nut job in history to kill in the name of religion, know what I mean?"

"Yeah, but she is the second in this town to murder someone and say an angel told them to," Karoline pointed out. "It's odd enough that it's worth checking into,"

"Odd - yeah. Supernatural - maybe. But angels - I don't think so," Dean told them, glancing at the floor as he spoke.

"Why not?" Sam questioned, and Alayna glanced at the floor as well, in thought.

"Because they don't exist," Alayna informed him, looking up from the ground. Sam stared at her for a moment before his eyes flicked to Dean and then back.

"Guys," Karoline sighed, glancing out the window briefly then back at Dean and her sister "There's ten times as much lore on Angels as there is about anything else we've ever hunted,"

"Hey, you know what? There's a ton of lore on unicorns, too. In fact, I hear that they ride on silver moonbeams and they shoot rainbows out of their ass," Dean grinned sarcastically at her.

"Wait," Karoline face morphed into a completely heartbroken look as she sunk into a chair. "Unicorns aren't real?" Alayna let out a small laugh as Karoline let out a shaky breath. "Well, my childhood is just crushed now, thank you Dean."

"That's cute," Dean stated sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"Look, we're just saying that some things are just made up," Alayna piped up earning her sister and Sam's attention.

"And you two've got angels on the made up list?" Sam asked incredulously.

"Yep," Dean didn't sound at all sorry or confused about it.

"Why?" He questioned, his eyes flicking back and forth between Dean and Alayna.

"Because I've never actually seen one," Dean answered when Alayna didn't speak up.

"So, what?" Sam asked, his voice growing more incredulous with each word.

"So, I believe in what I can see."

"We see things most people couldn't even dream about," Karoline pointed out with a frown.

"You're right," Alayna nodded, agreeing with her. "We've seen them. That's proof that they're real. But, we've never seen anything that even looked like an Angel. Don't you think if Angels existed, then they'd make their presence known, not just sit back and let all these horrible things run wild?"

"Exactly. This is a demon or a spirit. You know, they find people a few fries short of a happy meal, and they trick them into killing these randoms," Dean finished his rant, his eyes darting around the room as he sat on the bed.

"Maybe," Sam conceded, unsure about how to respond to his brother's outburst.

"Can we just - I'm going stir-crazy. Hey, let's go by Gloria's apartment, huh?" Dean stood, beginning to pace the floor.

"Went this morning, nothing," Karoline informed him. "No sulfur or EMF,"

"And you sure there wasn't any fluffy, white wing feathers?" Dean questioned sardonically and Karoline shot him a look pulling him back to sit down next to her, his pacing making her more tense then she already was.

"Didn't Gloria say this 'Angel' gave her a sign, on Carl's porch? We should check that out." Alayna remembered, standing to pull on her jacket.

"Could be something at his house," Dean hurriedly nodded, wanting to get out of the room. "It's worth checking out,"

***

"Hey, Sammy, Kari," Alayna called to him as she stood on the second step of the porch and looked at the small figurine that was sitting to the right of the door. Karoline and the boys turned to look at the brunette as she gestured to the sculpted white angel. "I found the sign. It's really something," She ascended the last couple steps to walk on the porch, gazing into the windows.

"Well, I think we learned a valuable lesson. Always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year's, or you might get filleted by a hooker from God," Karoline shot Dean a look as Alayna descended the steps to rejoin the three.

"I'm laughing on the inside," Sam muttered sarcastically, his mouth twisting into a frown before he began walking along the side of the house with Dean and the girls following. They stopped beside the porch, and suddenly Karoline noticed the cellar doors.

"You know, Gloria's exact words were 'the man was guilty to his deepest foundations'," Dean glanced at the blonde questioningly as she spoke.

"You think she literally meant the foundation?" She shrugged, kneeling beside the lock that secured the chains around the rusty door handles. She picked it in no time, and Dean and Sam heaved the doors open. Alayna reached into her pocket, pulling out the small flashlight she always carried and clicking it on before descending into the darkness. Dean, Sam, and the girls looked around for only a moment, but it was enough.

"Hey," Sam hissed, causing Dean and the girls to look up.

"Found something?" Alayna questioned, moving to where Sam was pulling at something in the wall. "What's that?" Sam jerked it out of the wall, shining his light on it.

"It's a fingernail," Dean grabbed two shovels, and Dean and Sam began digging into the ground. Half an hour later they were standing above a pit that held a skeleton in it.

"So, much for the innocent churchgoing librarian," Karoline quipped.

"Yeah, whatever made Gloria kill him, knew what it was doing," Alayna admitted begrudgingly.

The police scanner's volume had been lowered to a dull hum after they'd heard another guy had been stabbed in the name of the lord. Karoline and Alayna were sitting at the table, the latter trying to find anything she could about what was happening without researching Angels. Karoline glanced sideways at Dean, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, to see he was looking back at the massager. She'd given him a quarter earlier, but that was it, she wasn't about to waste all her change on a machine. "Find anything?" Dean asked, boredom in his voice.

"Just some useless lore on Angels," Alayna answered before Karoline could, with an annoyed sigh before leaning back in her chair and shutting Sam's laptop.

