Hard Times (A Sam Harlan Novel Book 2) (28 page)

His eyes finally found mine, slowly focusing on me. “I was in the kitchen,” he said softly. “I see them. All the time. It’s worse when it’s thin.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just tell me what happened.”

“I saw Colden,” Billy continued. “He walked through the kitchen door, just like a real person. That’s when I knew.”

My stomach sank and I pointed at Elena’s body. “What about her?”

The big man rubbed at his eyes. “I ran back here and found her on top of him. She had a knife.”

A small paring knife was next to Colden’s head, its black handle slick with blood. I shuddered. The size was a perfect match for the stab wounds on Colden’s neck.

“She wouldn’t stop stabbing him, Sam, even though he was already dead. She kept stabbing and stabbing. I grabbed a shirt from the floor and I…” His hands started shaking. “I stopped her.”

“Why, Billy?”

“I had to stop her,” he said, his voice full of grief. “I
had
to.”

“No, why did she kill Colden? Santiago is dead. His influence is gone.”

As Billy spoke, my sluggish brain finally connected the pieces. “Colden’s spirit told me,” Billy said. “Elena was furious that you killed Santiago before he could give her the gift. She was in love with him. He was going to turn all three women, but only Olivia fought back. Only Olivia needed saving.”

The scenes were
staged by dawn. Henry did most of the work, while Callie and I helped as best we could. Tommy, who had spent all night running interference between the police and our vampire hunting, finally called in the gruesome discovery along with the capture of the alleged perpetrator, Jenkins.

I wasn’t there to see it. I was in the back of the pawnshop with Henry and Callie. Mary Kate had given me the keys after telling me she would stay with Lori. She hugged me fiercely and thanked me before we left.

I stretched out on the battered couch and stared at the cobwebs between the exposed rafters, feeling the first rays of morning light as the world continued its spin. Whatever the change had done to me, it was still doing. Feeling the sun rise—even though I was inside a concrete room—scared the hell out of me.

I had stopped coughing up blood before dawn. I still hurt so badly I wondered if I would make it without a doctor’s care.

I could die.

“You’re not dying, Sam.”

I turned my head to stare at Henry. “Read minds now, do you?”

He sat on a stool next to Callie, and I noticed that while she tolerated his presence, she kept an arm’s length between them.

She hadn’t forgotten what he was.

“Nope,” he said. “Just a lucky guess.” He stood and stretched his arms wide, working out the kinks. “I know you’re feeling low, son, but you did a good thing.”

I grunted. “Then why do I feel like I failed?”

He smiled, a genuine and heartwarming smile, careful not to show fangs. “You saved the girl. That’s something.”

“It wasn’t even the girl I was looking for,” I finally said. “It all just … happened.”

Billy Davenport sat in the corner, his hands clutching a coffee cup from a nearby Casey’s gas station. He jerked as I spoke, then took a deep swig of coffee. He had finally stopped crying, but his face was haunted. I could empathize, but I would never truly understand what he saw when he looked upon the spirit world.

The more I thought about it, the more I was damned glad of that fact.

Henry laughed, an unexpectedly rich baritone that filled the room. “Son, if there’s anything I’ve learned in all my years, it’s that life just happens.” His laugh trailed off and he took his keys from his jacket. “Time for me to go. Alma is going to be mighty worried.”

With a great amount of effort, I hauled myself off the couch and stuck out my hand. He took it and squeezed gently, careful of my broken fingers.

“Better get those taped up,” he said. “You don’t want them to heal crooked.”

“Thanks for everything,” I said.

The good humor left his face. For a moment, I saw the true Henry Hastings, a giant shadow lurking inside, a mountain of power and an ocean of hunger. It was a terrifying look into a thousand-year-old vampire that almost caused my bladder to empty. I jerked back, but Henry held my hand in that same soft grip. “It’s my job, Sam.”

He finally released my hand and turned to Callie. “Take care, Sister.”

Callie dipped her head. “Sheriff.”

I walked him to the back door. He turned before he left and said, “Don’t ever try a plan as stupid as this again. You like to got yourself killed. Bad way for Jack’s kin to go.”

