Sam Harlan (Book 3): Damned Cold (26 page)

I don’t know how I knew, but as surely as I knew that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, I was certain Haagenti was watching me through those amber goat eyes.

I also knew, somehow, that the demon was enraged.

Then I moved on to Chester. The big man was slashing and stabbing at Jodie’s stomach, but he staggered back as I grabbed him, knocking his head into the cabinet and splitting the cabinet door in half, sending dishes and bowls crashing to the floor around us.

Chester slashed the knife against my trench coat, but I jerked back and smashed my fist into the big man’s mouth. There was a crunch as his green teeth shattered, and I felt the thrill of wounding my enemy. I almost didn’t notice the stabbing pain in my knuckles, and it didn’t matter anyway because I was punching the man’s face over and over until blood sprayed from his broken and ruined nose.

I cocked my fist back as he screamed in a nasal voice, “Son of a bitch! I’m going to kill you!”

He tried to knee me in the crotch, but I shoved him back against the cabinet with everything I had left. He struck so hard that the doors of the nearby cabinets sprang open and spilled their china all over the counter and floor.

Chester stared at me in shock, and I took the opportunity to grab his head by the sides and spin his head like a basketball, breaking his neck with a satisfying snap.

The big man dropped to the floor, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, then he went still and the room filled with the smell of his bowels.

* * *

I slipped and slid through the broken dishes to Jodie. She was bleeding from a dozen slashes and punctures, some extensive, but none appeared life-threatening.

As long as I can stop the bleeding.

There was a pair of holes in her left cheek that leaked sheets of blood down her face, but she opened her eyes and nodded at me.

Then the hunger hit.

I hadn’t eaten since earlier in the day and I’d almost forgotten about it. What came rushing up from my core wasn’t something I could ever forget. Wave after wave roiled my stomach. The smell of blood filled the room and I dropped to my hands and knees, sniffing at Jodie’s face like a dog.

What the hell am I doing?

It was like watching someone else. I kept telling myself to stop, but my tongue flicked out and lapped at the blood on Jodie’s face.

Bliss I had never dreamed possible enveloped me and I licked faster. The blood was hot and salty and burned the back of my throat as I swallowed.

The vampire essence in me went wild. I’d have gotten less of a reaction throwing a bucket of chum into a shark tank. A fire built inside as the vampire part of me stretched its metaphysical legs and declared it good.

My strength returned in seconds, my body healing itself, and then I saw Jodie cringe, trying to pull away from me.

No!

I rolled and vomited fresh blood onto the floor, splashing against Chester’s dead body. I choked out a scream that made Jodie wince.

“Sam,” she croaked. “Sam!”

I turned to her and shouted, “I’m dead. I’m dead!”

Jodie managed the ghost of a smile. “You’re
not
dead.”

It was like a splash of cold water against my face. “I’m
not
dead?”

Jodie shook her head and coughed bloody bubbles from her mouth. “I woke the thing inside you. It was the only way to help.”

“Oh, thank God.” I rolled onto my back and stared at the white paneled ceiling. “
Thank God
.” My lungs pumped like bellows and I savored the cool air, gathering my fill, then said, “I thought the golem had killed me and I’d turned—”

“I didn’t have the power to stop them,” Jodie managed. “I thought maybe you could...” She nodded at Chester’s body. “It worked.”

The beast within me slithered back down into the darkest reaches of my soul, making itself at home again, and I was left cold and frightened. “I—I didn’t know what was happening.” I shivered in the cold air rolling in through the outside door.

“Sam,” Jodie said. “I can’t … can’t…”

I rolled over and looked at her. She was pale and her eyes were rolling back in her head. I had to do something. “I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, then leaned against the cabinets and closed her eyes.

I staggered to my feet, slipping on ceramic shards from the broken plates, and made my way to the door. I had to step over Chester’s dead body, resisting the stab of anger that made me want to stomp the dead man’s face to mush.

I found Callie’s backup medical pack hidden behind the driver’s seat, grabbed it, and stopped on the way back to the kitchen to retrieve the Ingram that Barlow had thrown to the ground. I slung it over my shoulder and hurried back to check on Jodie.

