Supernatural--Cold Fire

by John Passarella

  “Don’t want to call the police on Brianna, but I’m lost, man. What do I do?”

  Retrieving his shotgun, Sam shone his flashlight into the darkness and down. Standing beside him, Dean saw the top of a crude staircase descending into darkness. Obviously whoever built those stairs and installed the hidden door panel wanted the underground space kept secret.

  As Sam took the first step into the darkness, planting his foot on the top tread, his flashlight flickered and died. This time, no amount of whacking or shaking brought it back to life. He gestured for Dean to hand over his and began his descent.

  “Agent Banks!”

  “Malik, don’t leave the baby alone,” Dean said quickly. His phone display now provided the only source of illumination in the barn as Sam sank into the gloom. “I’ll send someone as soon as possible.”

  “What about”—another loud crash—“Brianna?”

  “Keep ducking,” Dean said. “Next time she’s out, tie her up.”

  “Tie her—what?”

  “To stop her from hurting you or the baby next time she wakes up,” Dean said. “Until we figure this out.”

  “I don’t know, man, that’s—!”

  Dean heard a loud clang of metal, followed by a pained curse from Malik.

  “Okay—okay, I’ll tie her up,” Malik said. “Get here quick!”

  Dean called Castiel then followed Sam into the deeper darkness beneath the Larkin barn.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Castiel had a longer drive than the Winchesters, but judging by the maps and the status of the Coventry Crossing development, potentially a smaller area to investigate. Only the far section of the development remained under construction. Any building or remnants of the former Larkin land would be in that confined area. If the pontianak had been in any other section, her hibernation would have been interrupted long before the Holcombs arrived in Braden Heights.

  Spotting a decorative sign up ahead, Castiel tapped the brake of the Lincoln to confirm he had arrived. Fronting a section of well-maintained landscaping on the near side of the development’s entrance, the sign proclaimed COVENTRY CROSSING in bright green script letters. Beneath the wooden sign, a white vinyl banner billowing in the breeze advised, FINAL PHASE – HURRY BEFORE THEY’RE ALL GONE!

  As Castiel entered the development, he looked left and right, seeing nothing but completed and occupied homes, windows aglow in amber light. From the plans, he recalled that the homes lined the paths of two mirrored S curves on either side of a gazebo overlooking a drainage pond, with a few outlying cul-de-sacs for deluxe units.

  The snaking roadway was wide enough for two lanes of traffic and parking on either side. By the time Castiel reached the last loop of the second S, the finished homes were replaced by wooden frameworks, skeletal houses in various states of construction, and the blacktop gave way to stretches of gravel and packed dirt between loose mounds of overturned earth. Beyond a dark construction trailer and two portable toilets, a backhoe and a bulldozer had been left near the entrance to the last planned cul-de-sac. The land for these last few homes hadn’t been entirely cleared of trees and brush. And some uprooted trees remained, cast aside on top of and beside excavated mounds of earth.

  The last of the streetlights illuminated little beyond the construction vehicles, the fallen trees suggested by their silhouettes. Castiel flicked on his high beams and drove in a slow arc, revealing a thin line of trees beyond the planned cul-de-sac, trees that would likely survive to offer shade for future homeowners. The halogen lights stabbed into the darkness and cast stark shadows of the fallen trees and branches on the standing trees behind them. As the twin beams swept from one side to the other, the branches seemed to twist and contort, as if the trees struggled to right themselves but fell quiescent with the return of darkness.

  Castiel had hoped to see an old manmade structure left over from the previous landowners, maybe a rundown house or a storage shed, anything that could have survived and offered shelter for the past fifty years. Unfortunately, he saw nothing other than trees beyond the edges of the fresh construction. Parking by the construction trailer, he switched off the engine and proceeded on foot, carrying a flashlight to check his footing as he left the dirt path and strode toward the tree line. Maybe he’d find a dilapidated groundskeeper’s shack among the trees, unpainted wood that blended into the background.

