Supernatural 10 - Rite of Passage (37 page)

Based on Dean’s experience, Sam wouldn’t need an armor-piercing round if he could score a direct hit. He took aim at Jesse.

The lumbering oni closed on him, his cane raised like a spear. Sam had no choice but to face Tora. Sam got off one shot, his last, but it struck the oni’s right horn and ricocheted. He swung his gun hand up to deflect the iron tip of the cane. The automatic was knocked from his numb fingers and he was airborne, brushed aside by the oni’s powerful arm, and crashed into seats, landing atop two sprawled corpses. The side of his jacket had been sliced open and a line of blood trickled down his abdomen, the result of a close call with the cleaver. Wincing, Sam pushed himself up in time to see Winemiller take a shooting stance.

“Winemiller!” McClary called weakly. “Stand down!”

“I got th—”

The tip of the oni’s cane skewered the junior officer’s throat. While his body twitched, gushing blood, the oni embedded the cleaver in an armrest, then shoved his clawed hand, palm flat, claws aligned, through Winemiller’s torso and ripped out his beating heart.

Dean strode down the aisle, firing round after round at the oni, whose bulk shielded his two remaining sons. The oni hurled the cleaver toward Dean, who ducked as it whistled past his head. While Dean dodged the cleaver, the oni picked up Winemiller’s body and flung it at him, knocking him over.

By the time Sam managed to disentangled himself from the corpses, the oni and his two sons had slipped out of the fire exit.

Sumiko sat huddled in the Odyssey and tried to call her mother, but her phone kept dropping signal bars whenever she dialed. The ambulance had left with the injured driver who had been too drunk to find his brake pedal and nearly killed the traffic cop. The street was deserted.

Movement caught her eye. Instinctively, she ducked, peering over the edge of the door. Three dark figures ran through a backyard, hunched over.

The streetlight on the nearest utility pole had died when the DUI driver crashed into it. But she recognized one of the men, Ryan, and he appeared to be injured. He was with the tall man and Jesse. They must have left Dalton behind. But why? Had he caused the crisis at the theater? Surely the
cops wouldn’t have let the others go that easily. They would be questioned.

When they piled into the red Durango, drove slowly away from the theater blockade area and turned down a side street, she made up her mind. She tossed her useless phone on the passenger seat, started the Odyssey and followed them. If Ryan hoped to salvage anything out of this disaster, he had to turn himself in. Maybe he had been coerced into helping the vile man who was his real father. She refused to believe he would willingly take part in a holdup or hostage-taking situation. This might be her last chance to help him.

To avoid answering questions all night at police headquarters, Dean, Sam and Bobby left the theater after helping McClary back on his feet. The sergeant took charge of the situation, but winced continually, having suffered several fractured ribs in addition to dealing with a broken wrist. Patrol sweeps of the area had turned up nothing and, as they might have predicted, traffic cameras in the area had malfunctioned.

Sam’s cut was several inches long but shallow and had stopped bleeding. Bobby’s torso was one large bruise, but he didn’t believe he’d cracked any ribs. If he had, he refused to admit it. He took the news of Roy’s death hard.

“Aw, hell,” he said. “Told the stubborn bastard this wasn’t his fight.”

“It never ends well,” Dean said, recalling Roy’s final words.

“At least we found a weakness,” Sam said. “We got one of them, and I almost hit the Big Daddy’s third eye.”

“Almost?” Bobby said. “Hell, I nailed it. Point blank.”

“No damage?” Sam asked.

“By the look of it, sure hurt like hell,” Bobby said. “It gripped that cane something fierce.”

Sam frowned. “The cane,” he said. “According to the lore, an oni wields a club.”

“A
kanabo
,” Bobby said. “Reshaped for modern times?”

“The expression ‘oni with an iron club’ means something’s invincible in Japanese, right?” Sam said. “So, what if the club enhances its abilities. What if the third eye is a weakness that’s protected?”

“Right. Protected,” Dean said. “So we’re screwed. No Achilles’ heel. No chinks in the armor.”

