Supernatural--Cold Fire Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Historian’s Note

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:

  Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon

  by Keith R A DeCandido

  Supernatural: The Unholy Cause

  by Joe Schreiber

  Supernatural: War of the Sons

  by Rebecca Dessertine & David Reed

  Supernatural: One Year Gone

  by Rebecca Dessertine

  Supernatural: Coyote’s Kiss

  by Christa Faust

  Supernatural: Night Terror

  by John Passarella

  Supernatural: Rite of Passage

  by John Passarella

  Supernatural: Fresh Meat

  by Alice Henderson

  Supernatural: Carved in Flesh

  by Tim Waggoner

  Supernatural: Cold Fire

  Print edition ISBN: 9781781166758

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781781166765

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: March 2016

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © 2016 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

  SUPERNATURAL and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

  Cover imagery: Cover photograph © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and © Shutterstock.

  Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

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  With the exception of the characters from The CW’s Supernatural series, this publication, including any of its contents or references, has not been prepared, approved, endorsed or licensed by any third party, corporation or product referenced herein.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For Andrea, who takes care of the real world while I explore

  imaginary ones.

  HISTORIAN’S NOTE

  This novel takes place during season ten, between “About a Boy” and “Halt & Catch Fire.”

  ONE

  With no complaints about the division of labor, Dave Holcomb lugged whole panels of six-foot stockade fencing from the dinged bed of his Ford F-150, which he’d backed into the driveway, through the propped-open gate into the backyard of his new home. He placed each section of pressure-treated spruce in a growing and orderly pile on the small cement patio that overlooked the wedge-shaped yard, opposite the utility shed that had been a selling point for him. A guy could never have enough storage.

  As he ferried a dozen loose fence posts, pickets and rails from the truck to the patio and lined them up beside his red metal toolbox, he had no regrets about staying home, working up a healthy sweat outdoors while his wife Sally spent the afternoon shopping. She was eager to check out the Braden Heights mall, followed by a selection of specialist stores touting local artisanal wares their new neighbors insisted they simply must try. But shopping—specifically window shopping—made Dave fidgety. Before hitting the local home improvement store, he had inspected the deteriorating fence one last time and prepared a checklist of items he’d need to whip it into shape. Later, at the store, he’d grabbed one of the industrial-strength wheeled carts, the kind that never seemed to go where you steered them, and collected each item on his list, drawing a line through each one after he placed them on the cart. Each step placed him incrementally closer to completing the task at hand, and Dave was all about getting things done.

  They’d been in Braden Heights, Indiana little more than a week and Dave had allotted himself a month, six weeks max, to spruce up their new home. He’d never classify it as a true fixer-upper, but he’d added enough tasks to his repair list—and yes he had a master list, one list to rule them all—to keep himself busy every weekend and more than a few weeknights within that timeframe. No real burden since Dave enjoyed working with his hands, and the list gave him a solid excuse to stay far from the jostling crowd of shoppers and the anxiety of aimless wandering past endless window displays. Besides, the repairs had given them negotiating leverage on the purchase price of the home, far from the familiar surroundings of San Bernardino, California they’d left behind.

  Compared to the stingy plot of land that backed their old townhouse, the new yard seemed enormous, a luxury that would require a lot more upkeep unless they hired a crew of professionals for regular maintenance. Even with the generous salary of his new job, he’d probably opt for the DIY route. Time permitting, of course. Along with the fancy title and big salary, the new job would no doubt require a chunk of hours above and beyond the standard forty-hour work week.

  Hefting a fence panel in two gloved hands, Dave side-stepped his way across the overgrown lawn. Landscaping filled half a page in his master list, along with the overgrown bushes surrounding the utility shed, but the patchwork fencing came first. He’d often heard good fences made good neighbors. Based on the leaning panels, rotted rails, and crumbling pickets, the Holcombs’ reputation teetered equally in the balance. Dave figured the benefit-of-the-doubt grace period from their settlement date was fading fast.

  Manufactured drama aside, Dave admitted to himself he cared what others thought about them, and first impressions were often visual ones. Before his job claimed the majority of his waking hours, he was determined to correct the exterior faults. If he fell behind his self-imposed timetable for addressing interior repairs and upgrades, only he and Sally would know. Well, at least until Sally’s inevitable housewarming party.

