Supernatural--Cold Fire Read Free Page A

shook his head in resignation. Not that they needed a big discussion or an elaborate plan, but he doubted their quarry had any intention of slipping out the back and fleeing. And it might have been wise to stick together for this final assault.
    After a week of brutal assaults perpetrated by what several terrified eyewitnesses described as strange, mutated beasts, the Winchesters had determined the abominations had somehow been created by the mythological Chimera, a creature described in lore as a lion with the head of a goat rising from its back and a snake’s head for a tail. While the Chimera itself had remained in the shadows during the attacks, a couple of witnesses caught glimpses of its telltale features, but they also had the impression of a massive, lumbering presence, indicating something larger and more fearsome than the sum of the Chimera’s supposed parts. Unfortunately, as the frequency and ferocity of the assaults escalated, the Chimera had become more elusive. The brothers speculated that it had retreated to some kind of lair, a place secluded enough to avoid chance discovery while orchestrating its expanding reign of terror. In order to find it, the Winchesters needed to wait for one of its minions to “escape” a battle long enough to report back to the lair and secretly follow it to its master.
    Sam assumed once Dean and he located the lair, they would plan and coordinate their attack together. But one of the consequences of Dean’s bearing the Mark of Cain was a penchant for expediency, straight line thinking. In a way, Sam supposed Dean had made a concession by not barging in through the front door, figurative guns blazing. Sam suspected Dean merely wanted to wade into the battle without discussion or delay and the quickest way to accomplish that was to forge ahead on his own, whether Sam had his back or not.
    While Dean insisted he remained in control of the Mark, and to all appearances he hadn’t succumbed to the unreasoning bloodlust it induced in its owner, this particular hunt might prove too much for Dean to handle alone. Hell, if the creature was as massive as those early reports suggested, Sam worried both of them together didn’t stand a chance. They’d witnessed firsthand the deadly nature of the Chimera’s creations, which the Winchesters discovered were actually supernaturally fused combinations of one or more animals with a human victim in the mix. Not that the word “nature” applied to these bizarre hybrids. At best, they were short-term weapons, animate grenades.
    The last one had practically ripped a police officer’s spine out of her back before hurling her from an overpass into the path of an oncoming semi. The resulting twenty-three-car rush-hour pileup would occupy police and emergency services throughout the night. But the Winchesters had managed to track the Chimera’s minion back to this gutted factory. Unless they ganked the source of the hybrids, the reign of terror would continue unabated.
    Sam crept along the interior of the fence, taking note of the shadows gathered near the building’s front entrance and along the walls, wondering what type of madness they might contain. In passing, he spotted a few sections where the chain-link fence had been snipped in a vertical line to allow furtive passage onto the factory grounds. Of course, the Chimera and its creations—at least those which couldn’t fly—would need a way in and out of the building. With the padlocked gate undisturbed, the area would appear secure to the occasional patrol car sweep.
    Finally, Sam stepped forward, toward the front door and the impermeable shadows, hefting the meat cleaver he’d taken from the Impala’s trunk. Let Dean have the long-handled ax. Sam had a feeling the night would involve a lot of close combat. They’d already discovered guns and knives weren’t up to the task of dispatching the strange creatures.
    From the rear of the factory, Sam heard a clang of metal on metal. Dean?