Supernatural--Cold Fire

by John Passarella

  “Lot of good it did.”

  Sam shook his head. “Brutal stuff. Whole families and villages—men, women and children—massacred by machine-gun fire… weak and injured prisoners were bayoneted, then beheaded and dumped in mass graves. Others doused in petrol and burned alive.”

  “Saw a documentary on the Bataan Death March. Nasty stuff.”

  After reading several sections in a hushed whisper, Sam flipped through more pages, skipping ahead, seeking answers about what could have happened fifty years ago to spawn a pontianak terrorizing Braden Heights today.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “It gets worse.”

  “Not surprised.”

  “Apparently Nodd was captured by the Japanese,” Sam said. “His writing is a mess, almost illegible, like he struggled to put some of this on paper, reliving the horror… says he never told anyone about this stuff, not even Malaya. Nobody in the service ever knew he’d been captured…”

  “How is that possible?”

  Sam shook his head and kept reading. “He was forced by a Japanese doctor—Kurokawa, but sometimes he calls him Dr. Smiles—to assist in wartime experiments… he’s talking about amputations and vivisections of healthy civilians captured during the occupation… Nodd’s writing… he’s almost incoherent at this point… the victims were alive during these surgeries and Kurokawa refused to use sedation on any of them. When he finished with a subject, assuming they were still alive, he would bob his head and smile broadly, then slice their throats open.”

  “A nightmare clown college graduate.”

  “Kurokawa removed limbs, eyes, genitalia… he would cut them open and remove organs… all in the name of science, testing endurance, survival times… and nutrition…”

  “Do I even want to know?”

  “Looks like he fed human flesh and organs to the other prisoners,” Sam said, shaking his head in disgust. “Something about alternative food sources in times of severe rationing. He cut up men, women—and children… to test the quality of the meat. And Kurokawa made Nodd participate in all of this, acted like he was Nodd’s mentor. Nodd finally guessed that Kurokawa was testing his psychological limits, to see how far he could push him on penalty of torture and death before Nodd would refuse.”

  “Did he?” Dean asked. “Stop?”

  “Nodd didn’t stop,” Sam said. “He snapped. Happened around the time Kurokawa started cutting up children and feeding them to other prisoners. Nodd acted like he was going along with it, very helpful… until he gained Kurokawa’s trust or at least inattention—he was never sure—long enough to conceal a scalpel. He picked his moment, when the two guards who were always present were distracted. Nodd flew into a rage, sliced open Kurokawa’s carotid artery, then jumped the nearest guard, cut his throat and killed the other guard with the first guard’s gun. He escaped in the night with minor physical wounds… told everyone afterward that he’d been injured and pinned down in enemy occupied territory until it was safe to get away… the whole ordeal messed with his head…”

  Dean exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath during the entire recitation. “I can imagine.”

  “Whole pages about how he knew he’d be punished… cursed for what he did, killing the innocents… until he met Malaya—Riza’s mother—while recovering from his physical injuries. When he writes about her, his whole tone changes… as if he rediscovered hope again, the doom and gloom forgotten. Says he’s found peace in himself. Looks like it ends there…”

  Sam flipped through several blank pages… and then the writing continued in a cramped hand, condensed and angry in the force of the letters on the paper.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Dean commented.

  “This section… it’s after Malaya died during childbirth. Convinced he’s being punished, that the hope was false and his life is cursed. A cruel trick of fate to make him think he escaped retribution for wartime atrocities… He knows he has to raise Riza alone and there’s no joy in it… he’s convinced it’s another trick. Love his daughter and she will die because he’s cursed. Or detach himself and she will become an agent of his punishment. Thinks he’s doomed no matter what he does.”

  “His kid never stood a chance.”

  “That’s the last he wrote… for years.”

  “What happened?”