  He climbed the first earthen mound, his shoes sinking into the dirt and knotted roots just enough to compromise his balance. Recovering enough to avoid a spill, he worked his way to the top and shone his flashlight into the overturned brush beyond. Here and there, broken branches erupted from the loose soil as if they had grown independently at tortured angles. Some were dark, others long dead and stripped of bark, a few unnaturally pale and grouped together, possibly the white branches of a fallen sycamore.

  As he was about to descend the mound and continue deeper into the brush, his cell phone rang. He expected a call from Dean or Sam, but frowned in alarm when he answered and heard Dr. Hartwell’s frantic voice.

  “You said to call if anything strange happened,” Dr. Hartwell said urgently. “Well, something strange is happening now!”

  Claire!

  “Chloe? Is she in danger?”

  Castiel had already begun to retreat, descending the earthen mound and hurrying to his Lincoln, frustrated again that he could no longer teleport himself where he was needed.

  “It’s Chloe and Olivia,” Dr. Hartwell said. “In the middle of labor, they both fell into a comatose state. Near as I can determine, it happened to both simultaneously. It makes no sense.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Castiel said as he pulled open his car door.

  “One minute they were both in labor, everything normal,” she said. “Then, while I was checking on Chloe, she started coughing and gagging—but she’d only had a few ice chips. Barely had time to check that her airway was clear when one of the nurses rushed into Chloe’s room to tell me Olivia was choking. That’s when I saw spontaneous bruising appear on Chloe’s throat.”

  “Bruising?”

  Castiel had started the Lincoln, took a wide turn and drove back onto the finished roadway toward the development’s exit.

  “I can’t explain it,” Dr. Hartwell said. “As if invisible hands were strangling her right there in the bed. Olivia exhibits the same bruising on her throat. Less than a minute later, Chloe’s eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed into unconsciousness. She’s been unresponsive ever since. From what I can tell, the same thing happened to Olivia at the same time. Neither will respond to stimuli. Worse, their heart rates are slowly dropping.”

  “Was the strange woman spotted during any of this?”

  “Who—? No! No one has seen her and she certainly hasn’t been in my birthing rooms.”

  “And the babies?”

  “The whole labor process is… again, I’m at a loss for words,” she said, frustrated. “Frozen. Like someone hit a pause button. Contractions have ceased. The babies don’t appear to be in distress, but I’m not sure how much longer I can wait before attempting C-sections on both of them.”

  “I see,” Castiel said grimly. He leaned over the dash, checked traffic on the highway before darting out.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”

  “My patients,” she said, exasperated. “What in hell is happening to my patients?”

  “I don’t know,” Castiel said. Whatever the pontianak intended, this was new and completely unexpected. Her intentions, while definitely malicious, remained a mystery. “But I’m on my way.”

  He disconnected the call as he raced to Lovering Maternity Center, weaving around slow moving vehicles when necessary, despite the risk of police interference. He’d rely on the false FBI identity if they tried to stop him, though he had no intention of pulling over to flash it. His bigger concern was what he could do once he arrived at LMC that a trained doctor
could not.

  His cell phone rang again.

  Staring intently at the road in front of him, he answered without checking the display and assumed Dr. Hartwell was calling with an update. “Doctor, what’s—?”

  “Cass, it’s Dean. Where are you?”

  “I had to leave Coventry Crossing,” Castiel said. “Dr. Hartwell called. There’s an emergency at LMC.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  Castiel relayed the information he’d received from the OB/GYN.

  “Forget that,” Dean said. “I have a bigger emergency.”

  Castiel doubted that. Four lives were at stake at LMC. “Dean, I don’t—!”

  Dean launched into a quick explanation of Malik’s call. “You need to get over there before she hurts Malik or the baby.”

  “But four lives are—”

  “Cass, you can’t help them,” Dean said. “Without your full Grace, you can’t heal anyone.” He was silent for a moment, waiting. When Castiel didn’t respond, Dean continued in a more sympathetic tone. “You can help with Brianna. And what if this spreads to the other new moms? Cass, something big is happening now. Sam and I may have located the lair. We’ll stop her but you need to help these people. Let Dr. Hartwell handle her patients.”

