Chapter Text
Lieutenant Kwame Masondo let out an exhausted sigh as he ducked under the police tape, scrubbing a hand over his gritty eyes. After working a double shift, he had gone home, showered, eaten leftover takeaway, and collapsed into bed, only to be awoken barely two hours later by the ringing of his cellphone. Thirty-five minutes later, he was dressed in his suit and on a scene in the middle of the night, lit by the flashing of squad car beacons and headlights.
“Hey, Kwame! Over here!”
“Hey, Griz,” he greeted the Sergeant, “another one?”
“Oh, yeah,” she nodded, grimly, “same as the others. I think Doc Henshaw is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
“I know the feeling,” Masondo sighed, wearily, “alright, let’s go take a look…”
“Uh, before ya do… there’s another problem.”
“What…?” Masondo raised his gaze, in time to see two suited men striding purposefully towards him, “Ah, crap, don’t tell me…”
“Feds,” Sergeant Marla Griswold confirmed, with a sharp nod, “Agents… this is Lieutenant Kwame Masondo, he’s the lead on this case, sir, this is…” Griswold trailed off, checked her notes, and then gestured to the two men in turn, “Special Agent Dean Plant and Special Agent Sam Bonham.”
“Gentlemen,” Masondo greeted them, cordially, giving each a firm handshake, “forgive me for asking, but what the hell are the FBI doing at my crime scene? This is a local matter, not Federal.”
“The case bares hallmarks similar to cases in several other states,” the taller of the two men replied, smoothly, “that makes it a Federal matter.”
“Then perhaps you can explain how each of these six…”
“Seven,” Griswold interrupted.
“…How each of these seven men died of hypothermia in the height of summer in Florida?”
“Obviously some kind of freezer unit was involved,” the shorter of the two men remarked, dryly, “your Sergeant here is refusing to let us see the body without you. You’re here, so… we can either stand here squabbling about jurisdiction until your Captain calls my supervisor and gets their ass handed to them, or you can accept that this our case and give us your full cooperation.”
Masondo exchanged a weary look with Griswold, who gave a lacklustre shrug.
“To be honest, Agents, we’d be glad of the help,” Masondo beckoned to them to follow him, down the closed-off alley, to where a white tent had been hastily erected to block off the scene from public view.
Following the two cops down the alley, Dean shot a victorious look at Sam with a tight smile.
“We’re stumped,” Masondo pushed back the white canvas and let them in, “oh, hey, Liam. This is Dr. Liam Henshaw, runs the local clinic, he’s currently the closest thing we got to a coroner around here. First couple-a bodies one came in from Miami but after the leads went cold and each of the following bodies had the exact same cause of death, the son-of-a-bitch gave up and went home. What we got, doc?”
“Same as the others,” Henshaw had a low, gravelly voice that matched his grey hair and sour expression, “frozen, stabbed, mauled… dead.”
“How long?”
“No way to tell,” Henshaw shook his head, “found a wallet in his back pocket, his name is Richard Kemble, got his address right here…”
He held the driving licence in a plastic evidence bag up towards Masondo, only for Dean to intercept it, taking a quick photo of it with his phone before passing it to the the Lieutenant, who accepted it with only the slightest hint of irritation.
“Thanks,” Masondo spoke through gritted teeth, “I’ll follow up on this. We’ll know roughly when he went missing, but if it’s anything like the others, it will have been within the last 48 hours.”
Sam crouched down beside the mangled corpse, soaking in the scene; the night was hot and muggy, he was sweating in his heavy suit and tie, but the body before him practically radiated frigidity. At least, what was left of the young man; he had been stripped to the waist, his skin blue-white and frostbitten. Broken, jagged ribs protruded from his left side, which was dark and bloodied, torn apart, flesh missing and arm completely gone. Other chunks of flesh seemed to have been ripped at random from his torso and there were deep puncture wounds covering the ravaged carcass.
“These look like bite marks,” Sam commented, glancing up at Dean, “just like the other victims.”
“What about the stab wounds? Done with a knife, maybe?”
“Yeah, no,” Masondo shook his head, “the coroner tried to take castings of the wounds, but they just came out jagged messes, no two looked alike, not a knife and maybe not the same instrument each time. We still have no idea what made them. Coroner thinks something was done to distort or disguise the wounds to prevent forensic identification of the weapon.”