  “Riza hooked up with a drifter, Ronald Deluzio… Nodd forbade her from seeing him, so naturally Riza—rebelling against her emotionally absent father—couldn’t resist Ronnie. Ends up pregnant, which infuriates Nodd. Like she’s making a mockery of her mother’s death. Squandering the life her mother’s sacrifice gave her. Says he blames the hospital for killing her mother. His mistake was letting others control what happened to her. Riza has always thought her life would have been so much better if her father had died instead.”

  “With Nodd as her old man,” Dean said, “kid has a point.”

  “So he convinces Riza to have her child at home,” Sam said. “Ah, here’s why. Apparently Ronnie couldn’t handle the idea of fatherhood at his age. Nodd writes, ‘I told her the last thing she wanted to hear, but it proves I was right all along and that’s reason enough. She must have had her own doubts because she now believes, as I have always warned her, that Ronnie ran off and left her to take care of the child alone.’” Sam paused, frowned. “Okay, this takes a turn…”

  “What now?”

  “Riza, devastated by Ronnie’s abandonment, agreed to the at-home birth and Nodd made the preparations, had everything he needed. This time he was in control… but during Riza’s labor, he was filled with rage and disgust at how Riza had wasted the life her mother gave her in death. Riza was screaming in pain. Nodd decided against drugs because they would take control from him, and he started berating her, blaming her for the pain, blaming her for killing her mother. And then he… Dean, he strangled his daughter to death during labor.”

  * * *

  Her face contorted with rage, Brianna raised the blender over her head in a two-handed grip. For a second or two, she paused, hands trembling, as if an internal struggle raged for control of her body. But the hesitation was fleeting and she hurled the appliance at her brother.

  “Duck!” Castiel told Malik who had, a moment before, leaned down to check on Kiara.

  When Malik hunkered down behind the sofa, Castiel raised a hand and sent a small wave of force to redirect the blender sideways, where it struck and toppled a flatscreen TV.

  “The hell was that?”

  “A blender,” Castiel said. “And a television.”

  Before this latest attack, Castiel had noted the onset of a nosebleed from Brianna’s left nostril. Whatever force possessed her and triggered the cyclical bouts of rage apparently caused physical damage to the host body. Either that, or her internal struggle for control was not without its own cost. Lacking his angelic ability to heal, Castiel needed to subdue Brianna before she suffered serious or permanent damage.

  “This is beyond crazy, man!” Malik said.

  Removing the necessity for her to fight the murderous possession might alleviate the physical toll it was taking. Until they discovered how to stop the recurring violent episodes, restraint remained the best option not only to protect potential victims of the attacks but the host body as well.

  “The rope?” Castiel asked.

  “Fell off the coffee table.”

  Castiel spotted the discarded clothesline, coiled between the front of the sofa and the coffee table. “Next time she passes out, take the infant upstairs. I will subdue Brianna.”

  “Don’t hurt her, man,” Malik said. “She’s my sister.”

  Brianna yanked out the kitchen drawers one by one, then paused and smiled. When her hand rose from the last drawer, she held a long serrated knife. This time her hand was eerily steady. “I’ll carve your face off,” she shouted as she walked out from behind the counter. “You hear me, Ronnie? I’ll carve your lying face off and shove it down your throat.”

  Castiel decided he couldn’t wait fo
r her to pass out.

  “Run,” he told Malik. “Now!”

  * * *

  “So Nodd killed his own daughter,” Dean said, the ramifications sinking in. “Explains why nobody ever heard from Riza again.”

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Sam returned his attention to the horrors revealed in the journal. “Nodd says Riza must share some of the blame for her own death, that there’s justice in her dying in a way similar to how she killed her mother. But Riza died before she could give birth. At first Nodd says this is fine because he won’t get attached to a grandchild who would only die or punish him later in life, as Riza had.” He flipped through some pages. “Oh… I was expecting remorse… but this is almost the opposite. He talks about the unexpected power he felt in taking a life at the moment of birth—short-circuiting creation—that it made him feel invincible. Total control.”

