Sam Harlan (Book 3): Damned Cold (28 page)

Nicky’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand
any
of this. I just wanna go home. It’s
scary
here.”

“Don’t listen to
him
,” Meriwether said angrily. “Slit the bitch’s throat. I have things to do and this is a waste of my time.”

“Free will,” I said, as the snowfall turned heavier and the thick flakes sizzled and spattered as they struck the roaring fire. “You’ve got free will, Nicky.
You
make your own choices. If you slit her throat, terrible things will happen!”

“Do it,” Meriwether ordered in a hard voice that had lost all its humanity.

Nicky stood poised over Dawn and slowly lowered the blade to her throat, putting just enough pressure on the tip to cause a fine bead of crimson to trickle down Dawn’s throat.

There was a collective intake of breath among the coven members. A humming thrummed through the earth, making my feet vibrate, and Barlow tensed, tightening his grasp on my shoulder.

“Daddy?” Nicky said. His hand was shaking and he sounded on the verge of tears. “I don’t wanna do this.”

He knows. He feels guilt!He didn’t understand before, but now he knows it’s not a game.

“Don’t do it,” I shouted. “It’s your choice. Don’t let him make it for you.”

“What are you waiting for?” Meriwether asked. “Why don’t you kill her?”

“Free will is a bitch,” I said to Meriwether. “We all make our own choices. The Father is right. You don’t understand free will because you don’t have it.”

As I watched Nicky struggle with the knife, I had finally realized what Jameson had been trying to tell me. Everyone had a choice. Nicky. Callie. Meriwether.

Even Jameson had a choice, and it was finally clear to me what priest had planned.

Haagenti was the one who lacked free will.

And, because of the demon’s control, Milford Barlow.

Meriwether glared at me. “I’m going to enjoy killing you, stupid little ape. Your talk of free will is worthless. Kill him, little beast.”

“Free will,” I said as Barlow wrapped his hands around my neck. “It’s the one thing you’ll never understand, you predictable smug bastard. Father Jameson!”

As Barlow began to throttle me, Jameson murmured the words I was betting he had been preparing since leaving the Kormans’ farm, words that would hold a greater effect in a thin spot between worlds.

Jameson unmade the spell holding Milford Barlow captive.

There was a
powerful buzzing against the back of my neck and the sensation of a million ants crawled over my skin as the spell collapsed. I grabbed Barlow and threw him like a sack of potatoes across the clearing, where he slammed into Meriwether. The blow sent them both staggering back against the stone altar.

There was a moment of complete silence as Barlow recovered. The little man spotted the blood at Dawn’s neck and he went wild, shoving Nicky aside and going for the young woman’s throat.

The matronly woman from Meriwether’s house stood, threw off her hooded cloak, and grabbed for Meriwether to help him up. Barlow was busy lapping at the blood on Dawn’s neck, but he sensed the movement, saw the woman helping Meriwether to his feet. The vampire sprang like a cat, crossing the distance between them in the wink of an eye, and shoved his fist through the woman’s meaty chest.

The woman didn’t even have time to scream. Barlow yanked his hand back and it made a sickly wet squelch. The vampire raised his handful of meat, fat, and blood to his face and smeared it over his lips in orgasmic delight.

Barlow’s eyes went solid black, the way I’d seen vampire eyes do when they lost control.

Not good!

Everyone screamed as the reality of a ravenous vampire set in. Both covens looked on in shock, but I used the opportunity to rush to Jameson’s side and fumble with the ropes that held him to the pole.

“Look out!” Jameson shouted as a ball of fire hurtled across the clearing. Lisa Doll was pointing at me and chanting, the hood of her cloak thrown back and her beautiful face screwed up with hate.

I ducked down and the flames washed over my trench coat. Jameson took the brunt of it. The flames only lasted a few seconds, but when I glanced up, Jameson’s hair was burning. He yelped as I stood and beat at the fire with the sleeve of my trench coat, finally managing to untie him with my other hand.