  Castiel sighed. “Dean…”

  He kept picturing Claire in danger, Claire in a coma and slowly dying, and he couldn’t help her. But Chloe wasn’t Claire. And even if it was Claire unconscious in that hospital bed, Castiel couldn’t help her in his present condition. Dean was right. He’d been thinking the same thing before the call. If he gave in to his selfish need to be present at the hospital, he would be of no help to anybody.

  “You know I’m right.”

  After a long moment of silence, Castiel said softly, “Yes.”

  “Okay,” Dean said. “Here’s the Greens’ address.”

  At the next intersection, Castiel drove through a gas station driveway, startling one of the attendants as he shot across the lot to the cross street. He made a left turn at the light and headed back the way he’d come.

  * * *

  In the undeveloped section of Coventry Crossing, beyond the yellow construction vehicles and the dirt mound upon which Castiel had stood to shine his flashlight into the darkness beyond the toppled trees, the clump of white branches he’d observed poking through the dirt at odd angles began to move, jerking spastically to free themselves from the tangle of roots and grass, and the cold weight of dirt and stone. Human arms and legs, rather than broken tree limbs. Bowed backs heaved upward out of the muck, revealing pale faces, with mottled skin drawn taut as drum skin over broken jaws and split skulls. Each of the five desiccated bodies lurched upright, revealing swollen abdomens. Five young women killed in their prime, buried in shallow graves fifty years ago, only to rise again upon hearing the insistent call.

  They climbed and staggered their way over the loose mounds of dirt and broken trees, silent as death but unwavering. With each agonizing step, their bones knit, rends in their dried flesh sealed, and they began to resemble the young women they had been long ago, rather than the skeletal remains they had become over the span of five decades.

  But the repairs to the ruined human forms went beyond restoration to transformation. Fingernails that grew back soon thickened and elongated into claws. Teeth extended downward to form fangs.

  They were needed so they answered the call, and because they answered the call, they were rewarded with a second chance. Wrath flowed like venom through their now inhuman veins. Reborn as vengeful predators, they would never again be victims.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Gary Atherton stood in the hallway outside the nursery as Denise lowered Gabriel, freshly fed, changed, and finally asleep, into his crib. A low-level headache, sign of his own lack of sleep lately, throbbed behind his brow. When he dozed, he dreamt of freshly brewed coffee. Never decaff. Sometimes he felt as if caffeine was the only thing that kept him going.

  Denise and he had tried to have a child through their late twenties and thirties but it never happened for them. And they decided to let nature take its course—or not. If it wasn’t meant to be, they wouldn’t force the issue with tests and interventions. Once Denise turned forty, they assumed fate had decided for them: childless couple. Three years later, long after they’d given up on the idea of shepherding a new Atherton generation through the trials and tribulations of life, Denise became pregnant. Just having that news confirmed was quite a mental adjustment for both of them. Suddenly the life together they had come to accept demanded a complete revision with a nine-month deadline. Rather, eight months, counting from the time the news finally sunk in. And while the mind was more than willing, the body was not always able.

  Gary tried not to think too far ahead. Knowing he would be in his mid-sixties when his son graduated from high school in no way prepared him for changing diapers at 3AM today. Of course, Denise was more sanguine about the whole affair, insisting they take things one day a time, and that having a young child in their lives would keep them young at heart. But then, Denise was always a glass-half-full person, which was one of the things he loved about her. Gary would admit the glass was half full, but understood that water evaporated and glass itself was fragile. Almost four years Denise’s senior, Gary felt that extra mileage entitled him to a bit of skepticism. Nevertheless, he loved Denise and he loved little Gabriel. So what could go wrong?