Her breathing was shallow and the pulse in her neck was racing. I leaned over her and said, “Stay with me.”

I fumbled with the pack. My hands were clumsy and my fingers useless, so I dumped the contents on the kitchen counter. It took a moment, but I successfully pierced the tube of superglue. “This is going to burn,” I said, “but it
will
stop the bleeding.”

She opened her eyes. “What if you don’t?”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood. You could go into shock.”

She licked her lips. “I don’t want to die.”

“That’s a good place to start.” I raised her sweater to expose her surprisingly muscular stomach. Two deep slashes accounted for most of the bleeding, so I squirted glue in the edge of one of them and pinched it shut. Smoke rose as the glue set and Jodie grunted, slapping at my hand. I ignored her and worked my way across the wound, then paused long enough to ask, “How are you doing?”

“I would have been better off dead,” she said.

“Hang in there.” I started on the second gash. She moaned several times but held relatively still while I finished gluing it shut. “I need to work on the others.”

“Ugh,” she said, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. “It
hurts
.”

“I
know
.” I pulled her sweater back down and moved the neckband to expose her shoulder. There was a deep puncture above her clavicle where the knife had cut through muscle, and I glued it shut and hoped for the best.

The wounds to her face presented a problem, as the glue
might
hold the wounds shut but would leave nasty scars. “You need to sit up.”

She opened one eye. “I need to rest for a bit.”

“You can rest later.” I glued the skin together while she kicked at the floor, sending broken china spinning in all directions. I cleaned the wounds as best I could with antiseptic wipes. When the alcohol had dried, I covered them with butterfly tape, just in case, and handed her three pills from the medical pack. “Swallow these.”

She stared at the pills in my hand. “What are they?”

“Antibiotics and something for the pain.” I grabbed a glass from the floor and filled it with water from the Kormans’ refrigerator dispenser.

Jodie wolfed down the pills and drained the cup in one long gulp, coughing and sputtering at the end. “Those taste horrible.”

“It should help with any infections,” I said. A little color had returned to her face and she finally opened both eyes. “We have to go after Meriwether.”

“You—you can’t be serious,” she said, her eyes widening. “You saw what he did. What he is.”

“He’s got Callie,” I said. “And Jameson. He’s also got your coven members. The living ones, at least.”

She shook her head and winced in pain. “He’s not human.”

“I know,” I said. “He’s a demon. Haagenti.”

“I can’t—I can’t deal with that.”

“You must,” I insisted. “We can’t abandon our people.”

She looked away. “I don’t know how to deal with … with
that
.”

I understood. I could barely comprehend the threat a vampire posed, let alone a demon, but Haagenti had Callie, and I would stop at nothing to get her back. “Jodie, I’m going to tell you something a wise old man once told me.
Anything
can be killed. I know you care about your people and I know you want to save them. I’ll kill that demon and send it back to Hell, I promise you, and nothing on this earth will stop me.”

She stared up at me with a funny look on her face, then said, “I’ll help.”

I smiled wolfishly. “Goddamned right you will.”

* * *

Jodie staggered to her feet.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

She took a faltering step and I caught her before she collapsed. “No.”

“Let me help,” I said. I carried her to my truck and deposited her in the passenger seat, careful not to jostle her too much.

“I need you to do something,” Jodie said. “Go to the shed behind the house. There’s a room in the corner with a metal box about this big.” She held up her hands to indicate something roughly the size of a breadbox. “It’s covered in writing. You may have to hold it up to the light to see. Bring it to me.”

“What is it?”

She closed her eyes, then said carefully, “It’s the only help I have left to give.”

I made my way to the shed behind the house. I clutched the Ingram, expecting to get jumped by some nasty thing that Meriwether had left, but the farm was quiet. The shed was dark and I flipped the switch next to the door. The overhead lights flared on, but I found them far from comforting.

I rushed down the hallway, past the room where Callie had been imprisoned and past the rooms where the vampire and I had been held captive, until I reached a door at the end of the hallway that led west.

