Supernatural: Carved in Flesh

by Tim Waggoner

  The tools Conrad had brought with him were simple. A stone bowl and knife, very old and worn from much use, both emblazoned with ancient runes. If a linguistics scholar had been present, he or she might have recognized the runes as being similar to those used by the Norse people, but these symbols predated those by centuries. The bowl rested directly beneath the squirming piglet, and next to it, the blade pointed north. The bowl was named Hunger, and the knife called Famine.

  Conrad closed his eyes, bowed his head, and then spoke in a reverent voice. The language he used was a forerunner of Old Norse.

  “Hel, Frau Holle, Dark Mother, Guardian of Graves, Queen of Night Unending, I beg you to accept this sacrifice from your most unworthy of servants.”

  This particular sacrifice wasn’t as elaborate as those conducted in the old days, long before Conrad’s birth. Back then, entire villages would sacrifice pigs and horses, boiling the meat in large cooking pits, and sprinkling the animals’ blood on statues of their deities. The villagers would eat the meat, drink mead, and pray for a good year and peace. In some villages, during every ninth year there was a blotan—or sacrificial—feast of nine days, during which nine males of each species, men included, were sacrificed, their bodies hung from the branches of trees near the temple. The most devout villages sacrificed ninety-nine people—men, women, and children—and although Conrad admired their devotion, few villages were large enough to survive the loss of so much of their population every nine years.

  Conrad knew rites such as the one he was about to perform were more symbolic than literal, but he’d served Hel for over three hundred years, and he knew that the dark goddess, while understanding the necessity of a downsized sacrifice in the modern world, still expected her servants to get the basics right, to cross their T’s and dot their I’s, as it were.

  He opened his eyes, picked up Famine, and touched the blade’s tip to the sacred nine points of life on his body: the genitals (from which life sprung), the heart (which pumped blood), the nose, the mouth, and both lungs (all involved in breathing), the stomach (which digested food), the forehead (behind which lay the brain), and lastly his right hand (which held weapons and tools with which to fight, hunt, and build). Holding Famine with his left hand, he carved a single rune into the flesh of his right palm. To a modern English speaker, the symbol would have resembled a large X, but it stood for the word gebo, meaning gift. Conrad waited until the blood was flowing strongly, and then pressed his palm against the side of the piglet. He returned Famine to his right hand, gripping the stone handle tight so his blood smeared it, then carved the rune for gebo into the piglet—the animal now squealing in terror—until its blood mingled with his own, mystically linking the two of them. Conrad and the piglet were now one, and the sacrifice of its life would substitute for the sacrifice of his. That is, if he’d done everything right. If not, Hel would take his life along with the piglet’s. After three centuries, he could perform this ritual in his sleep, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of making a mistake, and even the smallest flaw might upset his lady. He hoped that if she found his sacrifice wanting, she would forgive him, if for no other reason than because she still had need of him.

  He grabbed hold of the back of the piglet’s neck to keep it steady, and then with a single swift, practiced swipe, he sliced open the animal’s throat. Blood poured from the wound and into Hunger below. Conrad held the blade beneath the flow to wet it, and then flicked it toward each of the sacred nine points of his body, splashing himself with the piglet’s blood. He then placed Famine on the floor next to Hunger, pressed his wounded hand over his heart, closed his eyes, and waited. He listened as the sound of blood splatter lessened, became a trickle, then slowed to intermittent drops. When it stopped at last, he opened his eyes.

  Hunger was filled with dark blood, but as Conrad watched, the level began to lower. Within moments, the blood was gone, absorbed into the stone. He smiled. Hel had accepted his sacrifice.

  He bowed his head.

  “My lady, two men have come to Brennan. I believe they intend to interfere with our plans, and I ask for the means to track them, so I might slay them before they can cause us further difficulty.”

  Someone else might have asked Hel to strike the two men dead, but he knew the dark queen preferred her servants practice self-reliance. The gods help those who help themselves.

