Supernatural--Cold Fire

by John Passarella

  One at a time, he told himself.

  Then the one standing directly in front of him shimmered and resolved into a new form. At first, he thought the change represented a stage in the human-to-pontianak transformation but she looked more human now, not less; different, but more than familiar to him. Whoever she had been before death, that identity had vanished, replaced by another. He blinked several times, but the face defied logic.

  The face belonged to Claire Novak.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Dean shook off the mental cobwebs, unsure how long he’d been out cold.

  But a loud crash had brought him back to struggling consciousness.

  Last thing he remembered was taking a violent, overhand swing at the pontianak, coming in at an angle sure to lop off her foul-smelling head, but she’d caught his wrist and tossed him across the room like a rag doll. As he shifted his position, he noticed all the broken, crumbly plywood around his legs and on his jeans. Remarkably, the flashlight still worked, spreading a wan illumination across the room. His upper torso was wedged into a hole in the wall his own body had created on impact. He had an inkling what it might feel like to be Wile E. Coyote.

  Another muddled moment passed before he realized he’d broken through a false wall into a hidden compartment. To his left, he saw the overturned hospital bed in the corner. In the center of the room, Riza Nodd stood over Sam—who’d lost the shotgun, not that it had done him much good—and looked about one hot second away from gutting him or snatching his eyeballs. Maybe the indecision about which assault to commit first was the only thing holding her back.

  Dean’s machete lay just out of reach. He’d need to lunge forward to grab it. But if he didn’t distract Riza pronto, Sam was a goner.

  He tried to rise, felt resistance and heaved himself upward.

  Something rattled and shifted behind him.

  Glancing up, Dean startled at the sight of a withered corpse, little more than a skeleton. “Whoa!”

  Riza surged forward, taking a swipe at Sam, who dropped flat on his back to evade her claws. At the same time, he raised his legs and struck her in the abdomen with the soles of his boots. She staggered back a few steps, not nearly far enough.

  Dean lurched upward to pry himself out of the gap in the false wall, while half expecting the skeleton to reanimate and throttle him with its bony hands. His violent movement jarred the skeleton again, and this time the skull—with scattered patches of shoulder-length blond hair and a paper-thin sheath of skin stretched taut over the bone—broke free, striking Dean in the chest before falling into the main room and rolling unevenly toward Riza.

  Pausing in her attack on Sam, Riza fixed on the displaced skull, sensing… something.

  Sam looked over his shoulder, staring at the headless skeleton as Dean pried himself free and snatched the machete by the handle. Glancing back to see what had caught Sam’s attention, he noticed the corpse in the wall wore the remnants of a black leather jacket.

  Sam pointed at the skeleton, but turned to face the pontianak.

  “That’s him…” Sam said. “That’s Ronnie. He never abandoned you, Riza. It was your father. He killed Ronnie and lied to you about it.”

  Riza stared at the skull. Then her head slowly rose to stare at the body hidden in the wall all these years, in her own lair. She’d never known.

  Sam eased out of her line of sight and climbed gradually to his feet, his motions slow and deliberate, nothing to startle her or trigger a reflexive attack. A single swipe of her claws could gut him or rip out his throat.

  Riza Nodd trembled with indecision.

  Perhaps questioning her purpose: Her reason for vengeance had been built on half-truths and lies. Her father had been the cause of all her misery, her death and the death of the man she loved and thought had abandoned her.

  Dean crouched, watching and waiting as Sam eased around Riza. His brother’s hand had slipped into his jacket pocket. Dean’s hand drifted to the metal object in his own jacket, one of the railroad spikes they purchased at On Track Locomotive Repair before coming to the farmhouse. Despite Riza’s indecision, Sam had to know other lives were still in danger. He couldn’t wait. There was still only one way for this to end. No mercy. Sam had to put her down.