“We’ll need to see all of your files and the reports,” Dean told him, “also missing persons reports, any eyewitness statements, everything.”
“It’s all yours,” Masondo agreed, readily, “swing by the station in the morning and you can read through everything we’ve got.”
“I’ll take this guy down to the clinic,” Henshaw pushed himself to his feet, “let me know what next of kin want done with the body.”
“What about the other victims? We may need to examine the remains…”
“Huh,” Griswold grunted, “three of ‘em are embalmed and buried, two were cremated, and the other is being shipped home to Texas.”
“I run a tiny clinic with only two freezers and one of those is on the fritz,” grumbled Henshaw, “we’re a small town and we can’t store the bodies for long, they get logged and then they’re either shipped to the county morgue or returned to the next of kin.”
“What about trace evidence, surely the CSI’s…?”
“Found nothing,” Masondo cut off Sam’s question before he could finish it, “not on the first three bodies, at least. We’ve done our best, but we don’t have the resources here for this kind of investigation. Maybe you fellas bein’ here, you’ll bring out the big guns.”
“Yeah,” Dean nodded, “sure…”
“Any witnesses to this?”
“Only the fry cook of the diner,” Griswold jerked her thumb over her shoulder to where one of the officers was interviewing a portly man in a grease-stained apron, “he found the body, that’s it. Didn’t see nothin’ else.”
“Well, he couldn’t have died or been frozen right here,” Masondo commented, missing the knowing look exchanged between Sam and Dean, “there must have been a vehicle involved. Check the local traffic cameras, see if you can find anything.”
“Yeah, because that worked so well in the last six cases,” Griswold groused, “c’mon, man, you know most of the cameras are still on the fritz… and of course no one saw a damn thing. I’m beginning to think the bodies were dropped out of a helicopter.”
“Then maybe you should check with local airports and any private ownerships…”
“Trust me,” snorted Henshaw, “if a body this frozen was dropped from a significant height, we would be seeing a lot more damage…”
Masondo floundered for a moment and then turned to Dean; “You guys said this bore hallmarks of other cases. Anything else you guys can tell us?”
“It’s… too soon to tell,” Dean prevaricated, “we need to see your case files to confirm it before we can say for sure it’s the same killer.”
“Really? How many other cannibalistic murders are out there freezing their victims solid after stabbing them with mysterious jagged objects then ripping chunks outta their flesh?”
“As soon as we have something to share with you, Lieutenant, we will,” Sam said, reassuringly, with a warm smile.
“Yeah,” Masondo agreed, tiredly, exhaustion and frustration lacing his tone and expression, “sure you will.”
Back at their motel, the Winchester brothers shed their suits, donned jeans and tee-shirts, and cranked up the air con. The night was hot and muggy, stiflingly so, and the coolness of their room a welcome relief.
They had arrived only a few hours previously after a couple of days driving, drawn in by reports of bodies half-eaten and frozen solid in the height of summer in Florida, the hottest state in the country. Police were obviously baffled but trying to put up a good front; it had taken the boys only a few hours of research to make the connection to something supernatural. They had then packed up and driven straight in without hesitation.
They had found a small motel on the outskirts of the town, cheap and anonymous, where they had begun setting up their base of operations, only to pick up on the report of a seventh body, sending them scrambling into their suits and out onto the street.
Back in the safe confines of their small but serviceable room, they were able to speak freely.
Sam took a seat at the tiny dining table by the window, opening up his laptop.
“Any idea what we might be dealin’ with here?” Dean asked, setting a beer down next to Sam and dropping into the opposite chair.
“Not yet,” Sam frowned slightly, reaching for the cold brew, taking a quick swig, “thanks. You ever heard of anything like this?”
“Nope,” Dean replied, bluntly, glancing out of the window briefly and then back to his brother, “something that bleeds, eats, and freezes its victims?”
“For the bleeding, I’d say vampire,” Sam did not look up from his screen as he mused aloud, “for the eating, ghoul, werewolf, wendigo… any number of things have a taste for human flesh… it’s the freezing that’s the really weird part.”
“Those other cases you were talking about?”
