Castiel came forward while the woman talked and took advantage of his proximity to examine the fussing baby. “Beautiful child,” he said, smiling.
The older woman returned the smile reflexively, with a grandmother’s pride. “She certainly is, aren’t you, dear?”
Sam noticed Castiel’s gaze shift toward the back of the infant’s neck. His smile faded abruptly and he caught Sam’s eye. “A word, Agent Rutherford?”
Nodding, Sam excused himself to both women and joined Castiel and Dean in the adjoining room. Castiel had taken out his phone and brought up a photo of another baby. Sam noticed what appeared to be a round rash on the nape of the infant’s neck, and closer inspection revealed several tiny puncture wounds, forming a partial circle outlining the rash. They’d already begun to heal by the time Dr. Hartwell had taken the photo.
“I haven’t had a chance to send you this image yet,” Castiel explained, his voice low enough that neither Melissa nor her mother could hear what he said. “The Barrows child has the same rash and marks on the back of her neck.”
“Whoever this woman is,” Dean said, “we now know she’s responsible for the murders and the attack on the Atherton baby.”
Before they left, Sam wanted to examine the nursery. Leaning through the archway into the kitchen he asked Melissa if she had any objections to them checking the room.
She shook her head, but added, “You won’t find anything. I don’t know how she got into the nursery, but she never came out through the door. I stood near the bottom of the stairs while Kevin… while he stopped her. She had to have gone out the window with… when he fell.”
Sam led the way up the steps. After Melissa rescued her infant daughter from the nursery, the police had blocked access to the room with an “X” of crime scene tape across the open doorway. From the hallway, they could see indentations where Kevin had been thrown bodily against the drywall, and blood splatter on the floor and curtains. But the crib was across the room. Ducking, Sam stepped through a gap in the tape and crossed the nursery, careful not to step in any blood stains.
He examined the mattress pad and the floor under the crib, looking for anything the intruder might have left behind—a slimy residue, a broken tooth—but other than a few strands of fine hair, his search proved fruitless. The baby monitor sat on a dresser facing the empty crib.
Sam spread his arms. “So she came here to what? Feed on the baby somehow while both parents were downstairs?”
“But didn’t notice the baby monitor,” Dean said. “They hear something.”
“The father interrupts… whatever she’s up to, and she guts him instead?”
“He defended his child,” Castiel said. “The woman fought back.”
“But he manages to wrestle her out the window,” Dean said. “Assuming Melissa’s correct and that’s how she exited the house.”
“So this time,” Sam said, “the attacker herself was surprised.”
“She must have a trigger,” Dean said. “The father was in the house, but instead of attacking and feeding on him, she goes after the baby.”
“She attacks the fathers when the mothers are still pregnant,” Sam said. “After childbirth, the babies become her target.”
“Or she has two options once the baby is born,” Dean said.
“Both times she’s… attached herself to an infant,” Castiel said, “the infant has survived.”
“She was interrupted both times,” Sam reminded him.
“You assume she’s only done this twice,” Castiel said ominously. “She may have attached herself to other infants without getting caught in the act.”
“You saying she means them no harm?” Dean asked.
“The rash and puncture wounds prove she is harming them,” Castiel said. “But somehow those wounds are healed within hours.”
“It’s a form of concealment,” Sam said. “If her visits go undetected, it allows her to return multiple times.”
“She kills the men,” Dean said. “But we have no idea what her endgame is with the babies.”
They descended the stairs, continuing their discussion in lowered voices as they approached the kitchen. Sam turned to Castiel. “Dr. Hartwell found nothing wrong with the Atherton boy, right?”
“Correct,” Castiel said. “Other than the rash and punctures that healed by morning. If she hadn’t stopped by to hear the nurse’s account, she never would have known about them.”
“Whatever she’s up to, it ain’t good,” Dean insisted. He lowered his voice further after a quick glance toward the kitchen. “In my book, if a cannibal freak attaches its spine tentacle to a baby’s neck, you assume the worst.”