  Impatience surged within Dean. The need to act, to attack, to take the decision out of Sam’s hands and kill her himself verged on overwhelming. When his impatience transformed into a simmering anger, he caught himself. Branded on his forearm, the Mark of Cain had begun to itch and throb, almost a burning sensation, goading him into a reckless assault. With considerable effort, he restrained the urge. The rational side of him knew that if he charged the pontianak now, he risked not just his own life, but Sam’s.

  Riza’s hands twitched.

  Maybe she sensed Sam removing the railroad spike from his pocket, holding it concealed in his hand, inching behind her. If she turned now…

  A battle raged silently within Dean as he struggled not only to ignore the siren call of rage from the Mark, burning with the heat of white phosphorus, but to remain utterly still while suppressing it. A sheen of sweat dampened his brow. He couldn’t attack her but—

  “Your father,” Dean called out, loud enough for her to hear without startling her. As he’d hoped, her gaze darted to her left, toward him and further away from Sam. “Real Edgar Allan Poe fan. Except plywood instead of bricks.”

  Still, Sam hesitated.

  Don’t let this go sideways…

  Finally, Dean couldn’t wait any longer. “Do it, Sammy!”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  With the railroad spike gripped in his right hand, flashlight in his left, Castiel climbed to his feet and backed away from the Claire doppelganger, unwilling to strike her down, even though he knew her appearance was a lie.

  “You’re not Claire.”

  It took him another moment or two to see through his own misperception. The evolving pontianak hadn’t taken on Claire’s appearance. She’d become the spitting image of Chloe. In the darkness, lit by the darting beam of the flashlight, his eyes had deceived him once again. How could he trust himself to determine who really stood before him? The recent mothers had been consumed by homicidal rages. Chloe and Olivia had slipped into a comatose state. In light of those events, he could imagine a situation where Chloe had left her maternity bed and made her way out here. What if he was looking at the real Chloe Sikes now, not a reanimated corpse that had taken on her likeness? Could he risk killing her?

  One of the other newborn pontianaks struck him from behind, a powerful and painful blow with her fresh claws, slicing through his coat and raking his flesh. Wincing in pain, he drove his forearm into the collarbone of the pontianak on his left and slammed her into the walk next to the Dutch door of a horse stall.

  He raised the railroad spike next to his ear, a moment away from driving the crude point deep into the newly formed hole at the nape of her neck. But she shimmered underneath his forearm, becoming another Chloe doppelganger—unless she was the real Chloe—and he stayed his hand.

  Hissing, the four other pontianaks closed ranks around him.

  By switching his grip, he wrapped his left arm around the throat of the second doppelganger and opened the bottom half of the Dutch door to back her into the stall. His captive reached up and clawed his arm, shredding his coat, her claws nicking his flesh, gradually slicing deeper.

  One by one, the other three pontianaks shimmered and then they too took on Chloe’s appearance. He faced four of her, tenuously holding a fifth. He was running out of options. Girding himself, he raised the railroad spike again, ready to strike down his captive.

  Unable to cast his doubt aside, he accepted it and whispered, “Forgive me.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Confronted with the evidence of Ronnie’s murder at her father’s hand, Riza was forced to doubt her reason for existence as a pontianak. Her black eyes rolled up in her head, revealing a coronal rim of white, and her tremors became more violent, her entire
body thrashing as if it might tear itself apart.

  Sam must have sensed a turning point. If she recovered from the seizure convinced that she must remain on her murderous path, despite evidence that Ronnie had had no intention of abandoning her and the baby, they might lose their only chance to defeat her.

  Leaping forward, Sam grabbed a clump of her hair and pulled her head down. He drove the point of the railroad spike into the hole in the back of her neck and jumped back.

  Riza shrieked in agony, whirled around to face Sam, arms spread wide, the claws on every finger twitching uncontrollably. According to the lore, the spike should have stopped her, even if it wasn’t enough to kill her on its own.

  Apparently, the lore’s wrong, Dean thought. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  But the frenzied moment passed, and the pontianak froze on the spot.

  Clutching his machete, Dean circled around the perimeter of the room, edging closer to Sam in case his brother needed his assistance with whatever happened next.