"It's not useless if that's what's really going on," Karoline retorted as she glanced at Dean to see him rubbing his eyes tiredly. "You should get some sleep," She told him before either could reply to her comment.

"I'm fine," He answered gruffly, turning his head to look at the yellow sticky note with the victim's address. Before Karoline could object, Sam walked through the door. "Did you bring quarters?" Was his first question. Sam glanced at the machine, frowning before his eyes met Alayna and Karoline's who both shook their heads.

"Dude, I'm not enabling your sick habit," Sam spoke harshly, throwing Dean the bag of food he'd brought. "You're like one of those lab rats who pushes the pleasure button instead of the food button until it dies," both girls laughed lightly at Sam's description of Dean.

"What are you talking about? I eat," He protested while he threw the food bag behind him.

"We got news," Alayna informed Sam, getting back to the hunt.

"Me too," Sam answered. "Three students have disappeared off the college campus this year," Sam told them, and Alayna frowned, not liking where this was going. "All of them were last seen at the library,"

"Where Carl Gulley worked?" Sam nodded in confirmation, and Alayna's face twisted into an expression of disgust.

"Sick bastard."

"So Gloria's angel-" Sam began, earning looks from both Alayna and Dean.

"Angel?" Dean questioned, raising his eyebrows.

"Okay, whatever this thing is," Sam chose his words more carefully.

"Whatever it is, it hit again," Alayna cut in.

"What?" He asked in surprise.

"We've been listening to the police radio before you came back. There was a local drunk, Zach Smith. He rang the doorbell of a stranger's house last night and stabbed him in the heart," Karoline related the information they'd overheard.

"I'm guessing he went to the police and confessed?" Sam took a stab in the dark.

"Yep. Roma Downey made him do it," Dean answered sarcastically, rising and going over to the board where they'd posted the note. "We got the victim's address," He took it off and held it up for Sam to see. Three minutes later, they were in the cars heading for the man's house, which was now a crime scene. Dean and Karoline parked a few blocks away, and the four came up behind the house, jumping onto the dumpster before climbing over the gate. Sam jammed the switchblade up through the window, slowly flipping the lock before opening it. He slipped in first, quickly followed by Alayna, then Karoline, and then Dean came in last. Sam went straight for the computer while Alayna went to the home office and searched through his drawers, trying to find anything that might point to an unholy life. Karoline went into the back room to look through his stuff, see what dirt she could find on him while Dean went to the bookshelves to try to discern anything from what was lying around his living room.

"Find anything?" Sam questioned as Dean and Karoline both came into view, Dean flipping through a magazine.

"Frank liked his catalog shopping. That's about all I got," He summarized his fifteen minutes of searching while Alayna flipped through some files she found while she leaned on the table where Sam was working.

"I got nothing, except for the fact this guy owned way too many crocks for it to be healthy," Karoline informed them. "Either of you find anything?"

"Not really," Alayna threw the file onto the counter with an annoyed sigh.

"Not much here either," Sam agreed with the other three. "Except he's got this one locked file on his computer that..." He trailed off in thought. "Hold on," Alayna pushed off the table to look at what he was doing on the computer. He typed in the password and access was granted. A list of emails came up from a girl named Jennifer.

"My God," Alayna breathed as the e-mails continued to load. There was at least fifty, if not more.

"What?" Dean questioned, both him and Karoline coming around to Sam's other side to see what they were seeing.

"He's got all these e-mails, dozens, to this lady named Jennifer," He opened some of them, and Alayna's face scrunched in disgust.

"This lady who's only thirteen," Alayna pointed out, leaning away from the laptop.

"Oh, I don't want to hear this," Karoline sounded as repulsed as her sister felt.

"Looks like they met in a chat room," Sam deduced, flipping through the emails. "These are pretty personal, guys. Look at that," He clicked on another one. "Setting up a time and place to meet,"

"Great," Dean muttered sarcastically.

"Wait," Alayna clicked on the email that set up when and where they were going to meet. "That's today," She took a deep breath.

"Well, I guess if your gonna stab someone, good timing," Dean shrugged, walking around to the opposite end of the table. "I don't know, guys. This is weird. I mean, sure, some spirits are out for vengeance, but this one's almost like a do-gooder, like a-" Dean searched to find the words.

"Avenging Angel?" Karoline supplied, making Alayna frown and Dean turn away. "You two got any better ideas. I mean, we have three guys, who aren't connected in anyway, all stabbed through the heart." Karoline glanced back at Alayna as she spoke, but the brunette didn't meet her eyes. Alayna was too busy scanning the room, searching for anything that could explain what was happening. Anything except Angels. "Two out of three were world-class perverts, and I bet if I dug deep enough on the first guy-"

"Wait," Alayna cut off Karoline's rant, making both her and the boys turn to look at her as she walked around the table and to a bulletin board. "Carl Gulley was a churchgoer," she took a flyer off the bulletin board. "It was Our Lady of the Angels, right?"

"Uh... yeah, I think so," Sam replied as Dean looked over Alayna's shoulder at the flyer she was holding.

"Of course that would be the name," Dean muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"They went to the same church," Alayna held up the flyer to show Sam. "Looks like they are connected after all,"

"Come on," Dean was all too eager to follow the lead to the church, and they headed back the way they'd come, walking to the cars before driving away quickly.