Supernatural: Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting Read Online Free Page B

wasn’t so numb that I didn’t feel the knife stick into my palm, though. The blade dug into my flesh, sent a shock down my spine, made my whole body light up with nerves I didn’t even think I had, all of ’em screaming out with pain. But it worked. The blade stuck in my hand, and she was surprised enough that she hesitated before pulling it back out. I fought through the pain, pulled the blade outta my own hand—it was slippery with blood, my blood, and nearly spilled out of my good hand.
    And . . .
    I first saw Karen on a Sunday. She was wearing a sun dress, all flowery and young-looking, smiling with her cousin as they left service. The last time I saw Karen, she had a hole in her belly where I’d stabbed her. Not just once. Over and over, I . . . I lost control of myself. I don’t get scared easy, but I was then—of course I was, she was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I was killing her. Even as I did it, I knew I’d never forgive myself.
    But she didn’t die, then. She rose up, blood pouring out of her like I’d opened a spigot in her chest, and came at me again. Using her fingers like claws on me as I stabbed her once more.
    Another few seconds and she’d have killed me. Lucky for me, she didn’t have another few seconds. I’d heard a banging noise behind me while she was at my throat, but didn’t pay any heed—I had bigger problems. When the window smashed open, it got my full attention. Through it, I saw a man holding a gun. In my state, I was sure he was there to arrest me for hurting my wife . . . then I looked up at her. Black eyes, covered in blood, grinning like a maniac—it wasn’t my wife anymore. That was the moment I realized that the woman I married was already dead.
    A second later the rock salt hit her. Flung her straight into the back wall, blood spraying all over the room, over her favorite chair. Steam hissed off her skin like she was a frying pan that was too hot to touch. The man shot her again for good measure. Had her cornered by the door to the kitchen, gore slicking the floor beneath her.
    He pulled out a flask from his jacket pocket, doused her with it, and her skin charred like he had flung acid on her. For a second, that’s what I thought he’d done. In the heat of the moment, I damn near threw myself in front of her . . . like I needed to protect the unnaturally possessed dead body of my wife. I couldn’t see straight, much less think straight.
    As Karen (the thing in Karen) sizzled in the corner, the man crawled in through the window. Grabbed her by the hair and dragged her like a rag doll into the kitchen, where he held her head under the sink. The whole while I was just standing like a mook in the living room, barely feeling my legs. I wouldn’t feel so immobile again till the day I landed in a wheelchair, but that’s another story.
    Water sloshed out of the sink, almost boiling hot, as the man held Karen’s head under the faucet. She resisted, but didn’t seem to mind the waterboarding itself—until he started praying. I didn’t understand a word he said at the time, but it was clearly some kind of religious rite. Like the old Latin masses I went to as a rug rat. I know now he was blessing the water, trying to drown her in holy H 2 O. Whatever he was doing, it made her scream like . . . most people would say a banshee, but now I know better. Downright horrible, the noise she made.
    Didn’t take long before the thing inside her gave up, decided to make for more infernal pastures. She wrenched herself free of the man’s grip, threw her head back and bellowed—belching out thick, oily black smoke. I understood immediately—the smoke was the thing possessing her, and it was leaving. It twisted through my kitchen with purpose, snaking past me and out the broken window, disappearing into the night.
    Karen’s body collapsed to the floor, dead as a stone. Cold to the touch, like she’d been dead for hours. I remember putting a hand on