Sam returned to the kitchen to find Melissa holding her baby, smiling at the child though her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed from crying. “Excuse me again,” Sam said. “I was wondering if Noelle’s doctor has stopped by to check on her.”
“Not yet,” Melissa said, tracing the infant’s face with her index finger. “Thank God Kevin stopped that woman before she could hurt my little baby.”
“Dr. Hartwell’s on her way,” Melissa’s mother informed them. “Called her as soon as I heard what happened.”
“Good,” Sam said. “I’m familiar with Dr. Hartwell.”
Since Hartwell had already seen the rash and punctures on the Atherton baby, she might have some insight on how Noelle’s wounds compared. In both incidents, it appeared that the mystery woman hadn’t had much time to harm either child. Castiel was correct to suggest other attacks could have happened without anyone’s knowledge, but Sam wondered how both babies would have fared if the woman hadn’t been interrupted.
Sam heard activity at the front door.
Melissa’s father ushered in Dr. Vanessa Hartwell. “I’m so sorry about Kevin,” she said as she walked purposely toward the kitchen with him. “They have to stop this person.” She spotted the baby. “But my little patient is okay?”
“She’s upset,” Melissa’s father said. “But that’s natural, I guess.”
Castiel caught the OB/GYN by the arm and whispered in her ear.
She nodded, her features shifting from personal sympathy to professional concern. “Thanks. I’ll check.”
Sam left the kitchen after Hartwell entered. She placed her medical bag on the kitchen table, then stood beside Melissa as she began a cursory visual inspection of Noelle. She placed a finger at the top of the child’s onesie and gently pulled it down enough to examine the nape of the baby’s neck. She looked up toward Castiel and nodded. A moment later, Melissa passed the infant into Dr. Hartwell’s arms.
“She’s fine, isn’t she, Dr. Hartwell?”
“I think she’s incredible,” Dr. Hartwell said, smiling at the baby. “Let’s have a look…”
Unless the doctor found something other than the fading rash and puncture wounds, Sam decided they’d learn nothing more from Melissa and her child. He led the way out to the front walk.
Overhead lights flashing but silent, the EMT van left the scene with the remains of Kevin Barrows. Trumble wrapped up a final conversation with Cordero, climbed into his dark SUV and left in the same direction as the van. The patrol officers who had stood guard over the body had returned to the street, now grouped by one of the patrol cars, talking among themselves.
Sam turned to Dean and Castiel. “This is connected to Nodd and those disappearances in the sixties,” he said. “Sally’s arrival in this town must have triggered something that’s been dormant until now.”
“Sally and Riza are related by blood,” Dean said. “Maybe Riza came back when Sally moved here.”
“Maybe Riza never left,” Sam said, although he couldn’t imagine how she could have stayed hidden in town all these years. With her boyfriend and a child in tow? She could have changed her appearance, assumed a false identity. Even so… “She would be seventy years old now.”
“Her child would be in his or her fifties,” Castiel said.
“Nobody in town, not even the old
-timers, would recognize that child,” Dean said. “He or she could have come back any time, unnoticed.”
The front door opened and Dr. Hartwell hurried outside.
Sam caught her attention. “Something wrong with Noelle?”
“She seems fine, but I’m ordering a comprehensive metabolic panel, to be sure,” she said. “My service just called—twice in two minutes. Just when I think nothing else strange can happen…”
“More strange?” Dean asked.
“Two of my patients have gone into premature labor,” she said. “I believe you’ve spoken with both of them in relation to these attacks. Olivia Krum and Chloe Sikes.”
As she strode to a silver Lexus GS hybrid parked beyond the police perimeter and drove away, Sam frowned. One more weird coincidence in a string of unlikely coincidences involving pregnant women in Braden Heights dating back to the early sixties. Back then pregnant women went missing, never to be heard from again, and now the fathers of their children were being murdered while the newborns themselves had become prey.