I started to speak, hesitated, then said, “So many people are dead. Did I even make a difference?”

Henry opened the door and stepped outside into the Halloween dawn. At first, I thought he hadn’t heard me. Then he said, “You acted. That’s good enough for me.” He climbed in his SUV, shut the door, then started the engine and headed back to Wyoming.

* * *

We dropped Billy off at his house. He didn’t speak, no matter how much I tried to engage him in conversation. He just climbed up the steps to his house and slammed the door behind him.

“Will he be okay?” Callie asked.

I stared at the door of Billy’s house and shrugged. “Honestly? I have no idea.”

The rest of Halloween passed quietly. We made it home and I parked the truck. The toolbox stayed in the back, along with the gift from Mary Kate—twenty full boxes of silver ammunition. My skin was a mottled collection of purple and yellow bruises, and I could barely think straight. Callie set my fingers and taped them, a process I found excruciatingly painful, then she used the same tape on my ribs.

Callie bent over the kitchen table, and I used alcohol pads to dab at the bloody gashes. They were still oozing blood around the edges of the brown clots, but I cleaned them as best I could and covered them in fresh gauze and tape.

I tried and failed not to notice how soft and creamy her skin looked, how the dusting of freckles on her back brought up a mixed bag of feelings about her sister, Katie.

“All done,” I said.

She never commented on the awkwardness in my voice. She just went to her room and quietly shut the door.

I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and took a big slug that burned down my throat and into my stomach. The hunger was coming, and I heated the cast-iron skillet, melted some butter, and dropped in a T-bone from the refrigerator. It hadn’t even developed a crust when I removed it and bit in, the bloody half-cooked pieces of meat nearly catching in my throat.

I had never tasted better.

I turned off the burner and stood in front of the stove, chewing on the T-bone, ripping pieces of meat from it and swallowing, the blood and grease coating my fingers. When I was done, I threw the bone in the trashcan under the sink, washed my hands, and took the whiskey back to Jack’s bedroom. The shoulder holster went on the nightstand, next to the whiskey bottle, along with my wallet and keys.

Before I left Marshalltown, Tommy promised he would work on getting me a new driver’s license. I would be Sam Harlan, and I could finally bury Sam Fisher forever. He also said that if I ever needed help I could call him.

Olivia had shot him a murderous look. I don’t think she wants him involved with vampires.

After what had happened with Santiago, how could I blame her?

I didn’t even bother undressing. I just collapsed on the bed. When my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. I woke up sometime later and went to the bathroom. I came out and glanced down the hallway to the kitchen. The window over the kitchen sink was dark.

I had slept through the day.

I shuffled down the hallway to Callie’s bedroom door and stood in front of it. I could hear slow and steady breathing from inside. Callie was still asleep. I didn’t know what I would say to her, and God knows she deserved her rest.

I returned to my bedroom and found the bottle of whiskey missing from the nightstand next to the bed. I spent ten minutes looking, but it wasn’t under the bed or in the closet. I was sure Callie hadn’t entered my room while I slept. I stood, dumbly looking around the room.

Screw it. I’m sick of mysteries.

I climbed back into bed and tried to find a position that didn’t hurt my ribs. No matter how I tossed and turned I couldn’t find a position where
something
didn’t hurt. I stared at the ceiling, trying not to think of all that had happened, and finally drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

When I woke, light was streaming down the hallway. I checked the clock on the nightstand. It was already nine in the morning—I had slept the entire night.

The air was thick with the smell of bacon. I stood and made my way down the hallway to the kitchen. Callie stood in front of the stove. She was wearing blue jeans and a loose black sweater and had her hair pulled up in a simple ponytail. She turned to me and I saw that some of the color had returned to her face.

“How much bacon can you eat?” she asked.

A half-pound of bacon was resting on a plate next to the stove, a plate lined with paper towels. She was frying another half-pound, and a dozen eggs were cooking in the bacon grease. An entire loaf of Texas-style toast sat on another plate behind the bacon, along with a tub of real butter. A fresh pot of coffee waited on the kitchen table.

My stomach rumbled. I could eat all of it by myself, if I wasn’t careful. “That’s a good start,” I said.