The screaming continued behind me and I heard Jameson grunt a warning. I turned to see the stick man lumbering across the clearing, heading for us, its eyes glinting in the light from the fire. It was closing in on us when Lisa sent another fireball swooshing across the open space. The fire accidentally struck the stick man, setting it ablaze, and it fell to the ground as the fire consumed it.

My heart soared, but Jameson grunted again. I pulled him down just in time as Meriwether sent a bolt of lightning that buzzed over my head and made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

People were crying out in fear and pain, but I tilted Jameson’s head down and checked his scalp. Most of his hair was gone and the skin was either charred or waxy. The smell of burnt hair and skin made me gag.

“Don’t worry about me,” Jameson croaked. “Stop Haagenti.”

I nodded and turned back to the clearing, only to watch in horror as Barlow slashed his claws across Rachel Warren’s belly, gutting her in a spray of blood.

Meriwether waved his hands in the air, trying desperately to regain control of the vampire. Jodie was crouched on the dirt and she shouted something incomprehensible. Meriwether grimaced and I realized she was blocking his attempts.

Callie screamed as one of Meriwether’s coven, a bald-headed fat man with deep hollow eyes, grabbed at her and started ramming her head against the wooden pole. I grabbed a tree branch from the ground near the fire. It was as thick as my wrist and nearly three feet long. I ran to Callie, swinging it like a bat. It connected with the man’s head, and there was a sickening crunch that vibrated up my arms. The man fell to the ground, his head caved in. Gray brain matter covered the end of the branch and I dropped it in disgust.

I heard a whistling noise that grew louder, and then a sharp stinging erupted from my shoulder. I screamed and looked down to find a foot-long bone spear sticking out of my shoulder through my trench coat, right below the collarbone.

“Sam!” Callie screamed. “Untie me!”

There was another whistling sound, and I dropped to the ground as something flew over my head. A tall young woman stood near the fire, holding a stack of bone spears and chanting, preparing to throw another my way.

It was lucky for me that Molly Gary tackled the woman and knocked her back into the bonfire. The woman’s cloak caught on fire and she screamed and thrashed, sending huge clouds of embers soaring into the sky. She screamed bloody murder and almost managed to get up, but Molly stomped the woman’s chest and sent her back into the fire. The woman fell still as the fire consumed her.

An old man with a shock of gray hair jumped on Molly and they went sprawling to the ground. I lost sight of them as the fighting in the clearing escalated. So much magic was flying about that it set my teeth on edge, giving me a splitting headache. I tried searching for Meriwether amid the chaos and found Jodie had made it to her knees and was screaming something at the demon. Barlow was ripping through coven members, sending sprays of blood arcing through the air, and I froze at the sight.

“Sam!” Callie yelled.

Her voice, so full of fear and anguish, brought me back to my senses. “
Right
,” I yelled back. I made it to my feet and lurched toward her, working by the firelight to untie the knots that held her to the pole.

Jodie slumped to the ground, exhausted or dead, I couldn’t tell which, and then Callie said, “Get down.”

She pulled me to the ground and I felt a wave of something dark and slimy pass overhead. The sheer alien-ness of it made my stomach clench, and bile started to rise in the back of my throat. “What the—”

“It’s Haagenti,” Callie said. She looked exhausted, but her eyes were wide, and on her face I saw an expression I’d seen once before in Marshalltown.

She was furious.

I remembered the phone call with Henry.

It has to be exorcised.

Meriwether was preparing more magic when Barlow finished tearing a man I recognized as Del Doll in half, sending Doll’s entrails spilling over the ground, then jumped ten feet into the air and landed next to Meriwether, slamming his hand down on Meriwether’s right arm with a sickening crack.

The vampire was snarling and snapping at the man, but Meriwether held his own, beating the vampire back with a ferocious assault using his remaining good hand.

Nicky held his hands over his eyes, stumbling away from the altar, repeating over and over, “I wanna go
home
!”

I ran to his side. “Get out of here, Nicky! Go!”

Nicky stopped and turned to me, his eyes wide. He was sniffling and sobbing. “I don’t wanna play anymore.”

Poor Nicky. He deserves better than this.

I scooped him up like a child, ran to the edge of the clearing, and deposited him in front of a giant fir tree. “Stay here.”