TWENTY-SIX
As Dean and Castiel wove through the remaining emergency vehicles and edged their way past the crowd gathered at the edge of the crime scene tape, Sam veered off to speak with Assistant Chief Cordero. He waited while Cordero sent some of his patrol cops on their way, keeping a few around to maintain order while the crime scene unit wrapped up.
Once Sam had Cordero’s full attention, he said, “Getting out of the office more than usual these days?”
“Only wish it were under better circumstances,” Cordero said. “Chasing a phantom serial murderer has everyone rattled.”
“Trumble’s sticking with his wild animal attack theory,” Sam said.
“He’s like a dog with a bone,” Cordero replied, shaking his head. “But until one of us proves the other wrong, we’ll keep telling the press these are suspected animal attacks. At this point, I’d rather have the public fearful than panicked. Lesser of two evils, basically. I assume you didn’t stop by just to check the status of our public relations efforts.”
“Any eyewitnesses?”
“To the attack?” Cordero shook his head. “Melissa was downstairs. Heard the commotion; didn’t see squat.”
“To the fall,” Sam said, pointing toward the broken second-story window. “Neighbors outside see anything? Passing motorists?”
“What’s it take to fall from that height?” Cordero asked. “A second? Maybe less?” Again, he shook his head. “Had a few officers canvass the street. Nobody saw him fall. Several heard the crash, saw the aftermath.”
“But no wild animal sightings?”
“Not one,” Cordero said. “All anybody saw was that poor bastard lying on the sidewalk with a cracked skull and his guts ripped open. Unfortunately. Nightmare fuel.”
“Melissa didn’t see the intruder come out of the nursery,” Sam said. “And nobody saw the woman fall from the window.”
“Say Barrows broke her fall so she’s not hurt much. She’d only need a few seconds to duck between houses, cross a backyard. Not unreasonable.”
“But unlikely.”
“Maybe so,” Cordero said. “But that’s our working theory. Unless you got a better one…?”
I could suggest a few, Sam thought, but you’d never believe me. “Not yet.”
Unwilling to share his own speculations with Cordero, Sam left the marked crime scene area, ducking under the police tape in one of the less crowded areas. Almost half the gawkers had departed when the EMT van took Barrows’ corpse to the morgue. As the minutes ticked by with no further developments, others began to disperse, their morbid curiosity mostly unsatisfied. Sam noticed a woman in a red dress, standing by herself on the far side of the street. As he looked toward her, she returned his gaze and a jolt of recognition startled him.
“Amelia?” he whispered.
Amelia Richardson? Here? Why…?
He started walking to her, about to call out, to ask her what she was doing in Braden Heights—
An elderly couple crossed his path. He’d been so distracted by the sight of his old flame, he’d nearly run into them. “Excuse me,” he said, flashing a friendly and, he hoped, apologetic smile for almost bowling them over in his haste.
“Quite all right, young man,” the woman said. “Old as we are, you’d think we’d look both ways before crossing—well, walking down the middle of the street.”
Sam smiled politely at her attempt at humor.
After they passed him, he looked up, Amelia’s name again on his lips. But this time he didn’t say it aloud. She was gone. He looked left and right.
How far could she have gone?
The crowd had thinned considerably, so she’d definitely stand out in that red dress, but he couldn’t locate her. For a split-second, he glimpsed an older, hunched woman who looked like she’d never been exposed to the sun, drifting behind several onlookers, but his gaze swept past her, seeking the red dress, and when he looked back the other way, the old woman had disappeared as well. If one more person dropped out of view as suddenly, he’d begin to suspect open manhole covers lined the street.
After a slow 360 turn came up empty, he had to chalk the sighting up to a trick of his imagination. Stress induced? Lack of sleep? Had he been thinking about Amelia? They’d gotten pretty serious—at least until she found out her husband hadn’t been killed overseas. But Sam’s relationship with her had been a while ago. He’d put it behind him. At least he’d thought he had…
He worried about Dean and his Mark-induced visions. So now wasn’t a great time for both Winchester brothers to get distracted by hallucinations. He shook off the incident and strode toward the Impala.