  “Doctor with a warped Old Testament god complex.”

  Sam paged through more of the journal, his look of disgust growing more pronounced. “He’s talking about other girls now…”

  “Right,” Dean said, realization dawning. “The copycats.”

  Sam nodded. “He talks about other wayward girls very close to their due date, how he offers them and their boyfriends money for a fresh start in a new town, under the strict condition they tell nobody about his generosity. Reason he gives them is he doesn’t want ‘beggars lining up at his door looking for handouts.’”

  “Free money, no strings attached,” Dean said. “What’s not to like?”

  “Plenty,” Sam said. “So these couples tell their close friends they’re leaving town for a better life. Maybe they compare themselves to Riza and Ronnie, but they leave the promised bankroll from Nodd out of those conversations. Once their friends expect them to run away, Nodd kills the young men and holds the women captive until they go into labor.”

  “And strangles them,” Dean said. “So nobody left Larkin’s Korner.”

  “Five couples,” Sam said. “He killed them all.” Sam turned a few more pages, nearing the end of the journal. “Until he had the ‘lapse of judgment’ at the hospital where he worked, which was his professional undoing. Knowing nothing about his homicidal hobby, his wealthy and powerful family swoop in to protect one of their own. As far as they’re concerned, he was traumatized by his war experience—without even knowing the full extent of it—then lost his wife and all contact with his only child and future grandchild. Taking full advantage of the sympathy card, Nodd was plotting his escape—from Larkin’s Korner and, more importantly, from suspicion and scrutiny. From what he’s written here, he planned to continue his killing spree…”

  Sam paused, shaking his head in disbelief at what he was reading. “He now believes Kurokawa—Dr. Smiles—really was a mentor, but at the time Nodd couldn’t see the power the man was offering him. He rambles about that for… a long time.” Sam turned the few last pages. “He’s made a checklist of everything he needs to do before he leaves town… pack up his equipment, destroy any evidence in his underground ‘workshop’… says he’s not worried about anyone discovering the bodies of the boyfriends, which he weighted and dumped in a remote lake fifty miles outside of town, but he buried the pregnant women in the woods on Larkin land and worries they’ll be found, decides it’s not worth the risk. But he says, ‘Riza’s situation is another matter altogether.’” Sam flipped back and forth between two pages. “Doesn’t say where her body is buried… The next entry is about finding a new place to continue after he assumes a false identity. That’s where it ends.”

  “Riza was the first,” Dean said.

  “She was special to him,” Sam added. “Not for who she was. But for getting him hooked on the power high from snuffing out life.”

  “Special enough to want her close?” Dean asked, turning the flashlight beam toward the shallow grave in the corner.

  “Dean, maybe we got this wrong,” Sam said. “We assumed Malaya dying in childbirth triggered the appearance of the pontianak. But that was an accident. What if it happened sixteen years later, when Nodd killed his own daughter during childbirth?”

  “He comes down here to dispose of the body, again—”

  “—and Riza somehow comes back to life as a pontianak.”

  “With a major score to settle against dear old Dad.”

  “Makes sense,” Sam said. “The man she loves abandons her and her unborn baby to an overbearing father who has been emotionally absent her whole life, which ends when he murders her and the unborn child.”

  “As a pontianak, she makes it her mission to kill the men around other pregnant women before they have a chance to betray or hurt them.”

  “Far as she’s concerned,” Sam said, “they’re all worthless and unreliable.”

  “Should update Cass,” Dean said. “Let him know what we’ve found.”

  He took out his cell phone, checked the signal: one bar. He tried walking out into the passageway. Not great, but he had to try. He dialed Castiel and waited three indistinct rings before the angel picked up. First thing he heard was a crash.

  “Dean?”

  “Cass? What’s happening?”

  “I’m at the Greens’,” Castiel said. “I’m… assessing the situation.”