  A low moan escaped Riza’s throat then faded to silence as her abdomen began to pulse and ripple. She flinched, as if struck by an invisible hand. Then, with a wet tearing sound, her abdomen ripped open from the inside, flesh splitting apart along jagged lines, flaps of raw skin pushing outward.

  Slowly, a large, misshapen black mass emerged, rotting flesh spouting a thick umbilical cord, with a lamprey-like mouth, its glistening length surrounded by waving filaments like nerve endings seeking a connection. Straining against the fleshy confines of the pontianak’s womb, it pulled free of its mother’s body.

  The fleshy tentacle darted toward Sam, the quivering lamprey mouth straining, seeking a connection to exposed flesh.

  Wary, Sam stepped out of reach of the sucking mouth.

  Dean approached from the side, machete raised. “Here’s a sharp object.”

  A deft swing of the blade chopped off Riza’s head, less than an inch above the embedded railroad spike. Her body toppled sideways, little more than a dried husk. But the large mass inside plopped out onto the wood floor, and immediately skittered on stunted limbs toward Sam, its blood-sucking tentacle waving back and forth, the lamprey mouth—ringed with needle-teeth—ever-seeking.

  Dean tossed the machete to Sam, hilt first.

  Sam snagged it out of the air without taking his eyes off the pulsating monster making its unerring way toward him. With a quick sideways slice of the blade, he lopped off the waving cord. Then, gripping the hilt in both hands, he drove the point of the machete straight down, through the misshapen head of the langsuir, pinning it to the wooden floor.

  The creature twitched for a second or two, a seemingly involuntary response, then the stump of its tentacle drooped to the side, oozing a viscous black fluid. And it was over.

  Satisfied, Dean looked at Sam. “Salt all four bodies and burn the place down?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  * * *

  Castiel’s hand came forward, driving the spike toward the hole in the back of the doppelganger’s neck. But an instant before the tip struck home, all five of the pontianaks went limp and collapsed. He felt the tension evaporate from the one he held by the throat. Stepping back, he let her fall to the ground.

  None of them looked remotely like Chloe anymore.

  Within seconds, they decayed at an accelerated rate. Skin and muscle dissolved—along with the rotted contents of their wombs, lost forever now—exposing pale bones. Less than a minute after that, the bones began to collapse under their own weight, forming white piles of ash on the dirt floor. A swirling breeze, ushered in through the open barn door, scattered the ashes in a haze of dust.

  And soon the haze was gone as well.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  In the end, no rational explanation would suffice. But sometimes it was enough to know the nightmare had ended and would never return. The Winchesters owed them that much.

  Dean and Sam paid brief visits to Melissa Barrows and her parents, Malik and Brianna Green, and the Athertons to tell them their particular nightmares were over, that they could return to their normal lives, or what passed for normal for Melissa and Brianna, who grieved the loss of their husbands. The women showed no further signs of rage seizures. Obviously, injured family members wouldn’t press charges, with Melissa and Denise particularly relieved that Assistant Chief Cordero and Captain Sands had no plans to charge them with assaulting a police officer. Sam got the impression from Cordero that the BHPD was all too willing to put the whole bizarre series of events—along with the strange underground fire at the old Larkin farmhouse—in a case file marked “unsolved” and get back to routine law enforcement matters.

  The Winchesters returned to the Holcomb house—never a home—to discover Sally had made her final decision. She would return to San Bernardino, closer to family who would welcome her and her baby with open arms, far from the place that had claimed the life of her husband. The house was lined with boxes of all sizes. Furniture awaited the movers, scheduled to come the next morning.

  As she handed a box labeled “Special Occasion Plates” to her brother Ramon to take into the hallway, Sally turned to the Winchesters. “You caught the person who killed Dave?”

  “We stopped the killer,” Dean said without further explanation.

  Sally wrapped her arms around herself, as if to ward off a chill. “Will I need to come back for the trial?”