“The pattern goes back over decades…” Sam tapped a few keys, bringing up the notes of the research he had done while Dean had been driving, “and in over a dozen States… the odd body will show up stabbed, mauled, and then frozen solid. No trace of the killer, no eyewitnesses, not even a whisper as to the perpetrator…”
“Definitely puts it on our radar,” Dean agreed, opening up his own computer, “how often are we talkin’?”
“Maybe once a year at most,” Sam replied, a slight frown creasing his brow, “sometimes not for two or three years… but some of these cases go back to as early as records began. We’re looking at something that could be hundreds of years old… if the same creature is responsible for all of these deaths.”
“What the hell kind of creature only needs to feed once every year or so?”
“Hibernation, maybe?” Sam suggested, “It wakes up, it feeds, it looks for a mate, it goes back to sleep, you know… kinda like you, when we’re not on a case.”
Caught off-guard by the jibe, Dean floundered for a comeback, caught the smirk on his brother’s face, and shot him a sour look in repose.
“You know what?” Dean reached out and closed his laptop, “Just for that, I’m gonna go out and find us some food, seein’ as that’s what I’m good at, while you figure out what the hell we’re dealing with and how to kill it, ‘kay?”
“Yeah, sure,” Sam angled an amused smile at him as Dean rose, “thanks.”
Dean shook his head and slipped out of their room. Moments later, Sam heard the distinctive sound of the Impala rev up, and he turned his attention back to his laptop.
It was nearly an hour before Dean sauntered back in, clutching a couple of bags, and another six pack of beer, accompanied by the faint aroma of a bar that told Sam his brother had stopped for a couple of drinks before picking up their food.
“Grub’s up,” Dean unceremoniously dropped a bag onto the keyboard of Sam’s laptop, earning a yelp of protest and a scowl as Sam snatched it off, hastily checking that his notes had not been completely destroyed, “you’re welcome.”
“You took your time.”
“Yeah, well, figured you needed plenty of space to figure out what we’re dealing with… so what are we dealing with?”
“I’ve got two, maybe three ideas…”
“Go on,” Dean made an exaggerated gesture of encouragement, dropping into his chair and unwrapping his cheeseburger; Sam grimaced at the scent of the extra onions filling the room.
“Well…” Sam opened up his own bag of food, finding a chicken burrito and a packet of fries, giving a slight smile and a nod of approval, “the first is a Yuki-onna… it’s a Japanese snow spirit, usually in the shape of a young woman with pale skin and dark hair, who freezes her victims with her icy breath.”
“Sounds like a good match.”
“Yeah, except that they only appear in Japan, during blizzards, and they’re not known for bleeding or eating their victims,” Sam sighed, “The next one is a Chenoo… a figure from Algonquin legend, a cannibalistic creature with a frozen heart that can freeze and consume its victims. They start out as humans, but, by committing some appalling act – the lore says such as cannibalism or refusing to feed a starving child – they become monsters. Apparently, they usually only feed once a year or so, but it wouldn’t explain why we suddenly have seven bodies in one place…”
“That sounds more like what we’re dealing with, though. Maybe it’s just super-hungry this year... Anything else?”
“Maybe a Wechuge,” Sam gave a half-shrug, picking at his fries as he spoke, “from Athabaskan lore, it’s similar to a Wendigo, associated with icy conditions but it only consumes those who have committed crimes. Only three of the seven victims had criminal records, no reason to suspect any of the others were guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Chenoo on a feeding frenzy sounds like our best bet,” Dean remarked, “so how do we kill it?”
“Believe it or not… salt,” Sam smiled, biting into his burrito; he chewed and swallowed before he spoke again, “their hearts are frozen; salt causes them to melt and then shatter. A round of rock salt buckshot should do the trick.”
“Damn,” Dean said, around a mouthful of food, raising his eyebrows, “that sounds way too easy.”
“Yeah,” Sam chuckled in agreement, “killing it should be easy… finding it will be the hard part. The lore is sketchy but I’m guessing it can pass for human.”
“Any link between our victims?”
“We’ll know more about that when we get to the police files,” Sam replied, leaning back in his chair and taking another bite out of his food.
“Yeah… yeah, okay. So I suggest we eat, have a couple-a beers, and hit the sack,” nodded Dean, “get back on this fresh in the mornin’.”
“Good plan,” Sam picked up his beer and raised it; the bottles clinked softly as Dean did the same in toast, preparing for the hunt.