I kicked the door open and found myself in a small shelf-lined room. Plastic boxes were piled to the ceiling, but I finally found the metal box on a shelf near the floor in the corner. It was heavy, close to ten pounds, and made of a dull material that appeared to be lead.

I didn’t see any writing on it, then remembered what Jodie had said about it. I stood in the middle of the room and held the box up to eye level. The faintest hint of symbols glowed in the light. They weren’t etched into the metal. It was more like they floated on top.

I hurried back to the truck and handed the box to Jodie. She took it and cradled it between her breasts.

“That thing will help us?” I asked, frowning.

“As much as your gun,” she said, nodding at the Ingram that hung from my neck.

“It better be a magical box of kick-ass.”

She squinted at me. “It’s a magic wand.”

I smiled, and when she didn’t smile back, I said, “What is it really?”

“A magic wand,” she repeated with a steely-eyed gaze.

“I thought you were joking.”

“The coven prepared this months ago,” she said, fighting to hold her head upright. “It was the last major piece of magic we created.” She sniffled a little. “This is the last I have of them.”

“We’ll save them. I promise.” I slammed the door and got in the driver’s seat, started the truck, and backed out before gunning the engine and heading east.

Henry answered on
the first ring. “Tell me you’re gone. Tell me you left.”

“It’s a demon,” I said. “The man who took Callie is a demon.”

“Damn it,” Henry growled. “I was afraid of that. You steer clear of this thing. I’m loading up now.”

“There’s no time,” I said. Jodie was staring at me as I pushed the truck to its limit. “I’ve got to kill it.”

“You
can’t
kill it,” Henry said. “Demons are immortal.”

“What
can
I do?”

“It’s got to be exorcised. Once the demon is gone, it can’t come back. Not for a long spell, anyway. It takes them a hell of a lot of energy to break through. No pun intended.”

“How am I supposed to exorcise a demon?” I asked.

“First you need to find a priest—”

“I’ve got that covered.”

“Really? Well, once the priest has exorcised the demon, kill the host. You got a problem with that?”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” I said. “That won’t be a problem at
all
.”

* * *

I came to a screeching halt in front of Meriwether’s darkened house. “Looks empty,” I said to Jodie.

She had fallen silent on our way to Monticello but opened her eyes long enough to inspect the house and make an oddly delicate gesture with her left hand. “It’s empty.”

I growled in frustration. “Where are they?”

“I think he’s gone to…”

“Where?”

“Allerton Park,” she said. “It’s west of town.”

I drove, following her instructions, as she explained how Robert Allerton had built a European-style estate and filled it with hedge mazes and statues before eventually donating it to the University of Illinois.

“Why there?” I asked doubtfully.

“The place has a certain … energy,” she said. “If the demon needs more energy to heal Nicky, that’s the best place to do it.”

Something had been troubling me. “Why didn’t he kill Dorothy there?”

“There’s an energy there. A certain natural magic. It’s built on a flood plain, and it’s beautiful and remote. That’s probably why Allerton found it so appealing. It’s a thin spot between our world and…”

“And what?”

“And whatever comes next,” Jodie said softly.

“That’s bad?”

“It might give him more power, but a spot that thin comes with risks. Things happen there. Things are
seen
there.”

We continued on in silence. The snow had picked up, changing from a spit to a flurry. “Like what?” I finally asked.

“The place is rumored to be full of snakes and deer. Bobcats have been reported, but there have also been other sightings. People claim to have seen an eight-foot-tall hairy beast—”

“You have got to be kidding. A Bigfoot?”

Jodie grunted. “That’s not worries me.”

“A Bigfoot doesn’t worry you? What does?”

“I’m worried that Carlton, or the thing in him, has called up something worse.”

“Something worse than Bigfoot?” I said, trying not to sound too skeptical.

Jodie grunted. “You’ve never been anywhere like this place. It’s dangerous.”

“More dangerous than a demon possessing the body of a witch?”

She sighed and pointed her finger. “There’s the turnoff.”

I hit the brakes just in time to make the right turn onto the narrow road that led to the park entrance. Towering pines lined the road and my headlights dimmed, forcing me to drive slower.