  For several moments, nothing happened, and Conrad began to fear that his lady had forsaken him. Then he heard a voice whisper in his mind, the words like a midnight wind blowing across the icy surface of a frozen lake.

  So it shall be.

  The rune he’d carved into his palm erupted with fresh pain far more intense than anything a mere cut could cause. It was a cold pain, but a cold so strong it burned like fire. He gritted his teeth and pulled his hand away from his chest. He watched as the blood that still welled forth from the X he’d carved into himself froze and became crimson ice. The pain worsened and the sensation of cold spread through his body. He began to shiver. Despite the cold sensation, sweat poured off of him as he fought to endure the agony. Finally, just as the pain had become so bad that he was considering snatching up Famine with his left hand and hacking off his right, the sensation began to lessen. Within moments, it was gone, leaving behind only a dull, distant throbbing.

  He examined his palm. The blood was gone and the wound healed, leaving behind an X-shaped black scar. Conrad held his hand straight out before him experimentally. He felt the cold return, though far less painfully this time, and only on the left edge of the rune. He moved his hand leftward, and the cold spread farther, until it covered the entire rune. He smiled. Hel had given him the equivalent of a compass to track the two meddlers. The rune was indeed now a gebo—a gift—but now a gift from the goddess instead of to her.

  He inclined his head in gratitude. “I praise your eternal darkness, my lady.”

  He rose to his feet, ready to begin the hunt. Then he glanced down at his body, splattered with blood from the ritual. Perhaps he should clean himself up first. He looked at the dead piglet dangling over the empty stone bowl. Maybe he should avail himself of the opportunity for some sustenance, too. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and he was so fond of raw pig heart.

  He bent down, picked up Famine, and started cutting.

  * * *

  “Did you see the way those cops reacted to us?” Dean asked. “Now I know why they call it getting the stink eye. We reek!”

  “At least our stench will keep them out of the house while we check the scene,” Sam said. They’d stopped on the drive over for yet another coffee for Sam, and he sipped it now.

  “No need for that,” Dean said. “They’re already too worried about catching whatever plague they think is responsible for The Pruning. They don’t want to spend any more time in here than they have to.”

  “Whatever works,” Sam said, and took another sip of coffee. “I mean, they were in such a hurry to get out, they didn’t question the logic of agents posing as reporters to question Lyle.”

  They stood in Lyle’s kitchen. The county medical examiner had already come and gone, but Lyle’s body hadn’t been removed yet in order to give the “agents” a chance to examine it. He sat on the floor, his back against a cupboard door, a withered husk, parchment-dry skin stretched tight across bone.

  “You don’t have to be a forensics expert to read this crime scene,” Dean said. “Double-Header busted down the back door, slurped up Lyle’s life energy, then took off. I wonder who reported Lyle’s death.”

  “I heard a couple cops talking outside as we walked up. Looks like Lyle was in the process of picking up trash in his back yard when the Double-Header came after him. He never finished—obviously. Later on, the wind kicked up, started blowing trash into his neighbor’s yard—”

  “I get the picture. Neighbor comes over, all pissed off and ready to complain, and finds our boy Lyle prune-ified.”

  “Yep.” Sam hit his coffee once more.
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  Dean wondered how much coffee, with added espresso shots, someone could drink before suffering a caffeine overdose. Though Sam didn’t seem to be experiencing any symptoms. So far, all the coffee he’d guzzled hadn’t shifted his system into overdrive. Hell, it had barely kept him awake. Still, he’d have to make sure Sam didn’t make himself sick.

