Now McClary was committed to helping them find a supernatural creature.
Once all the monitors displayed a full grid of camera feeds, McClary rubbed his jaw thoughtfully and looked at Bobby. “On any given day, forty percent of our video surveillance cameras don’t work. Of those that do, some can’t move at all, most can only focus in one direction and, at night, the images are too dark to provide much detail. The best images come from private surveillance cameras, those mounted inside stores or along the perimeter. They’re better because those cameras are closer to the subjects.”
“All we need to see is a tall man in a bowler with a cane.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” McClary said. “Tell me something?”
“Okay.”
“Do you ever get used to this stuff?”
“Not in a way that it ever becomes easy,” Bobby said. “But live long enough, you become competent.”
“Different kind of perp,” McClary said. “Different set of rules.”
“Mortality rate for hunters ain’t something to brag about.”
“I don’t imagine it is,” McClary said solemnly.
“Speaking of the hard truth,” Bobby said. “You decide how much to tell the chief?”
“I sure as hell can’t tell him what you told me,” McClary said. “I’ll need to filter this. He’s old school down to the bone. If I tell him we got an oni on the loose, he’ll personally escort me to a psych eval. Probably want me committed.” He shook his head. “I feel like a tax cheat.”
“Come again?”
“Keeping two sets of books,” McClary explained. “One for me, another for the chief.”
“First we gotta find this bastard.”
“I’m working the stolen car angle,” McClary said. “We have two cruisers rigged with ALPR systems—automatic license plate recognition. They can check thousands of license plates per hour in high-traffic areas. They get any hits, the patrol officers will notify me immediately.”
Bobby had a moment of concern about the Winchester boys tooling around town in the stolen Monte Carlo, but had to hope the neglected car hadn’t been reported stolen yet. More often than not, they dumped a car long before the owner reported it missing.
“How current are the records?” Bobby asked.
“We download a fresh database each morning.”
“If the oni stole another vehicle,” Bobby said, “it might not be reported yet.”
“True,” McClary said. “But we forced his hand, made him abandon the plumber’s van before he was ready. Maybe he’ll get careless.”
As she dangled from the eyebolt in the ceiling of Laurel Lanes, Kim Jacobs’ shoulders were on fire. She had stopped breathing through her nose hours ago because the smell of the headless corpse hanging upside down beside her threatened to make her physically ill. She stared up at the ceiling until her neck cramped, because the other options horrified her. She couldn’t bear to look at the body hanging beside her or the changing face of the inhuman monster calling itself an oni. She found it hard to believe he had ever looked human.
After the oni had peeled all the skin from the decapitated cop’s head, he had tossed it in a trashcan. He had seemed pleased with the completion of his gruesome ritual, but promised more to come.
“I will transform you,” he said. “Make you more than human.”
“I’m good, thanks,” she said, trying to keep her eyes averted.
She had first noticed his transformation while he flayed the cop’s head. Since she couldn’t watch the deliberate desecration of the human remains, her gaze shifted to the murderer. He had taken off his bowler hat to reveal ridged horns protruding from above his forehead at a low angle. As he worked on his grisly task, the horns seemed to lengthen. At first, she thought she might be hallucinating, but soon she noticed his close-cropped hair lengthening, becoming bright red. When she dared to glance at his hands, she saw that his fingernails were dark and pointed, like the claws of some predatory animal. Now and then he would look at her and smile. Gradually, during the flaying, his teeth lengthened and became pointed, like flat, thick fangs.
“What’s happening to you?” she finally asked.
To her dismay, he smiled more broadly, exposing an expanse of his shark teeth. “As I shed my human face, so too will they shed theirs.”
Kim had to swallow before she asked, “What about me?”
“You will pass through the demon gate,” he said, “to stand as my mate.”
“No,” she said, horrified. “That’s not possible. You’re not even human.”
“Your path is more difficult,” he said, sounding almost sympathetic. “You must shed your humanity.”