“No, Dean,” Bobby said, nodding. “Sam’s onto something here. That cane’s not just a weapon, it’s an amulet, a protective shield.”

“We take the cane, then shoot the eye,” Sam reasoned.

“Fine,” Dean said. “But we gotta find him first.”

“There is someone who might know.” Sam glanced across the street. “If I can find her.”

“The blogger?”

“She knows those kids, the oni’s sons,” Sam said. “Probably tracked them here. Her car’s gone now. Maybe she followed them when they left, too.”

Sam took the laptop from the Monte Carlo’s trunk and discovered a message from Sumiko, stating that she suspected something was wrong with Ryan and had followed him and the others to the theater. She was worried, but didn’t know what was happening. “She sent this after we arrived.”

“Say where she is now?”

“That was the only message,” Sam said, a look of concern on his face. “She’s not replying to email. We need to call her, but I don’t have her number.”

“I’ll call McClary,” Bobby said, reaching for his phone. “Should have access to her home number. If it’s unlisted, someone at the high school should have it.”

Sam turned to Dean. “If she went after them,” he said, “she’s following them blind.”

“With no idea she’s chasing a bunch of cold-blooded murderers.”

Thirty-Three

Sumiko parked a block and a half away from Hawthorne’s. She waited until the three of them slipped inside the shuttered department store before leaving the minivan. She planned to pull Ryan aside and convince him to ditch the other two. Once they were away, she would urge him to contact the police, tell them how he’d been forced to go along with the others. There was no other explanation in her mind for his behavior. She knew Ryan too well to believe he would willingly commit a serious crime. If he gave evidence against the man who attacked his mother, the obvious ringleader, the police might give Ryan a reduced sentence, maybe probation or house arrest. She had to help him make it right.

She examined the door into Hawthorne’s and discovered the lock had been forced and the hinges damaged. It almost swung open when she grabbed the handle. She paused,
reaching into her jacket pocket to mute her phone—not that she’d had a reliable signal all night—but couldn’t find it. Either the phone had fallen out of her loose jacket pocket or she had left it on the passenger seat again. Regardless, she needed to get Ryan away from the others as soon as possible, before the police found them all together.

Taking a deep breath, she eased the door open and stepped into the dark department store. All the merchandise was long gone, but some broken mannequins remained, like ghosts on eternal guard duty, along with empty clothing racks with plastic and metal hangers. Glass counters remained, but all the cash registers were gone. In the center of the store, the dust-matted up and down escalators crisscrossed each other, forming an X. High above, a long row of skylights, spattered with months of bird droppings, allowed starlight to filter down to her, multiplied by reflections in metal, glass and mirrored surfaces. As she crept deeper into the department store, her eyes adjusted to the darkness well enough to avoid bumping into counters and empty display racks.

She heard voices coming from what had been the home theater section of the store and peered ahead, straining to penetrate the darkness. As she passed the escalators, she saw flickering candlelight dancing on the walls. A little farther and she saw Ryan standing in profile, recognized his voice and that he was angry.

“—made me do those—those horrible things!”

“This is your true nature,” a deep voice replied. “By dawn your transformation will be complete. You will cast aside human weakness and human concerns. Now, we finish the
demon gate ritual so that she too will become oni and share our strength.”

Sumiko froze when she heard a woman sobbing.

To her right, a dark shape rose from the motionless escalator stairs, hurdled the railing and landed behind her. She shrieked as one powerful forearm wrapped around her neck, the other around her waist. She had glimpsed his familiar face. Even though blood streaked his forehead and cheeks, she recognized Jesse Trumball.

He lifted her off her feet and carried her bodily toward Hawthorne’s home theater department. She punched and kicked, clawed and screamed, but her awkward blows landed without force and he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Seconds later, he set her down before the ringleader and Ryan without releasing his hold on her.

“You were right,” Jesse said to the tall man, “we had a spy.”

“Soon your third eye will give you the ability to see beyond, too.”