  He had hoped that the smell of Sam’s coffee might help to leaven the stench of the late, unlamented Frankenmutt that clung to them, but if anything, he found the mingled scents even more nauseating. The combined smells didn’t seem to bother Sam, but Dean didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Over the years, Sam had suffered a number of experiences that had altered his behavior one way or another, and it had gotten to the point where Dean wasn’t sure what normal was for his brother anymore. Not that he was one to talk. He’d lost more than a few of his own marbles over the years. He supposed that was one of the reasons the two of them stayed together. Sure, they were family, but they also kept each other going, almost out of habit. If they were this bad now, he wondered what they’d be like when they were old men. Not that there was any guarantee they’d live long enough to reach their golden years. There was a reason why hunters never bothered to save for retirement. All they needed to save for was the cost of a burial. And even that was an iffy proposition, since when they died—assuming they really did die, rather than being turned into a vampire or something—there might not be enough of them left to put in the ground.

  The morbid turn his thoughts had taken—an occupational hazard—inevitably led him to think about Bobby. No condo in Florida for him. At least he and Sam had been able to bury Bobby, first burning his bones so there was no chance he’d come back as a vengeful spirit. He reached into his jacket pocket and touched Bobby’s flask. I miss you, he thought. For a moment, the flask’s metal seemed to warm beneath his fingers, then the sensation was gone, and he dismissed it as his imagination.

  “Both the Double-Header and Frankenmutt drain their victims’ life force,” Dean said. “They might not look anything alike, but they’re basically the same kind of monster.”

  “They’re combinations of different bodies,” Sam pointed out. “So in that sense they do resemble one another.”

  “So we’re definitely looking for a mad scientist type.”

  “Or a mad sorcerer. There’s no way science alone could create monsters like these.”

  “Maybe whoever’s responsible swings both ways,” Dean suggested.

  “So we’re dealing with what? A sorcentist?”

  Dean gave his brother a look. “From now on, leave coming up with the wacky nicknames to me, okay?”

  “Fine.” Sam thought for a moment. “If what we’ve got here is some kind of new fusion of science and magic, it could be something the Leviathan have no defense against.”

  “So we might actually be close to finding Leviathan kryptonite.”

  “Leviathanite?”

  “Dude—seriously.”

  * * *

  “You’re really quite beautiful, you know. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you’re a masterpiece.”

  Harrison watched Byron take another bite of his—its—their—treat. Each head had two chocolate bars, one for each hand, and they ate in almost perfect unison, raising the candy to their mouths at the same time, biting down, chewing, and swallowing. Harrison had done nothing to connect their brains, so he knew their synchronized movements had no physiological base, which made them all the more fascinating to watch, especially with four hands delivering the chocolate. He was glad to see that the heads had no difficulty swallowing. One of the trickier bits of Byron’s creation had been connecting both heads to a single alimentary canal. It would’ve been impossible without NuFlesh, not to mention the mystical augmentations Harrison had picked up from Conrad. All in all, he was quite pleased. Next time, perhaps he’d try for three heads—a hat trick.

  Byron sat cross-legged on the floor of the shed while he ate, and Harrison stood watching near the door, a stun gun held at his side. Harrison had ordered the weapon online before he began working on Byron, just in case his creation decided to get a bit feisty. The charge the gun delivered wasn’t strong enough to do any serious damage to Byron, but because his mental level was barely above that of an infant, the pain of the electrical jolt was enough to discipline him. Harrison had rarely needed to use the stun gun, though, not when chocolate produced far more effective results. Byron derived no nourishment from food, and it would do nothing to satisfy the hunger that now burned at the core of his being, but it tasted good, and that made it an excellent motivator. Finding Byron and bringing him to the shed had been child’s play. All Harrison had needed to do was wander through the woods behind the Legacy Center, waving an unwrapped chocolate bar in the air and calling out, “I’ve got a treaty for my sweetie!” until Byron came loping toward him, drooling with anticipation. After that, Byron would have followed Harrison to the center of town as long as he received chocolate at the end of the trip. Nevertheless, Harrison still held onto the stun gun. Candy was dandy, but it was no substitute for several million volts of electricity.

