Rite of Passage Read online

After knocking Dean over, the third harpy lost momentum and dropped to the ground, stumbling forward a few steps as she spread her wings to brake.

  “Rip his throat out, Lo!” the second harpy shouted from her perch.

  Lo strode forward, clawed fingers raised before Dean. “I’ll carve out his liver, Te. Eat it while he watches!”

  “What? No Chianti?”

  Dean glanced at Sam and saw his brother was still groggy, shaking off the cobwebs.

  Dean returned his attention to the approaching harpy, curling his fingers around the rifle’s shoulder strap. He still had a round in the chamber, ready to fire, but he would need a second or two to bring the rifle to bear, aim and shoot.

  Lo saw the rifle near his right knee and wagged a taloned finger at him. “Naughty boy,” she chided, flashing a horrific smile filled with rows of pointed teeth. “I’ll pluck your eyes out before you pick it up.”

  Okay, Dean thought. Forget about aiming. Just grab and shoot.

  He was about to chance it when Bobby said, “Like hell!”

  Three shots rang out in quick succession.

  The first shot caught Lo in the ribs, the second in her sinewy left arm, and the third ricocheted off her jaw line, taking a chunk of flesh with it. Fright-wig hair whipped around her face. Dean wasted no time. He had the bolt-action rifle in his hands, sighted and drilled a round through her chest. Lo staggered backward, spraying blood from her mouth as she shrieked in fury. With a practiced motion, Dean worked the bolt and fired a second shot into her chest, close to the first.

  Alternately gurgling and gasping, the harpy toppled over backward.

  “Don’t just stand there, ya idjit,” Bobby called, waving the automatic he’d had holstered in the back of his belt. “Put a fork in her ticker.”

  “Aello!” Te shrieked and launched herself from her perch.

  She dropped toward Dean like a hawk with a rabbit in its sights.

  Bobby followed her trajectory with his arm extended, firing until his magazine ran out. A few of his shots burst through feathers, one or two scored the creature’s flesh. Nothing slowed it down.

  Dean whirled away from the supine Aello to face Te, raised his rifle and tried to aim, but she came in too fast and he only managed one wild shot, which gouged a furrow across her cheek. She extended her legs, clawed feet reaching for him.

  Dean threw himself sideways. The harpy’s left foot struck his upper arm, spinning him. As he struggled to rise, he did a quick damage assessment. Fortunately, she hadn’t broken his arm. A little higher and he would have dislocated his shoulder. But he had lost the rifle.

  She rushed him with long strides, wings beating to increase her momentum, her clawed fingers raking toward his face. He raised his forearm defensively and felt claws slice through the denim sleeve of his jacket. Te’s other arm slashed downward and he blocked with his other forearm.

  This time she clamped onto his right arm and yanked him skyward—five, ten, fifteen feet.

  Fumbling at his belt with his left hand, Dean pulled out his hunting knife. In flight, the harpy’s body was almost parallel to the ground and he was dangling from her extended arm. She was out of reach of the knife, except for the hand that clutched his forearm. Stretching, he reached up and, in a backhanded right to left motion, swept the blade across her wrist. The knife sliced through flesh and ground into bone.

  With a pained shriek, the harpy released her grip and Dean plummeted toward the ground. Flailing, he managed to hook his elbow momentarily over a branch on his way down, breaking his fall, but he landed awkwardly and had the wind knocked out of him.

  He struggled to suck air into his lungs. Feeling helpless as a kitten, he watched the night sky as the bird-like silhouette looped around and descended toward him. He reached out with splayed arms, brushing aside dried leaves, brittle twigs, small pebbles and clumps of soil.

  The knife was gone.

  Sam hadn’t broken any ribs when the harpy hurled him into the tree trunk, but it was a near thing. The impact stunned him and briefly doubled the number of visible stars. A nasty lump was forming on his scalp and a killer headache had already begun to percolate in his skull.

  As he struggled to rise, he saw Bobby and Dean take down Lo, the second harpy. Then the third, and biggest, harpy attacked Dean before he could stab Lo in the heart. Dean lost his rifle in the initial attack, but managed to slash Te’s arm before she could carry him off and make a meal out of him.

