Supernatural--Cold Fire (28 page)

“Five minutes after she woke up, she tried to claw my eyes out. Minute later, she dropped again. Out cold. And the baby? Still asleep. Can’t wake Kiki up even with all the racket. But Bree wakes up, is chill for about five minutes, then goes ballistic again.”

Sam found a gap between boards, and ran his hand along it down to the floor and back. After a moment, he paused and frowned, reaching for something and pulling. With the creaking protest of a rusty hinge, a tall panel of rotting wood swung inward—a makeshift door—revealing a coal-dark space under the adjoining staircase.

“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.

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 C
OVENTRY
C
ROSSING
in bright green script letters. Beneath the wooden sign, a white vinyl banner billowing in the breeze advised, F
INAL
P
HASE
– H
URRY
B
EFORE
T
HEY
’
RE
A
LL
G
ONE
!

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.