We ate in silence, although most of the food wound up in my belly. When I was done, I poured another cup of coffee and added fresh cream from the pewter pitcher, then leaned back in my chair and rubbed my full stomach.

Callie raised an eyebrow and her mouth quirked up. “It’s your turn to do the dishes,” she noted.

“Dishes,” I said, shaking my head. “Can’t you cut a guy with broken fingers some slack? Besides, after yesterday, it just seems so … trivial.”

She took a sip of coffee and waved at the table. “You think none of this matters, and maybe in God’s plan it doesn’t, but I agree with the Sheriff. Life just happens. The dishes must be done. Vampires must be killed.”

“Huh,” I said. “When did you get so smart?”

She smiled bitterly. “When the power of God roasted Santiago’s skin like that bacon you ate.”

My stomach churned with that thought and suddenly the aroma of bacon wasn’t so appealing.

“Someone is here to speak with you,” she said.

I looked around. “Who?”

“Billy Davenport,” she said, pointing to the door. “He’s outside. For some reason, he won’t come in the house. You should clean up and go see what he wants.”

I cleared the table, filled the kitchen sink with hot water and soap, and left the dishes to soak while I went to see what Billy wanted.

He was waiting in his silver Voyager and blinked as I approached. The sun was up and the temperature had warmed, but it was still frigid, barely in the forties.

It’s the first of November.

I tapped my knuckles on the window and he rolled it down. “Sam,” he said.

His breath carried a hint of mint, fresh and clean, and I realized he didn’t reek the way he had had when we’d dropped him off. “Billy. Callie said you wanted to speak?”

“I have to tell you something. When I was here before…”

I waited patiently.

His eyes darted from the house to me. “I don’t know how Jack protects his house, but when I was here, I saw something. A spirit.”

“A spirit?”

“Everyone calls them poltergeists.”

I felt my jaw drop. “A poltergeist.”

“They’re not
usually
dangerous,” he said quickly. “More like an annoyance. Forget anything you’ve heard. They’re a trickster spirit, that’s all. They play pranks.”

“There’s a spirit in my house,” I said.

He nodded his head. “This one knows you.”

I felt my breakfast start to come back up. “Why is it here?”

“There’s no reason,” Billy said. “They’re not ghosts in the traditional sense. More like a leftover imprint, usually of a young girl. That’s why they tend to connect with other young girls. It’s odd, though. You don’t have a young girl living with you?”

I shook my head, and my blood ran cold. “No.”

“Huh. Must be here for another reason. I just wanted to tell you that.” He rolled up the window and left in a hurry, without looking back.

I turned back to the house, Jack’s house, and wondered if my daughter’s ghost had somehow followed me to my new home.

* * *

The dream. Always the same damned dream. I stood above Lilly, holding the silver knife, knowing that her eyes would soon open and I would see hunger there, the evil stain of the vampire within, and that I should thrust it into her chest.

It was the same dream, but this time it wasn’t
exactly
as before.

I was in the diocese in Peoria, only this time the room was full of people, both the living and the dead. Colden Glick stood next to Father Lewinheim and he waved at me, his hair neatly combed, a big grin on his face.

Callie was holding Olivia Mendoza’s hand and Olivia was smiling affectionately at Tommy Mueller. Elias Mendoza and Angie Bent were in the first pew, his arms wrapped around her, and she was laughing, a hearty smile plastered across her face.

Callie’s sister, Katie, knelt at Lilly’s feet. She wore a bright blue shirt that stood out against her freckled skin and made her emerald eyes sparkle. She smiled and it was like a ray of sunshine, warming my heart.

I still held my knife, but as I looked into Lilly’s eyes, she opened them and they were just a girl’s eyes, as simple and pure as any child’s. She winked at me. “It’s okay, Daddy,” she said. “I’m home now.”

This time, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders.

It would do.

A note from the Author

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed this book, and I would
greatly
appreciate an honest review on Amazon. I am committed to writing great books. But, honestly, it takes a team of fantastically talented individuals to launch a book. As an indie author, Amazon reviews are vital to my ability to find the best editors and artists.