“O—Okay.”

Back near the fire, the vampire was a whirlwind of motion, trying to claw or gouge at Meriwether, but Meriwether was, impossibly, fending him off.

Two of Meriwether’s coven, a younger man and woman, were attempting to strangle Karrie Showalter. They had their cloaks pulled back? And their faces were masks of fierce determination. Jameson had made it to Karrie’s side and beat at the pair, trying to save the young woman.

The battle was useless if we didn’t get rid of Haagenti. I hated to do it, but I ran to Jameson and pulled him from the two coven members, although I did manage to kick the older woman in the back near her kidneys, which made her scream and fall forward, clutching herself in agony. That earned me a look of hatred from the man, who growled, “I’m gonna kill you!”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” I said. The man’s cloak had spread open, exposing his naked body, and Karrie kicked him in the balls. The man dropped to the ground and vomited, unable to make good on his threat. Karrie coughed and sputtered, but managed to give me a weak thumbs-up.

“You’ve got to exorcise the demon,” I said to Jameson. “It’s our only chance.”

He struggled to break free, ready to go to the aid of Jaime Alcorn, who was being attacked by the same old man that had helped the matronly woman in Meriwether’s basement. “We can’t just—”

“We’re all
dead
if you don’t,” I said.

He continued to struggle, then relaxed against me. “You’re right.”

I released him just as Meriwether used magic to send Barlow hurtling across the clearing like a cannonball, flying through the snow and smashing through the trees, knocking branches to the ground in a shower of snow and bark.

Jameson took that opportunity to stagger to Meriwether’s side and said in a halting voice that grew stronger with each word, “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of darkness and the spirit of wickedness in high places. Carry our prayers to God’s throne, that the mercy of the Lord may quickly come and lay hold of the beast, the serpent of old, Satan, and his demons, casting him in chains into the abyss.”

Meriwether froze, his mouth drawn back in a snarl. “You
can’t
.”

Callie had threaded her way among those who still fought and those who lay dead or dying. “We can and we will,” she said. Her voice was as hard as iron, and I shivered when she finished.

A woman in a cloak ran toward Callie, but I caught up with her as she neared the fire and clocked her in the back of the head with my fist. She dropped to the ground and slid through the thin coat of snow now covering the earth until she came to a stop next to the altar. Dawn, still tied to the stone, twisted her head, trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening.

Jameson and Callie stood to the right and left of Meriwether, only a handful of feet from the altar, and they made the sign of the cross, which drove Meriwether crazy. He tried to move, but his feet were rooted to the ground.

The sounds in the clearing died down as Jameson spoke.

“We cast you out in the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Jameson thundered, his voice carrying a weight to it that I could actually feel pressing down on me. “We command you, begone and fly far from the Church of God, from the souls made by God in His image and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.”

Meriwether’s face stretched, the skin turning white as something within pressed its way out, then he threw his head back and howled like an animal. Some … thing … emerged from his mouth, long and black and snakelike. It plopped on the ground and began squirming away through the snow and mud.

“God of Heaven and earth,” Jameson continued, as the air around us crackled with energy, “God of the angels and archangels, God of the patriarchs and prophets, God of the apostles and martyrs, God of the confessors and virgins, God who has power to bestow life after death and rest after toil; we humbly entreat Thy glorious majesty to deliver us by Thy might from every influence of the accursed spirits, from their every evil snare and deception, and to keep us from all harm; through Christ our Lord.”

“We beg thee to hear us,” Callie said, and her voice rang out like a thousand trumpets. “Amen.”

God must have heard.

Light appeared, as pure as the falling snow, and it filled the clearing with its radiance. It was beautiful and terrifying, full of love, but also anger and wrath at the one who dared interfere with God’s work.

Ghostlike forms appeared around the edges of the clearing, beings of pure light, and they stared at the demon. I could make out flaming swords and steel-like armor, but the more I tried to see their faces, the less of them I could hold in my mind.

The snakelike form of Haagenti screeched and chittered, and then there was an explosion of sound and light that made Jodie’s magic wand look like a firecracker. When I could see again, Haagenti was gone, banished from our earth.