“You’re crazy,” Kim said, making a renewed effort to pull her taped ankles apart even as she twisted her wrists to try to loosen her bonds. “Let me go! I don’t want this!”
“After your transformation, you will look back on this resistance as foolishness,” the oni said. “I will show you the way.”
“I’ll die before I become a monster!”
“I will protect you,” the oni said calmly, “from yourself.”
She glared at him, determined to kill him or die trying.
“But I must leave for a short time,” he said, climbing off the stool behind the shoe rental counter and walking across the bowling alley to the pro shop. “I must complete the calling,” he told her, raising his voice so she could hear him, “and it requires a substantial ritual of blood.”
If he leaves, I can escape, she thought wildly. I have to find a way out of here.
He emerged from the pro shop and walked toward her, carrying coils of rope, a roll of duct tape, a burlap sack, and a pair of handcuffs. “I need to prepare you for my absence.”
“I’m tied up and taped already,” she protested. “Where can I go?”
“I have no doubt you are resourceful. I will protect you from yourself,” he repeated. “But I must warn you—if I return and discover you tried to escape, I will cut off your head and feast on your flesh.”
“I thought you needed me?” she asked nervously. “The demon gate thing.”
“What do you humans say?” he asked mischievously. “There are plenty of fish in the sea. Disappoint me at your peril.”
Over the last several hours, she had worked some play into the tape binding her ankles. Though she’d had less success with her rope-bound wrists, given time, she might work her hands free. But he was about to wipe out all of her progress.
“Please,” she said desperately. “I promise I won’t try to escape. I’ll wait here until you get back.”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“You can. I promise,” she said. “But these ropes are killing my shoulders. Could you tie me to a booth or a ball return—anything on the floor?”
“You’ll keep for a few hours.”
“Please!”
Peeling off a six-inch strip of duct tape, he slapped it across her mouth. Then he knelt at her side and knotted ropes around her ankles, over the worn tape. She wanted to complain that the rope was too tight, but he wouldn’t have listened, even if he hadn’t effectively gagged her. Next he tied additional rope around her wrists, which were already chafed raw. Then he reconsidered and untied the extra rope.
She breathed a sigh of relief—until he slapped one of the handcuffs around her right wrist.
What the hell?
He pulled her forward and in a flash of intuition she knew what he intended and she thrashed wildly, her screams muffled by the duct tape.
No! No! Nooo!
He closed the other cuff around the ankle of the upside-down corpse. Reaching down, he picked up the burlap sack and slid it over her head, plunging her into darkness. Her nostrils flared as she breathed rapidly, skirting the edge of mindless panic. When she felt rope tightening around her throat, to secure the burlap sack in place, she renewed her frantic—and muffled—screaming and writhing. But when she bumped into the headless corpse and recalle
d the sections of flesh gouged out of the body, she became still, eyes squeezed shut in the darkness. With a supreme effort of will, she calmed herself. If she hyperventilated with the bag over her head, she would suffocate and become another hanging corpse in the abandoned bowling alley.
Something pressed against the front of the sack, near her mouth.
She arched her back, twisting her face away from the unknown threat. Then the sack ripped and she understood— it was a breathing hole, in the form of a small tear opened by one of his claws.
“Wouldn’t want you to suffocate while I’m gone.”
A moment later, he bumped into her and she froze.
Jostling her arms, he pushed her aside a few inches as he seemed to reach up to the ceiling. But her hope that he’d had a change of heart and was lowering her to the floor was short-lived. Instead, she felt a slight easing of the pressure on her shoulders. She could now touch the floor with the toes of both feet simultaneously, removing some of the burden from her shoulders, arms and wrists.
He lowered the eyebolt, she thought. Maybe I can work it loose now.
The possibility gave her something to focus on in the dark instead of obsessing about the headless, decaying and partially eaten corpse to which she was handcuffed.
