Supernatural: Carved in Flesh (19 page)

He aimed for the heart again, taking his time, trying not to look at the dark energy swirling around the creature’s hands, trying not to think about how close it was, and how much closer it was getting, but before he could squeeze the trigger, he heard his brother’s voice.

“Yippee ki-yay, mamasita!”

A shotgun blast sounded like thunder, and the once Double-Header ended its strange second life as a No-Header. The creature pitched forward and hit the ground like a slab of lifeless meat—which was exactly what it had become. Sam looked up and saw Dean lower his shotgun. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked exhausted, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.

“Mamasita?” Sam said.

Dean shrugged. “Trying to cut back on the swearing.”

Sam struggled to his feet. “Admirable, but it lacks a little something in the tough guy department.”

He remembered the man in the suit, and turned in his direction, ready to fire, but the man was gone.

“Don’t worry,” Dean said. “I saw him, too. Moves pretty fast for an older guy.”

Sam caught another flicker of movement, this time in the opposite direction. He turned and saw the familiar hazy, shadowy figure that he’d seen before, standing about a hundred yards away. He pointed toward it.

“How about that one?” he asked.

Dean looked in the direction he indicated. “Sorry. That one I don’t see.”

Sam squinted, trying to bring the figure into clearer focus, but it was no use. A second later, it was gone.

He sighed. At least the guy in the suit hadn’t been a hallucination.

He tucked his Beretta into the waistband of his pants, retrieved the sawed-off shotgun he’d dropped when the Double-Header had sent him flying, and together he and Dean approached the creature’s corpse.

Dean kicked it a couple times to make sure it was dead. In their line of work, you never knew if something you put down was going to stay down. The creature didn’t move.

“I guess it’s officially the Double-Deader now,” Dean said.

Sam gave him a weak smile. “Okay, that one’s kind of funny.” His smile faded. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I could sleep for a week, but otherwise, I’m all right. I don’t think he managed to siphon too much out of my tank.”

They turned their attention to the dead monster and rolled it over so they could get a better look at it. Now that they were able to examine the body closely, Sam could see that it had scar lines similar to Frankenmutt’s, only they were confined to where the extra head and arms had been joined to the main body. The Double-Header had been made from fewer pieces than Frankenmutt, and his scar lines were flesh-colored instead of white.

“NuFlesh?” Dean asked.

“I think so. But there’s something wrong about these scars.” Sam crouched down and rubbed at the line around the base of one of the extra arms.

“Careful,” Dean said. “You don’t want to catch Frankencooties.”

Sam held up his fingers for Dean to see. “Someone covered up his scars with makeup. That’s why they aren’t as obvious as Frankenmutt’s.” He frowned. “He’s got patches of decay on him, too. They’re not very big yet, but they’re definitely present. It looks like he was starting to rot, just like Frankenmutt.”

“At least he doesn’t smell as bad yet,” Dean said. “Not that he’s a rose or anything right now.”

Sam wiped his fingers off on the ground before standing.

“Guess we didn’t need the flares,” Sam said.

“They still might come in handy,” Dean said. “What do you think the odds are that there are only two patchwork monsters in town?”

“Not very good,” Sam said.

“C’mon, let’s gather some wood and torch this son of a bitch. Then see if we can figure out who Mr. Suit-and-Tie is.” He yawned. “After we go back to the hotel and take a nap.”

Seeing Dean yawn made Sam do the same. “That’s the best idea you’ve had in a long time.”

The brothers, both moving slow as a pair of zombies, got to work.

* * *

Conrad moved through the woods far more swiftly and silently than was humanly possible, but that was only to be expected, as he hadn’t been human in three centuries.

He wasn’t pleased by the creature’s failure to slay the two men. If he hadn’t already killed Harrison, he surely would have done so now. In fact, he was tempted to bring the fool back to life just so he could deprive him of it once again. The encounter had been far from a total loss, however, for he had gained some valuable data.