  Te rose above the treetops and began to circle, coming around for another diving attack.

  A bit woozy, Sam took a step forward, lifting Bobby’s rifle by the strap, trying to get a proper grip on it.

  Lucifer stood beside him. He gave Sam a disappointed shake of his head.

  “In a spot of trouble, Bunk Buddy? Bet you wish you were back in the cage with me. Oh, wait, you never left.”

  Sam grimaced. “Shut up.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Sam knew Lucifer wasn’t really with him in the woods. It was just a side effect of having his head metaphorically shoved in a blender after Castiel removed the wall. But Lucifer looked and sounded as real as, well, reality. No drop off on the believability scale. Sam’s only defense was to remind himself that Lucifer was a delusion, a bizarre construct of his damaged mind, and then ignore him. Not always a simple task. In addition to appearing as himself, the Lucifer conjured up by Sam’s mind sometimes took the magic lantern show to the next level, appearing as Dean or Bobby or any damn thing from Sam’s head. Knowing you have a disease doesn’t give you the ability to cure yourself of it. But you do learn to recognize the symptoms.

  “You have a rifle,” Lucifer observed gleefully, moving forward with Sam. “Hearing the siren song of a clock tower?”

  “Go away!” Sam whispered fiercely.

  “Careful where you aim that thing, Sam,” Lucifer said. “Sometimes up is down, down is up.”

  Te circled and swooped low, dropping next to Dean, who was sprawled on his back, dazed and weaponless.

  Sam jabbed his thumbnail into the scar on his left hand. Real pain helped keep the delusions at bay. At least long enough to do what he had to. He staggered toward his brother’s position, willing his cobwebs away.

  The harpy lifted one of her feet over Dean’s midsection, flashing a nasty set of claws, clearly intent on eviscerating him.

  In his peripheral vision, Sam could see Bobby reloading his automatic, but knew he was too far away for much accuracy with a handgun. Sam had a clear shot with the rifle, though. Lucifer was gone, and he had to believe the harpy was standing over Dean and not the other way around.

  As Sam’s finger closed on the trigger, Bobby fired his automatic. The bullet ripped through a row of feathers. Sam smiled and fired.

  The rifle bullet struck the third harpy in the upper back, just left of the spine.

  Dean rolled out from under the hovering talons.

  The harpy staggered, fell to one knee, wings spread wide, and coughed up blood.

  Working the bolt, Sam fired again.

  Te collapsed face down, her right leg twitching for a second or two.

  “Knife!” Dean called.

  Sam pulled out his knife and executed an underhand throw, hilt out.

  Dean snatched the knife out of the air, rolled the harpy over with one hand, and drove the tip of the blade into her chest with the other.

  “We’re a knife short,” Bobby yelled. “And Lo here is getting fidgety.”

  Dean cast about then reached down. “Found it.”

  He looked at Sam and nodded appreciatively. “Again, nice shot.”

  Sam flashed a brief smile.

  Dean spread his arms as he backed away. “Okay, I was wrong.”

  “No arguments here.”

  Sam followed Dean, feeling his smile fade away. He knew it would be hard to win back Dean’s trust if he couldn’t trust himself. On that front, he was a work in progress. But he was relieved Lucifer didn’t reappear to rub it in.


  With the harpies’ hearts skewered, they remained catatonic. The hunters grabbed them by the ankles and dragged them to a nearby fire pit, lined up the trio side by side, sprayed them head to toe with lighter fluid, and torched them.

  They stood upwind, in silence, watching as the sisters burned.

  Dean glanced at Bobby. “Are we done here?”

  “Kind of jackass leaves a fire burning unattended?”

  “Right,” Dean said, and pulled his flask from a jacket pocket, “I wouldn’t want to miss out on the merit badge.” He took a swig from the flask and walked a few steps away from the funeral pyre.

  Lucifer had taken Dean’s place beside Sam, and was warming his hands over the fire.

  “Feels like home!”