  “No trial,” Sam assured her. He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid the details of the case are classified.”

  Sally nodded, taking their word that justice had been served.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why David?”

  Dean and Sam had decided ahead of time that no good would come from telling Sally her arrival in Braden Heights along with her unexpected pregnancy had unleashed the pontianak on a killing spree. They couldn’t know for certain if the construction projects alone—disturbing her lair and displacing the remains of the other murdered women—would have been enough to awaken the dormant creature. So why dump the burden on Sally?

  “A case of mistaken identity,” Sam replied. “Brought on by extreme psychosis.”

  Again, she nodded, thanked them quietly for everything and showed them out.

  As they walked toward the Impala, Mary—Marilag—hurried after them and caught Sam by the arm. Dean stopped as Sam turned to face the old woman.

  “Was I right to tell her to leave?” she asked, her gaze flitting back and forth between them. On some level, she knew they’d kept some information from Sally, to spare her. “This place is cursed, diba?”

  “It was,” Sam admitted. “In a way. But not anymore.”

  “Not that she should stay,” Dean added. “She made the right decision.”

  “Good,” the old woman said, her voice quivering with emotion. “If only my memory about this town…”

  Sam took her hand. “Don’t punish yourself. Nobody could have known what was here.”

  “I’ll try, young man.” She forced a smile. “I’ll certainly try.”

  “Soon you’ll have a great grandchild to spoil,” Dean said.

  This time her smile was wide and heartfelt. “Yes, I will, won’t I?”

  * * *

  While the Winchesters made their rounds, Castiel stopped at Lovering Maternity Center and waited in the third-floor hallway. He’d discovered that Chloe and Olivia awoke from their comatose states within seconds of each other, with no ill effects. Based on the timing, they recovered and their labor resumed shortly after the destruction of the demon. Chloe had given birth to a healthy seven-pound, five-ounce baby boy. Surrogate mother Olivia delivered a healthy girl, weighing in at eight pounds even.

  Dr. Hartwell saw Castiel standing with his back to the wall and joined him.

  “It’s over? All of the madness?”

  “Yes,” he said. “All of it.”

  “I’d ask but…”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  She looked up at him, with the hin
t of a smile. “After what I’ve witnessed, don’t be so sure.” She looked down, her hands clasped together around a metal clipboard. “That said, I have a feeling I don’t really want to know.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  She left him and walked to Chloe’s birthing room as Chloe and her parents emerged. Her father Edward pushed the wheelchair, her mother walking beside her. Chloe held the swaddled infant to her chest, uttering a series of cooing sounds to soothe him.

  Castiel nodded as they passed.

  Chloe saluted him, then stuck her tongue out and smiled wistfully. “Bye, bye, FBI,” she said. “Say hi to Claire for me.”

  Castiel returned the smile, if not the salute and the extruded tongue.

  “I will.” But she was already out of earshot.

  At the time, he’d regretted his inability to come to her aid, though he knew logically he couldn’t have helped her, couldn’t have healed her out of a coma. Nevertheless, she had survived without his presence. She and her baby were healthy. He had to learn to accept his limitations and not let anxiety rule him. But he would never be completely free of its effect.

  Chloe had the support of two involved parents, while Claire remained alone. But he had promised to be there for her if she needed him. And she knew that. For now, that was good enough.

  * * *

  As agreed, Dean and Sam waited for Castiel in the parking lot of the Blue Castle Lodge, even though they’d checked out hours ago.

  Dean leaned against the Impala, arms crossed over his chest. In control. Sam had suggested the hunt as a distraction from all the fruitless searches for a cure. And it had certainly succeeded on that level, providing a healthy outlet for Dean’s pent-up frustration. But it had also been a test of Dean’s continued control. He knew there would always be tests. The best he could do was to pass them, one at a time. That’s all that mattered.

  He’d restrained himself in the pontianak’s lair when it counted most. To keep Sam safe. To complete the hunt. When any unreasoned action would have meant failure, he’d remained rational, master of his own actions.