He now knew who the two men were. Not their specific identities, those hardly mattered, but he knew what their profession was. They were
hunters.
Given the nature of the experiments Conrad had conducted over the previous three hundred years—not to mention the results—he had encountered their kind before, and while they’d usually managed to destroy his creations, none of them had ever come close to killing him, and he intended to, in current parlance, keep his streak alive.

That wasn’t the most important piece of information he’d learned from the failure of Harrison’s two-headed monstrosity, though. Something else had been observing the proceedings, and while to all other eyes this observer would have gone unseen, Conrad’s special status—not dead but technically not alive—allowed him to perceive what others could not. This day a Reaper had been present in the woods. A Reaper!

During his long existence, Conrad had learned much. He was a master of the ancient art of alchemy—perhaps the only one left in the world—and he was well skilled in the runic magic practiced by the Norse people. He had also picked up a great deal of supernatural lore during his time, and he knew that Reapers were beings who appeared to humans at the moment of their deaths and ushered their souls into the afterlife. They were, in a very real sense, the Death Force personified, and a Reaper, or more accurately, the power it contained, could be the final piece of a puzzle he’d been trying to solve for the last three centuries.

He needed to return to the bicycle factory and consult his mistress at once. She would know the best way to lure and capture a Reaper. After all, was she not an aspect of Death as well? Of course, if he expected her to grant him such arcane knowledge, he would need a sacrifice of more substance than a mere piglet. He thought of the farmer who had sold him the animal. The man was in his fifties, but he was still healthy, strong, and hardworking. He’d do.

It looked like he would be making a stop before returning to Kingston Bicycles.

Conrad didn’t question the Reaper’s presence. He assumed it was following the hunter, the one who’d been bitten by the dog and infected with the creature’s taint. The boy was dying slowly, and the Reaper was like a vulture, circling and waiting for its meal to finish the business of expiring before swooping down to claim it. He hoped the boy would survive for a while yet. The longer he took to die, the longer the Reaper would remain, giving Conrad a better chance to capture it.

He was more excited than he had been in decades. At last, victory was within his grasp!

Soon, my lady, you shall tread upon the face of the Earth, and all who behold you will marvel at your beauty and wail in despair. It shall be glorious!

He ran faster.

* * *

Daniel walked through the woods, trailing the Winchester brothers at a discrete distance. Sam had seen too much of him, and he wanted to make sure to remain out of sight, at least for the time being.

Daniel’s kind didn’t worry, at least not in the way mortals did, for they had a different perspective on existence. What mortals saw as terrible tragedies were more like skinned knees and bloody noses to Reapers, momentary pains that had no lasting significance in the face of Eternity. Nevertheless, Daniel had to admit to being... concerned.

He’d been drawn to Brennan because of Conrad Dippel. All beings who defied the natural order and lived beyond their years were violating the ancient pact God and Death made before the birth of the universe. In order for Creation to be a living, growing thing, there had to be Time, and if there was Time, then there had to be a way to mark its passage. For every Before an After, for every Beginning an End, for every Life a Death. Daniel was charged with ensuring this balance was maintained, and he supposed that made him a hunter, too, in a sense. The “undead,” demons, and their ilk usually weren’t so much defying death as continuing to exist in a different way, but a creature like Dippel was a very special, very dangerous case. Even then, it wasn’t Dippel himself that concerned Daniel as much as what he was attempting to do.

The Winchesters had been of assistance so far, destroying both the monstrous dog and the two-headed man that Dippel’s dark combination of magic and science had wrought (even if technically neither creature had been constructed by his own hand), but the brothers still hadn’t figured out that Dippel’s was the mind behind the patchwork abominations. As long as they were unaware of his identity—or for that matter, that he even existed—how could they do anything to stop him? Dippel might simply pull up stakes and move his operation somewhere else. He could be vengeful and cruel, but ultimately he was a practical man, and if it became too much trouble to continue working in Brennan, Dippel would move on. Daniel would be able to track him wherever he went, of course. The necromantic energy that Dippel gave off was like a blazing beacon to him. But the Winchesters would likely be unable to locate Dippel again, at least not without some serious effort on their part, and right now they didn’t have the time to devote to an extensive search. Daniel knew they had more pressing matters to attend to, namely Dick Roman and the Leviathan. Considering how busy the ravenous monsters had kept the world’s Reapers since their release from Purgatory, Daniel would be relieved when—or maybe that should be
if
—the Winchesters defeated the beasts.