  Sam closed his eyes, pressed the scar hard, counted to three, and opened his eyes again. Lucifer was gone, but Dean was back.

  “These birds look extra crispy, colonel,” he said.

  Bobby ignored the jibe and nodded, satisfied. They kicked dirt over the dying flames. The harpies’ remains crumbled, with no more substance than burnt leaves.

  Once they were on the road and miles away from the harpies’ feeding grounds, they would place an anonymous call to the police to expedite the recovery and identification of the victims’ remains. For now, Sam hurried along the deer trail leading back to the roadside to catch up to Dean, who seemed in an unusual hurry. Mindful of the uncertain footing, Bobby brought up the rear at a measured pace.

  Drawing level with his brother, Sam asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  Sam sniffed twice and wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”

  “You really don’t wanna know,” Dean grumbled.

  Two

  Tora sat at the back of the South Jersey Transit bus with the bowler tilted low over his deeply creased brow, his cane upright between his knees, both hands gripping the ironbound handle. Had he planned to crash the bus, he would not have boarded it. His interest lay in its route. For the same reason, he ignored opportunities to tamper with the lives of the passengers—early shift workers, probably food service or manual laborers by the look of them. Most wore casual shirts and jeans or shapeless polyester uniforms. A handful sported business attire. With his bowler, black suit and cane, he looked the most out of place on the bus, hence his decision to sit behind the other passengers, where he could observe without attracting undue attention. Of course, he could use his power to fade from their awareness, but saw no reason to expend the effort.

  Of all the humans present, the obese bus driver, with his florid face and labored breathing, his girth straining the seams of his black vest and white dress shirt, offered the easiest possibility. But a medical emergency would probably prevent the completion of the bus’s route. Better to forego a small reward in favor of a bigger prize. Another test of his patience.

  When the bus approached the intersection of Route 38 and Kressen Boulevard, he sat up straighter, attentively glancing left and right to observe the volume of rapid rush-hour traffic. A broad smile spread across his ruddy face. As the bus slowed, several passengers stood to disembark. After a mischievous look in the bus driver’s direction, he followed the other passengers to the back door, ducking his head and turning sideways to step out. When the door hissed closed behind him, he tapped it with the pointed tip of his cane, an action unnoticed by the passengers who remained behind or those who left the bus before him. While they crossed the intersection or turned down Route 38 with clear purpose, he stood next to the traffic light as if undecided about which way to proceed.

  Someone had taped multiple copies of a colorful flyer to the traffic light pole, as if worried they would succumb to attrition and at least one must last until the upcoming Sunday at 10 a.m. The chamber of commerce was sponsoring the Laurel Hill 50th Anniversary Parade to commence at Broad and Main in something designated the Classic Business District. That the town had planned a celebration he found amusing. He chuckled, a deep, rumbling sound.

  The heavy flow of traffic along Kressen Boulevard and Route 38 dutifully obeyed the mechanical commands of the traffic lights dangling overhead. Predictably, the drivers pushed their luck, running yellow lights, jamming their brakes at the last second, and yielding reluctantly. Conditions were ripe. But he would need a few moments to expand his awareness.

  First things first. He stared down Kressen Boulevard until he spotted, several intersections distant, the receding form of the bus he had recently vacated. With the index and middle finger of his right hand pressed to his temple, he recalled the image of the bus driver. After a moment or two, the recalled image transformed and became the present. He saw inside the bus, heard the driver’s labored breathing and watched as his heavy foot pressed the accelerator pedal. Ahead of the bus, a T-intersection loomed. The driver would have to turn left or right or—

  The third option held the most promise.

  Tora rubbed his thumb over the head of the cane in concentration.

  The bus driver gasped, clutching his right palm against his chest. Sweating profusely, he tried to speak but merely moaned in excruciating pain. His foot floored the accelerator and the bus shot through the T-intersection and jumped the far curb. Realizing the bus was out of control, several passengers screamed.