Fortunately, Dean had been talking with Castiel and hadn’t seen Sam bumbling around, looking confused, so he had no need to explain himself. As Sam approached the front passenger door, Castiel climbed into his Lincoln and made a U-turn.
Before Dean climbed into the driver’s seat he looked across the roof of the car at Sam. “Ready?”
“Cass in a rush?”
“Volunteered to check on Chloe and Olivia,” Dean said. “They’re probably safe for now. At least until the babies are born. Tentacle Tessa doesn’t target pregnant women.”
Dean slipped into the Impala and started the engine. As soon as it roared to life, Dean flipped through the town’s rock stations, settling on CCR’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”
After one last glimpse back to where he thought he’d seen Amelia, Sam opened the passenger side door and climbed in. “She’s branching out, Dean,” he said. “First the boyfriends and husbands of the pregnant women. Now the babies. We don’t know what’s next.”
“So let’s find out.”
* * *
Back at the motel, Dean flopped on his bed, grumbling about the lumpy mattress as he stared at the ceiling. Sam opened his laptop and, with unmoving fingers resting on the keyboard, stared at the screen. Not a productive start by any means. Maybe Castiel had the right idea, Sam thought. At least he has a clear task.
Without the crutch of the bunker’s vast library of hunter lore, they had to go about the hunt the old-fashioned way. They had multiple victims, a few clues, and a definite, if still emerging pattern.
As tempting as it was to cast suspicion on Riza Nodd’s illegitimate adult child, whoever he or she might be, they couldn’t ignore all the evidence pointing to a supernatural entity. A human may have set the monster on its murderous course, but the monster was what they needed to stop. And to stop it, they needed to identify it and learn its weaknesses.
Problem was, monsters weren’t listed in the phone book, in print or online. But if the murders were triggered by Sally’s arrival in Braden Heights because of her relationship to the Larkin family, then maybe that was where he had to start. He took out a pen and legal pad and started making notes on property records and sales dating back from when the town was called Larkin’s Korner to the present day. Finally, he pushed the laptop aside as he pored ov
er those notes.
“Mind if I use that?” Dean asked, indicating the laptop.
“Go ahead,” Sam said.
“I have an idea,” Dean said, turning the computer around to face him and opening the web browser. After a few minutes, he seemed engrossed in his search.
“So the Larkin heirs are in London,” Sam said. “One parcel of untended farmland recently sold to a developer building single family homes, currently under construction as… Coventry Crossing. Another recent sale was for a lot with a farmhouse and barn. From the photo I saw, they were in bad shape. That land is adjacent to the Stanton Fertility Clinic. Plans are to raze the farmhouse and barn.”
“Stanton,” Dean repeated. “That’s next to LMC. Where we met Chloe Sikes.”
“Right,” Sam said. “We drove by the construction.”
“For the expanded parking lot,” Dean said.
“Before we talked to Melissa,” Sam said, “Cordero mentioned the Barrows used Stanton for their IVF cycles.”
“Think I got something, Sammy,” Dean said.
“What?”
“Checked into a Philippines angle,” Dean said. “Since Calvin Nodd met Malaya there before they came to Nodd’s hometown.”
“Right,” Sam said, curious.
“Take a look,” Dean said, turning the laptop around again to face Sam. “It talks about disembowelments, sucking out eyeballs.”
Sam set down his notes and scanned the browser windows Dean had opened. “There’s information here about a pontianak… and some overlapping stuff about a langsuir. Created when a woman dies in childbirth.” He looked up at Dean. “Like Malaya?”
“Keep reading.”
“Preys on men,” Sam read from the screen. “That fits… Sucks out the eyeballs if you stare at it directly… This also talks about the langsuir sucking the blood of infants, like a tiny vampire. You know she’s nearby if you hear a crying baby or smell a pleasant aroma.”
“Like fresh baked pies?” Dean wondered aloud, as if the tradeoff would be worth the inconvenience of a subsequent disembowelment.
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