As a Reaper, Daniel was forbidden from manifesting in the physical world, but he was permitted to communicate with the living, provided they were close enough to death to perceive him. The very old, those dying from incurable diseases, those who’d had a near-death experience and survived—he could speak to any of them, and try to convince them to act as his agent in the realm of the living. Because Sam Winchester had been infected with a necromantic taint as a result of being bitten by Dippel’s monster hound, he was dying, and Daniel hoped he would be able to communicate with the hunter soon. He would tell him, and by extension, his brother, about Dippel, and lead them to the ancient alchemist. However, it was a plan Daniel might not be able to enact. For all the battering Sam’s mind and spirit had taken, his mental defenses were still far stronger than an ordinary person’s, and his subconscious was shutting the Reaper out, denying his existence, allowing Sam only shadowy glimpses of him. As long as Sam continued to fight like this, Daniel wouldn’t be able to communicate with him. The hunter’s resistance would erode the stronger the dark taint within him became and the closer he drew toward death, but if he became too weak, there was a possibility he might die before Daniel could speak with him. He supposed he would just have to keep following the Winchesters and gamble that Sam lived long enough to help him take out Dippel.

Dippel himself might be an issue, too. Daniel wasn’t certain, but he thought Dippel might have gotten a glimpse of him while the Winchesters were battling the two-headed creature. Daniel didn’t know if the alchemist possessed the ability to perceive Reapers. He thought it a strong possibility, though, and if that was the case, if Dippel was aware that a Reaper was watching him, who knew what he might do? At the very least, Daniel would have lost the advantage of surprise.

He sighed. Sometimes working for Death could be a real pain in the ass.

* * *

“So, was I right?” Trish whispered. “Isn’t this an
awesome
place for a haunting?”

Dean had to admit, the house looked pretty damned spooky, and from the expression on Sam’s face, he knew his brother felt the same. It was located a couple miles from the cabin where Trish lived with her father, not far from a small lake. The latter had served as Trish’s excuse when she told her dad that the three of them wanted to leave the cabin.

I thought we could take a walk by the lake,
she’d said, all innocence.
Maybe skip some rocks or something.

No swimming,
her dad had said, eyeing Sam and Dean. They might be younger than Trish, but they were still boys, and it was clear that Walter Hansen didn’t like the idea of them seeing his daughter in a swimsuit.

Trish had rolled her eyes and given him a look.
Da-dee!
she’d said, drawing out the word, her voice dripping with embarrassed disapproval. She’d gotten permission, and they’d left, but their real destination had been this house.

The structure was an old two-story, the wood light gray and mottled with greenish mold and dark areas of rot, the paint long worn away by time and the elements. A section of roof had collapsed, and half of the house sagged, as if the foundation was crumbling beneath it on one side. Dean didn’t know much about architecture—okay, he didn’t know
anything
about it—but the house looked ancient, like it was built in the 1930s, and maybe even farther back than that. It was narrower than modern houses, the windows smaller, and instead of a porch it had three stone steps leading up to the front door. The steps were cracked, the door hung half off its hinges, and the windows no longer held even shards of glass. Dean was surprised the house hadn’t fallen down by now. It looked like a dilapidated house in a cartoon, the kind that barely holds together and collapses the instant a tiny bird lands on top of it. The land around the house added to its impression of age. Trees had grown up close around it, not as tall as others farther away, but tall enough to indicate how much time had passed since anyone had lived there. There was even a tree growing out of the hole in the roof. The underbrush was thick, and if there had ever been a roadway or path to the house, it was long covered over.

Yet the aura of spookiness the house exuded wasn’t due to its appearance—at least, not solely. There was a feeling in the atmosphere, a cold tingling that had nothing to do with the early spring air. It made the skin on the back of Dean’s neck crawl, and set his stomach to roiling. He remembered something important his dad had told him once.