“That should ease your immediate concerns,” he said. “Now I must go.”
By this time, she realized suddenly, she should be hungry, but having a monster shackle you to a corpse apparently was an effective appetite suppressant. In fact, the thought of food made her feel ill. But her thirst was more persistent. Her throat burned, more so after her screaming. And now that she was gagged, she couldn’t ask for a sip of water.
“Remember my warning.”
She nodded quickly, unsure the motion translated outside the sack, but he seemed satisfied. She listened as his footfalls receded to the back of the bowling alley. After several seconds, a metal door swung and then banged shut. She waited, motionless, thinking it might be a trap. She could picture him standing quietly inside the bowling alley, his back to the rear wall, watching her, waiting to see if she would attempt to escape. If she tugged on the ropes binding her ankles or wrists once, he would charge across the bowling alley and lop off her head with a meat cleaver.
Holding herself unnaturally still for what felt like an hour but was probably no more than five minutes, she listened for the slightest sound of his presence, a rustle of clothing, a squeak of his shoe against the floor, a sigh or the clearing of his throat.
The only sound she heard was her own shallow breathing, amplified inside the darkness of the burlap bag.
When she was confident he had left the building, she yanked her arms furiously back and forth with two goals in mind: If she could work the eyebolt loose from the joist in the ceiling, she should be able to remove the hood and work the wrist knots loose. And if her wrists started bleeding before the eyebolt came loose, she might be able to use the lubrication of her own blood to pull her wrists out of the ropes. Of course, she had to deal with the handcuffs securing her to the cop’s corpse, but one step at a time.
* * *
Tora parked on the street outside the gated parking lot of the Gafford Sports Arena, a rundown semi-pro baseball stadium scheduled for demolition after one farewell sporting event, an exhibition soccer game between two semi-pro teams, the Denver Dragons and the Jersey Devils. With construction of a new multipurpose facility two miles away nearly complete, the locals had come to bid farewell to a venue that held many fond memories for them. Nostalgia had provided a boost to the expected attendance for the final event and the soccer teams were reaping the benefits of playing before a full house.
Inhaling the mixed scents of hotdogs, French fries, funnel cake and popcorn, Tora stood beside the fence and raised his left hand to his temple. He allowed his third eye to open wide. Unseen by human eyes, waves of his power wafted across the parking lot and seeped into the cracked concrete and fatigued metal struts of the arena.
For added power, he raised his cane several inches above the ground, paused to focus the effect, then slammed the point down on the concrete sidewalk. Tremors shook the ground, flowing in a straight line toward the stadium.
The oni was well versed in demolition.
Twenty-Five
When Bobby called Sam’s burner cell to report that multiple emergency calls had come in from the Gafford Sports Arena at the intersection of Ellisburg Pike and Cuthbert Avenue, Sam checked a cached onscreen map and told Dean they were only four blocks away.
Dean gunned the accelerator. “Sporting event, huh?”
“According to the community calendar, an exhibition soccer match.” Sam read something then looked at Dean, alarmed. “Seating capacity is 5,600. It’s the last event at the stadium. They’re tearing it down in two weeks.”
“Crowded and old,” Dean said. “Low-hanging fruit.”
Sam consulted his map. “Turn right up ahead.”
Once Dean made the turn, he saw the first responders, two police cars and an ambulance, speeding to the parking lot entrance, so he followed them. Even from that distance, they could hear the yelling and screaming of thousands of people.
As the Monte Carlo roared up the entrance ramp, Dean had to pump the brakes to avoid a rush of people, many of whose faces or arms were streaked with blood and dust, flowing out of the stadium in a mass panic.
“A target this size,” Sam said, “there’s a good chance he’s close.”