Before she could fully register the paired horns on their heads, the swollen lump in the center of their brows, or their rows of shark teeth, her gaze was drawn to the dark-haired woman bound with rope to a support column. The woman’s wild eyes darted around frantically without focusing, tears streaked her cheeks and her lips looked raw, as if she’d gnawed on them until they bled. Sumiko feared the woman had gone insane. When she noticed the brass bowl on the floor and the glistening red, fist-sized lump it held, she began to understand why.

Oh, God, no!

“For the demon gate ritual, I needed a fresh human heart,” the tall man said. “Now my son brings a beating heart to replace my silent offering. Excellent!”

Ryan turned to Sumiko. For a moment, he seemed confused, as if he didn’t recognize her, then his gaze locked on her face.

“Ryan?” she said, her voice quavering with fear. “What’s happening?”

“No!” Ryan shouted at the oni. “Let her go! She has nothing to do with this.”

“The moment she walked in here, she forfeited her life,” the oni told Ryan. “You are oni, of my blood. You will do as I command.” With his cane hanging from his belt, the oni took rope from a duffel bag, tossed it on the seat of a molded plastic chair with metal legs and shoved the chair across the floor to Jesse. “Tie her to the chair until I require her heart.”

Jesse picked up the rope and shoved her down into the chair. As he wrenched one of her arms behind her, she twisted free and flung herself from the chair on to her hands and knees. She tried to push off from that position, but stumbled, her heel sliding on the scuffed tile floor.

Jesse caught her arm and yanked hard. A bone snapped in her forearm, delivering a sharp burst of pain. She cried out as he hauled her back to the chair.

Ryan roared and launched himself at Jesse.

Sumiko saw Jesse pull a knife from the back of his belt.

“Ryan, no!”

Releasing Sumiko, Jesse shoved the point of the knife
into a strange lump that had formed in the middle of Ryan’s forehead. The blade sank several inches into Ryan’s skull. Sumiko screamed. Jesse twisted his forearm then tugged the knife free. Ryan gurgled and pitched forward, then fell sideways, curling into a fetal position.

The oni strode forward and caught Jesse by the throat, a murderous look in his eyes.

“How dare you!”

Sumiko scrambled to Ryan’s side and lifted his head awkwardly with her good arm. Blood and white fluid trickled across his face. His eyes darted back and forth but gradually stopped tracking, seeming to lose focus. “Ryan!”

“Miko. So sorry,” he gasped. “I’ve done … terrible things.”

“It’s okay, Ryan,” she said, her voice breaking as she brushed locks of hair away from his face. Most of the cobalt blue had faded, replaced by natural red. “What happened to you … It’s not your fault.”

But he was gone, his eyes staring blankly past her.

Conscious of the oni gripping Jesse by the throat, she backed away on her knees from Ryan’s body as quietly as possible, but her heel struck the chair leg, which squeaked against the floor. In a flash, the oni caught the elbow of her broken forearm and lifted her upright. White-hot pain flared within the already swollen arm.

“You had no right to kill a son of mine,” he said to Jesse.

“He was weak,” Jesse said, refusing to cower. “You saw it.”

“Ryan was stronger than all of you,” Sumiko said defiantly.

“If she speaks again,” the oni said, “rip out her tongue. I need her heart. Nothing else.”

Jesse pinned her to the chair.

The oni approached the bound woman. He sliced open his inner forearm with one of his dark fingernails, creating a cut several inches long. After a few moments of guttural chanting, he held the dripping wound up to the mouth of the woman.

“Drink of my blood,” he commanded. “Then you will consume the girl’s heart. By dawn, you will be oni.”

The woman tilted her head forward.

The oni smiled, nodding encouragement.

She snarled and sank her teeth into his open wound, almost growling as she gnawed, tearing at his flesh with no intention of letting go. With his free hand, the oni shoved her head backward. The defensive reflex was sudden and entirely too forceful. The back of the woman’s head smashed into the support column and her skull collapsed like the shell of a raw egg dropped on the floor. She died instantly