  Dave leaned the new fence panel against an old one, on the near side of the one he intended to replace. Based upon his inspection, the posts on either side would remain, but the panel had rotted so mu
ch it had pulled free of many nails that had once secured it. The wood at the top of the pointed pickets crumbled in his gloved hands, falling through his fingers like pieces of mulch.

  “And so it begins…” Dave muttered as he walked back to the patio for his claw hammer. He debated returning to the garage for his old radio. As much as he enjoyed the solitude of working alone outside, listening to music always made the work go faster…

  Dave stopped. Listened.

  Coming from behind him, a faint sound… A baby crying?

  Though faint, the crying seemed close. Too close. In-his-backyard close.

  “What the hell…?”

  He turned around, looking first toward the fence panel he’d set down less than ten feet away, canted his head. Turned slightly. The utility shed?

  For a brief moment, he entertained the possibility that someone had abandoned a baby in the Holcomb utility shed. Then he imagined a more farfetched scenario. What if a homeless family had moved in there? The storage unit even looked like a tiny house, with a peaked and shingled roof, curtained windows on either side of the door—and no lock on the door handle.

  Taking a step toward the shed, Dave tentatively called out, “Hello?”

  He felt ridiculous for even considering the possibility but stranger things had happened, and if squatters had taken up residence in the shed, they might be armed. Even discounting the possibility of a gun or knife, the shed housed enough potentially deadly tools to warrant caution.

  “Anybody in there?”

  The faint cry of an infant continued, and Dave had now half convinced himself the baby, if not a whole family, occupied his shed. But when could they have… moved in? He’d been inside it that very morning, before he’d left to purchase the new fencing. There was no place to hide in there, a single room, approximately twelve-by-ten. From the center, you could see all four corners. Besides, the gate into the backyard had been padlocked while he was out.

  He debated grabbing the claw hammer from his toolbox, so he’d have his own makeshift weapon to defend himself, but the idea made him feel ridiculous. Shaking off his paranoia, he strode to the front of the shed, turned the handle and pulled the door open. Even in early afternoon, the interior remained dim, lit only by sunlight filtered through dingy curtains on the two small windows.

  His gaze swept across the assortment of tools and yard supplies, checking any potential blind spots, those large enough to conceal an infant. But judging from the assortment of cobwebs, the only living residents of the utility shed belonged to the arachnid family. Stepping inside, he moved a folded tarp, pushed aside a red wheelbarrow, and lifted a bunch of hanging lanterns. Nothing.

  And yet the baby continued to cry.

  Low but clear, a forlorn sobbing, as if the infant lacked the energy to produce the type of indignant wailing that would draw the attention and assistance of anyone within a three block radius who had an ounce of paternal or maternal instinct. To Dave, it seemed oddly personal, as if he were the baby’s only hope.

  Now that he was inside the shed, he could tell the sound came from outside. That’s when he thought about the clutter of overgrown bushes obscuring the windows. He’d never really had a good look at the fencing in back, only a small section he’d glimpsed through a tangle of branches when they’d first inspected the house.

  Leaving the shed, he turned the handle behind him, to secure the door as much as possible without a lock. Now convinced that somebody had abandoned a baby behind the shed, he looked for the widest gap between the bushes and wondered how someone could have gone back there without leaving a path of freshly snapped branches in their wake, coming and going. Then he had a worse thought. What if somebody had approached the yard from the other side, through the overgrown field of grass and weeds to drop the baby over the fence—from a height of six feet?

  It made no sense.

  Halfway through the tangle of branches and having already accumulated an impressive collection of scratches on his face, neck and forearms, Dave belatedly wished he’d gone back into the shed for trimming shears, if not a damned tree saw. Too late to turn back now, he thought. But how would he bring the baby out without causing more harm?

  The baby’s wailing softened into quiet sobs and snuffling sounds.

  For some reason, this alarmed Dave more than sudden anguished cries would have. Abandoned and injured, the infant could be near death. Dave might literally be hearing the baby’s last gasps. He forged ahead with renewed purpose, barely noticing when a thorny vine raked across his palm, drawing stipples of blood like beads of crimson sweat. “Hold on!” he said softly, then louder. “Hold on, I’m coming!”

  The last branch whipped back behind him, rustling its neighbors into a chorus of arboreal admonishments. The scent of pine trees washed over him, briefly reminding him of Christmas, happy childhood memories of giftwrapped surprises and lavish feasts. Which was odd, because there were no pine trees on their property and none that he’d noticed nearby. But that hardly mattered at the moment. He pushed the thought aside and turned the corner into the narrow space between the back of the shed and the fence.