  Sounded like he had his hands full. Dean gave him a brief rundown of what they’d found in Nodd’s secret underground room and in his journal. “So Nodd killed his daughter and those copycat couples. Then Riza came back to after-life as a pontianak.”

  “And killed her… father,” Castiel said. Another crash sounded. “Now any man close to a pregnant woman is fair game.”

  The connection was faint, with occasional drops of audio. Dean hunched over, eyes closed and a finger pressed to his left ear to focus on the call. “Kill them all,” he said. “Let God sort them out.”

  “God never participated in… a sorting process,” Castiel explained in all seriousness.

  “Don’t think she’s losing any sleep over it.”

  “Dean,” Sam called.

  “Just a second.”

  “Dean!” Sam said insistently. “Riza.”

  Dean looked up from his call. “What about R—?”

  “She’s here.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  At Castiel’s urging, Malik had run upstairs with a swaddled Kiara in his arms.

  Brianna was determined to kill Malik, her own brother, but in his absence, she seemed perfectly willing to accept Castiel as an amuse-bouche before moving on to her fratricidal entrée. She rushed him from the kitchen, clutching a long serrated knife in her right hand.

  Before taking the baby to safety, Malik had made Castiel promise not to hurt his sister. Even without that request, Castiel had not planned on harming Brianna, but refusing to created a tactical problem. How does one peacefully stop a person consumed by a fit of uncontrolled, irrational rage?

  Castiel waited until she was an arm’s length away from him—knife raised high to plunge it into his chest—then grabbed a throw pillow from a chair next to him. Gripping the pillow between both hands, he held it firmly in front of him to intercept the blow. The tip of the knife ripped through the embroidered fabric and the polyester fiber within, emerging from the near side, inches from his chest but trapped. He twisted his arms to wrench the blade from her grasp.

  “Brianna,” Castiel said in a calming tone, “you don’t want to do this.”

  Shrieking in frustration over the loss of her lethal weapon, she grabbed a ceramic lamp from the table beside the chair and smashed it across the side of Castiel’s head.

  The unexpected blow stunned him. He found himself on one knee as he regained his senses. And Brianna had returned to the kitchen in search of more makeshift weapons.

  Unless he could pin her down and wait for the next dormant period in her cycle, he would have to endure the nonstop assault that had trapped Malik behind the sofa. He dabbed at his scalp to see if he was bleeding, but his hand came away clean. He stuffed the bundle of unused clotheslin
e in his jacket pocket and started toward the kitchen, determined to subdue the frenzied woman.

  She grabbed an iron skillet out of a cabinet and threw it at him overhand, like an ax. Castiel raised his hand, palm out, then flicked it sideways with a push of force, and the skillet veered away in midair, smashing into several staircase balusters. A moment later, the tempered glass carafe from a coffee maker spun toward him. He flicked his wrist in the opposite direction and the carafe shattered against the wall.

  Dean chose that moment to call and update him on what he and Sam had found under the old Larkin barn. The angel took in the information about Nodd being a serial killer and his daughter becoming the vengeful force known as a pontianak while dodging kitchen projectiles hurled with deadly force. Brianna had shifted her attention to the pantry and a plentiful row of canned goods.

  Castiel heard Sam say the chilling words, “She’s here.”

  And then the connection died.

  Even if Castiel had his full Grace and could instantly appear next to the Winchesters, he would not have done so. The brothers could take care of themselves. He wasn’t so sure Malik, with a newborn in his care, would survive five more minutes with his homicidal sister. The angel was needed here, at this moment.

  The closer he came to Brianna, the more desperately she flung cans at him. He dodged some, redirected others, and continued to close the gap. When her supply of canned goods was exhausted and she cast about for something heavier than cereal boxes filled with bran flakes or uncooked pasta shells to hurl at him, he caught her wrists in his hands.

  “Stop this,” he said in his most commanding voice.

  She screamed and kicked him in the shins.

  He winced in pain just as she lunged forward, teeth bared to bite his face—