  Denise backed out of the room and closed the door so softly he never heard it click shut. Gabriel continued to sleep. Gary debated a nap versus a ginormous mug of coffee. If he could take a power nap while absorbing coffee intravenously, that would be ideal, but neither he nor Denise had the medical chops to rig a DIY IV java drip.

  Denise turned toward him, smiling. She whispered, “Rocking chair worked like a charm.”

  “We shall have one in every room of the house,” Gary declared sotto voce as they walked toward the staircase.

  He started down the stairs ahead of her, paused to look back and said, “You know what else—?”

  Denise stood above him, her eyelids fluttering as her eyes rolled upward, showing nearly all whites.

  “Denise, are you—?”

  She gritted her teeth and spoke angrily, “You bastard!”

  “What—?”

  She shoved him hard.

  Flung backward, he reached for the hand rail, missed, wrenching his arm as it slipped between two balusters before popping free, and tumbled down the stairs. Fortunately, the stairs were carpeted, a deep pile that cushioned each impact as he rolled down to the landing.

  “Denise! What the hell—?”

  She stormed down the stairs after him, her face contorted in rage.

  He scrambled to his feet and stood there dumbfounded as she charged him. When she struck him with her fists, he tried to catch her wrists and missed. Then she tried to claw out his eyes with her fingernails, spittle flying from her mouth. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in her brain to turn her into a raving lunatic. With his forearm he shielded his eyes and backed away from the continuing assault. Everything happened so fast, he couldn’t process the information and think of an appropriate course of action, other than defending himself.

  Finally, he shoved her sideways, onto the sofa. But she rebounded off the cushions and jumped onto the glass coffee table to launch herself at him. As she pushed off, the inset glass panel cracked and collapsed. Her slipper-covered foot dropped through the break and she fell face first on the other side of the table, struggling to get up.

  “Son of a bitch!” she raged. “I’ll never forgive you!”

  “What the hell, Denise?” Gary asked. “Have you gone completely insane?”

  As she pulled her trapped foot free, a wicked smile appeared on her face. She lunged backward and grabbed a wedge-shaped piece of broken glass, holding it like a dagger, but so tightly her palm bled around the edges.

  “Worthless piece of crap,” she hissed. “I’ll cut your throat!�
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  “Jesus!” Gary said, backing away, hands raised. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’re what’s wrong with me, Ronnie!”

  “Ronnie?”

  “Coward! Rotten piece of filth!”

  She lunged, swinging the broken glass at his throat, as promised. Expecting the attack, Gary managed to block it with his hand, but the sharp edge sliced his left palm from the base of his little finger to his wrist. “Christ, Denise! That hurts!”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Nothing hurts when you’re dead!”

  At the last word, she lunged again, this time stabbing the glass at his abdomen. The pointed tip of the glass struck his metal belt buckle and snapped off. Denise stumbled and fell into his arms, and this time he managed to catch her wrist and hold it clear of his body. But she struggled fiercely, as if her life depended on freeing herself and killing him.

  With a frustrated roar, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into his shoulder, biting through the cloth of his flannel shirt and undershirt into his flesh. At first he felt pressure but as she continued to bear down her teeth punctured his flesh. Grunting in pain, he redoubled his effort to keep her right hand away from him but felt his grip slipping as he lost more blood through the lacerated palm.

  “Denise—stop!”

  And again, like a switch flipped in her brain, all the ferocity in her tensed body vanished. He looked at her face and her eyes appeared normal, if confused. She looked back and forth, seemed to register that he had both her wrists pinned and frowned at him. “Gary? What’s going on? Are you bleed—?”

  Her body went limp.

  She collapsed in his arms, as if she’d fainted. He’d never witnessed anyone faint before, but he didn’t think she was faking it. Sweeping her up in his arms, he laid her on the couch, then grabbed a kitchen towel to wrap his bleeding palm until he could bandage it properly. For a minute, he sat staring at her, unconscious—sleeping?—on the sofa, looking so peaceful and relaxed. If not for the shattered coffee table and his bloody hand, he might almost believe he’d imagined her vicious attack.