Dean hoped that was more than wishful thinking on Sam’s part. Of course, they still had no idea how to gank the bulletproof oni. At least they could try to minimize casualties. Beyond that, Dean had suggested they “give fire a chance.” Since New Jersey’s legislature didn’t trust drivers in the state to pump their own gasoline, Dean had the listless attendant fill a two-gallon container with regular, which they now kept in the Monte Carlo’s trunk alongside their cache of conventional weapons. Of course, if the New Jersey legislature knew Dean planned to douse the oni with two gallons of regular and light him like a tiki torch, they might not trust drivers to buy gasoline either.
Dean double-parked away from the hundreds on foot who had already escaped, jumped out of the car and ran toward the shaking stadium, Sam at his side. A three-story red-brick structure faced the parking lot, stairs on either side leading to upper-level seating. Even from the parking lot, Dean caught glimpses of the stadium’s layout. The outdoor stairs rose to a row of enclosed upper box seats that overhung the second of two staggered tiers of outdoor seating. The first level looked like individual stadium seating, while the second level consisted of long rows of aluminum bleachers. Behind that back row, tucked under the upper box seats, was a promenade with a row of vendor stalls and kiosks.
Dean heard the prolonged creaking of straining metal, a series of explosive pops, and glass shattering. As he neared the ticket window and the ramps leading up to the first level of seating, he saw that the section of upper box seats closest to the parking lot had collapsed, tossing box ticket holders through shattered windows and crushing several people in the back rows of the bleacher section.
Against the mass exodus of the scared and wounded, Dean and Sam fought their way up the ramp. The whole stadium shook, as if in the throes of a powerful earthquake, and the next section of upper box seats collapsed. One middle-aged man in a business suit was thrown through the window, but managed to catch the upper box seat walkway railing long enough to slow his momentum before dropping awkwardly to the aluminum benches below.
Amid the crush of people on the ramp, several reacted to the ominous sounds of destruction behind them by pushing and elbowing their way toward the parking lot. A mother carrying her crying two-year-old daughter and pulling her frightened four-year-old son by the hand, fell down awkwardly. She tried to shield her daughter, but lost her grip on her son, who began to cry.
“Stop!” she screamed. “You’re hurting my babies.”
“Whoa!” Dean said, planting the palm of his hand on the che
st of a large man intent on ignoring the woman’s pleas as he strode over her.
The man looked down and shook his head as if the woman’s plight didn’t matter in his rush to save his own ass. “Outta my way,” the man mumbled, but slid sideways before continuing his descent.
Dean caught the woman’s arm and helped her up, while Sam scooped her son up and lowered him to the ground on the other side of the guide rail.
“Wait for your mom,” Sam told the kid.
Dean steered the woman to the railing, helped her over and handed her daughter down to her. All three of them jogged to the parking lot.
The Winchesters worked their way into the stadium and immediately came to the bottleneck. The collapse of the first upper box section had brought down slabs of concrete and twisted rebar from the ceiling of the promenade, destroying two vendor stalls and almost completely blocking the exit. The air was heavy with concrete dust sifting down from the damage above. Narrow cracks in the floor, walls and ceiling continued to multiply. The stadium was literally crumbling around them.
While some people continued to stream through the cramped exit aisle, the police who had arrived on the scene a couple of minutes ahead of the Winchesters were directing people down to the field and across what would have been the infield—if the grass had been marked for baseball instead of soccer—and back to outfield depth, well clear of the toppling row of box seats. Frightened fans waited with uniformed soccer players from both teams in bright gold and red uniforms. A cyclone fence wrapped around the outfield, decorated every few feet with brightly painted plywood sponsor signs. Dean’s attention was drawn to a cop who stood outside the fence, all the way down the third base line, with a pair of bolt cutters, improvising a new exit.
Dean scanned what seemed like a sea of bobbing baseball caps looking for a man in black wearing a bowler. “I don’t see him, Sam,” he yelled over the chorus of frightened voices around them. “You?”
“Nothing.”
Dean turned to Sam. “If he’s here, how close—”
Supernatural 10 - Rite of Passage Page 21