  Naturally, he scanned the small patch of ground where he expected to find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes or a soiled diaper. What he saw instead was sparse grass and decaying plant matter, along with the desiccated carcass of what could have been a squirrel.

  And then he was no longer alone…

  He caught a brief glance of legs, standing before the rotted fence pickets where no one had been a moment before.

  “How—?”

  His gaze darted upward, more confused than afraid.

  It happened so fast, he had no time to process what he saw. A vague, dark shape, tatters of cloth—but before his eyes could focus on the image before him, something flashed in front of his face; the movements were animalistic, and definitely inhuman in their speed and ferocity. Something sharp and painful struck his face, tugging and tearing—

  He cried out at the sudden, unbelievable pain.

  —then another impact, much lower, doubling him over in searing agony, ripping the breath from his lungs, and he dropped into numb darkness, welcoming it…

  * * *

  Sally Holcomb returned from her extended shopping trip a couple hours later than she had anticipated. Almost time to get dinner started or call in a takeout order. Dave had backed his pickup into the driveway, angled toward the backyard gate, so she assumed he continued to patch up the fence.

  “I’m home!” she called as she passed the gate on the first of several trips from her Camry to the kitchen, emptying the trunk and backseat of numerous shopping bags; first the plastic grocery bags—stowing the perishables in the fridge or freezer—followed by the home decorations; everything from artisanal candles and storage cubbies, to window treatments and bed linens.

  By the time she made her last trip, holding a ceramic planter wrapped in both arms, she paused to wonder why Dave hadn’t offered to help her with the bags. Sometimes, in the midst of a complicated home improvement project, he’d enter a trancelike state of concentration and fail to register the details of a conversation she thought they’d been having. More than once, she’d had to remind herself that his mumbles of assent and understanding had no correlation to the actual subject matter at hand. Over the years, she’d learned to recognize the signs of his worker-bee single-mindedness and would postpone any casual discussions until he finished the job or came up for air on his own. When she really needed his attention, her go-to move was offering him a cold beer. But as she stood before the gate, she heard nothing to suggest he was absorbed in the repairs. No rap of a hammer. No clunking of wood.

  “Dave?”

  Again, no response. Not completely unexpected if he’d entered trance mode. As she walked through the gate into the backyard, she noticed the lack of progress. She scanned the fencing. Nothing new or patched. To her right, she saw the reason why. The cement patio held everything Dave must have bought for the job and unloaded from
the pickup, with the sole exception of one new fence panel leaning against the rotten old one. She never considered herself any kind of handyman—handywoman? handyperson?—but her immediate impression was that nothing had been done, that he’d carried the panel across the yard but nothing else.

  “Dave!”

  No answer.

  Empty yard. Utility shed closed. Naturally, she assumed he’d gone into the house and gotten involved in some other project, abandoning the fence, even if that was so unlike her methodical husband, a man who made prioritized checklists for every project no matter how small. Unless an emergency had come up. A busted pipe, maybe, an overflowing toilet. She’d only breezed through the kitchen to unload her bags and the house was much bigger than their old townhouse, plenty of rooms she hadn’t passed. She made a complete sweep of the place with no sign of Dave or the remnants of any household emergency, her anxiety building with each step.

  “The shed,” she mumbled. “He must be in the shed.”

  She imagined he’d hurt himself with a power tool, her mind miles ahead of rationality, concocting bizarre and gruesome scenarios. Perhaps he was unconscious, lying on the floor of the shed, bleeding…

  Why close the door? She hurried out back, across the patio and overgrown lawn to the shed. She gripped the metal handle, pausing to take a deep, calming breath, preparing herself as much as possible for the worst case scenario. So why did you leave your cell phone in your purse on the kitchen counter?

  She yanked the door open and peered inside, through dust-filled shafts of sunlight. Holding her breath now, she entered the shed, her gaze darting toward every corner until she convinced herself of Dave’s absence. As she backed out of the shed, uncertainty filled her, the names of her neighbors bubbling to the surface of her thoughts. If he’d left home without the pickup, maybe he’d accepted a neighbor’s offer to watch a ballgame or have a beer. But her reasoning crumbled before she could even build a case for either scenario. She’d been gone for hours and Dave hadn’t even begun work on the fence. No distraction would have lasted so long.

  As she stood there, seeking an answer that made sense, she noticed broken branches on the bushes pressed against the right side of the shed. The breaks looked fresh…