  He was a bit worried about his boy—boys. On the way to the shed, he’d had a chance to look Byron over thoroughly, and while his body was predictably dirty and scratched from gallivanting around the woods, Harrison had also noted the first signs of incipient decay. Just a few patches here and there, but it meant that his creation didn’t have much time left. A week, perhaps two at the most. And as the decay grew worse, so would Byron’s hunger, driving him to seek out living creatures and absorb their life energy. Doing so would stave off his decay for a time, but it would only be a temporary stay of execution. Death would inevitably come to him.

  “It’s such a shame. But look at it this way: you’ve managed to escape the Drain, if only for a short time.”

  Neither of Byron’s heads looked at him as he spoke. They were too intent on finishing their treats. They ate with messy delight, smacking chocolate-smeared lips in between bites and humming tonelessly in a way that seemed to Harrison almost like purring.

  He had complied with Conrad’s demand to fetch Byron, but that was as far as he intended to cooperate with the ancient alchemist. Conrad had never told Harrison who he really was, but it had taken no great effort to find out. For pity’s sake, he hadn’t even changed his name! A quick Internet search did the trick. Nevertheless, even given who Dippel was and the terrible knowledge that was his to command, Harrison wasn’t afraid of him. The old man had enjoyed a nice long run, but it was time for someone else to take over. Someone like Harrison. And Byron was going to help him do it. When Conrad returned, Harrison would serve him to Byron for lunch. All he had to do was figure out a way—

  The shed door opened.

  “Hello, Harrison.” Conrad, impeccably dressed as always, stepped inside and Harrison stepped back to make room. His gaze focused on Byron, and while his nose wrinkled in disgust—Harrison had to admit his boys didn’t smell their freshest at the moment—he seemed pleased. “Excellent work.”

  “I pride myself on my customer service,” Harrison said. “It is, after all, at the heart of the funeral industry.”

  He hadn’t expected Conrad to return so soon, and the man’s appearance had taken him by surprise. He took a quick glance around the shed, casting about for anything that he might be able to use for a weapon, but aside from a coiled length of hose, a rusty lawn sprinkler, and an old bag of peat moss, the shed was empty. When Byron had first started sleeping there, Harrison had removed everything that might prove a danger to him. So no sharp garden tools, no hammers, no axes.

  As a businessman, he believed in the value of a carefully thought out plan. It was, after all, one of his primary sales tools. He’d even paid for a billboard out on the highway with a cartoon of a grinning man standing up in a coffin, hands held high above his head with enthusiastic joy, and above him in large letters this slogan: “Preplanning is Fun!” Beneath the coffin in smaller
letters: “Put your mind at rest before you’re laid to rest. Brauer Legacy Center.” But as important as having a plan was, sometimes you just had to improvise.

  Harrison turned to Conrad, jammed the stun gun against the side of the man’s neck, and activated the device. There was a loud crackling sound, accompanied by the stink of ozone and scorched flesh. Conrad’s body jerked and shuddered, and Harrison kept the stun gun pressed to his neck, giving him an extra-strong dose of juice. When he figured the man had enough, Harrison pulled the gun away, grabbed hold of his arm, and shoved him toward Byron. Conrad stumbled toward the creature, lost his footing, and fell onto the floor directly in front of him. Alarm crossed both of Byron’s faces, and he began hooting in surprise and fear, sounding like a pair of frightened apes.

  “Drain him!” Harrison shouted. “Suck him dry!”

  Byron’s second head—the one Harrison had added to the original body and which hung at an odd angle—looked at him blankly, but the original head’s eyes narrowed with cunning. That side of the body dropped what was left of its chocolate bars and slapped its hands on Conrad. The second head finally figured out what was happening, and it too dropped its treats and grabbed hold of Conrad.

  Harrison grinned with cruel satisfaction. This was working out even better than he’d hoped. It would all be over within moments, and then he’d be rid of that arrogant prick once and for—

  Conrad, looking a bit disheveled but by no means panicked, reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and removed an envelope. He opened it and flung the contents in Byron’s faces. A fine yellow powder spread outward in a small cloud, and both of Byron’s heads inhaled it. The second one sneezed.