  Directly in front of the runaway bus, on the far side of a narrow parking lot, the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows of an athletic club revealed an impressive row of treadmills, stationary bicycles, elliptical machines and stair climbers— all facing away from the parking lot. The club members toiled away with no forward progress, either staring at the mounted row of flat-screen television sets provided for their entertainment or listening to private music through their earbuds.

  The bus shot across the parking lot unimpeded, still gathering speed as it raced between two narrow bollards in front of recently vacated parking spaces, jumped the sidewalk and crashed through the plate glass windows. Two club members died instantly as the bus bowled over their cardio machines. Flying debris and smashed flat-screen TVs injured several others. Several bus passengers broke limbs or suffered concussions. One died from a broken neck. Fractured, the Laurel Hill Fitness Zone sign above the plate glass windows fell on either side of the bus. Within three minutes, the bus driver would die.

  Tora frowned, slightly disappointed now that it was over. Aside from the delightful shock value, the accident had produced negligible results. No matter. He would accept it as an extemporaneous warm-up act and proceed to the main event.

  Again, he focused on the alternating flow of traffic, the give and take of racing and braking vehicles on Route 38 and Kressen Boulevard. Those on time wanted to arrive early; those running late needed to make up time. Either way, the commute became a daily ritual of gamesmanship, fueled by equal parts anger, resentment, distraction and carelessness. A perfect storm … with a little help.

  Facing the intersection at a forty-five degree angle, he stood with both hands clasped over the iron handle of his cane and focused his attention on the flow of traffic, in one direction after another. With each passing second, his awareness spread farther from the intersection along each traffic artery. He filtered out the cars, SUVs and trucks as they exited the intersection, removing them from the organic equation of coincidence forming in his head. And yet that was insufficient for what he planned. He needed to see more.

  The bowler hat rose slightly on his brow as he stretched his deeply creased forehead, revealing a rounded lump in the center, and the closed lid of a third eye. Finally, the dark eyelid fluttered open, exposing a milky white orb with several odd pupils—or at least what passed for pupils. The black oblong shapes drifted randomly across the nacreous surface of the eye, sometimes submerging and reappearing in a different location before sliding along the surface again. Humans who observed Tora’s third eye for more than a few seconds often became violently ill. Few lived long enough to tell the tale.

  With his third eye exposed and active, he could complete
his assessment. Now he saw farther than was possible with his other eyes. He saw the interconnectedness of every action and reaction, like a vast clockwork mechanism. One by one, the necessary gears resolved before the examination of the eye—

  A man distracted by an angry cell phone conversation.

  The woman driving beside him texting her husband.

  A middle-aged man shaving in the car behind her.

  A harried mother yelling at two children fighting in the back seat.

  While nearby, a man adds artificial sweetener to an uncapped cup of hot coffee propped on his dashboard.

  A driver of a battered pickup with a missing gate, the truck bed loaded with loosely tied propane tanks.

  The teenage boy in a nearby car repeatedly changing radio stations, seeking the perfect song.

  And racing along Route 38, approaching the intersection, a long-haul tractor-trailer driver who has spent too many consecutive hours behind the wheel.

  As if cuing an orchestra to begin playing, Tora tapped the tip of his cane against the traffic light pole. Instantly, the red light facing Route 38 flickered from red to green.

  With his traffic light green, the exhausted truck driver never touched his brake pedal, failing to notice traffic along Kressen Boulevard continued to flow, and well above the posted speed limit.

  Closing his nacreous third eye with its drifting and submerging pupils, Tora relaxed the creases in his forehead, adjusted the bowler, and smiled.

  First, the semi smashed into the angry cell phone talker’s car with a sound like an explosion, spinning the car almost three hundred and sixty degrees and blocking two lanes of traffic. Then, one after another, the distracted drivers reacted too late and slammed into the car in front of them a millisecond before getting rammed from behind.

  Realizing he lacked sufficient braking distance to avoid the growing pile-up dead ahead, the teenager fiddling with his radio presets swerved violently to the right. A front tire blew out and his car rolled over three times before reaching the far shoulder. In the process, his fuel line tore amid a shower of sparks. Flames raced across the highway in all directions, followed by the thunderous explosion of the battered sports car.