Sam Harlan (Book 3): Damned Cold (15 page)

The room was silent. Mosley looked confused, so I decided to ask the question we were both clearly thinking. “How does this help?”

“Because I never
really
stopped,” Jameson said. “Haagenti was right. I looked for any excuse. I finally found one. I quit doing exorcisms and started battling vampires, but I took every opportunity to learn what I could about magic. I only worked on stopping spells. On destruction, not creation. The few times I was exposed to magic, I practiced unraveling it. My minor talent, it turns out, wasn’t so minor. With enough time, I can unmake almost any spell. My mind, you see, excels at turning the order of magic into chaos.”

* * *

“I need your phone,” I said.

Mosley frowned and leaned forward in his office chair. “What?”

“Your cell phone. You have a cell phone, don’t you?”

Mosley started to speak, but Jameson stood up from the couch and handed me his phone without comment.

I dialed the number and it went immediately to voice mail. I growled and hit redial. This time, the phone rang once before it was picked up.

“No,” Billy said. “I’m not getting involved.” The phone clicked off and I punched the redial. This time, Billy picked up immediately. “Damn it, quit calling!”

“I don’t have time for this, Billy. What did you find out?”

“Something is wrong,” Billie said. “I can’t…”

I sighed. “What happened?”

“I spirit-walked. It was nuts. Something has them stirred up.”

“Stirred up? What does
that
mean?”

“Spirits aren’t like people, Sam. They’re more like remnants of people. All emotion and no reason.”

“Did you find out about Dorothy Hamm?”

“No,” Billy said anxiously. “The spirits didn’t know anything about her.”

“Then why are you so freaked out?”

“Because they were afraid.”

“So?”

There was a long pause. “You don’t understand,” Billy finally said. “Spirits get sad, and angry, and lonely, but fear is the one thing they
don’t
feel. They’re beyond it.”

I didn’t understand Billy’s point. “What does that mean?”

“It means that
something
is going on,” Billy shouted into the phone. “Something bad enough to scare the spirits. Whatever you’re doing, Sam,
stop doing it
. Run for the hills. Dig a hole and jump in. Hide out.”

I sighed wearily. “I can’t do that. I have a job to do.”

“You sounding more like Jack every time we speak.”

“Thanks?”

“That wasn’t a compliment, dumbass.”

“I appreciate it, man. I know it’s … not easy.”

“It’s still thin,” Billy allowed, “but not like it was during Halloween. I survived.”

“Still,” I said, “you took a risk for me. It means a lot.”

Billy snorted. “You just won’t listen to reason. Try not to get yourself killed.”

The phone call ended and I tossed the phone to Jameson. “That didn’t help.”

Jameson raised an eyebrow.

“I’d hoped to find out if Dorothy was still alive.”

“Is she?” Mosley asked.

I shrugged. “The magic eight ball says try again later.”

Both priests stared at me as if I had lost my mind. “Let’s go,” I said. I stood and headed for the door. Mosley and Jameson followed me out of the church and crammed into the tiny Prius.

“How will we do this?” Mosley asked as I drove north.

“We don’t have a lot of options,” I said. “We’ll park down the road and sneak up on them.”

“Sneak up?” Mosley sputtered. “That’s your plan?”

I turned to glare at him, driving with my peripheral vision. “Do you have a better one? Some way to make us invisible? A magic cloak, maybe?”

Jameson put his hand on my shoulder. “There’s no need for this. Isn’t that right, Ethan?”

Mosley nodded. “We can speak with them. They’re reasonable people. They’ll see how wrong they are.”

I felt my mouth drop. “You think they’re reasonable? Because they didn’t
seem
reasonable. They
seemed
batshit crazy.”

Mosley began, “I don’t think—”

“People do desperate things in desperate situations,” Jameson said. “You saw what Jack became. You should understand better than anyone.”

Jameson had a point. I would’ve done anything to save my daughter.

I would’ve crossed any line. Committed any sin.

It didn’t make me any less angry. Just because Jodie’s sister was missing didn’t give her the right to drag me into their mess. It certainly didn’t give them the right to hold Callie.

I turned on the side road and headed west. The asphalt was cracked and sloped sharply to the ditches on either side of the road. I retraced my route until we neared the Kormans’ farm. There was a stand of trees east of the house and I pulled the Prius into the grass, using the skeletal trees for shelter.

The Kormans’ farm lay one hundred yards past the tree line. “I wish I had my gun,” I muttered.

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Jameson said. “Should it?”

“You wouldn’t think so,” I said. “But I didn’t expect an old farmer to run us off the road and put Callie in the middle of a magic circle.” I gave the priests a hard look. “This is a damned dangerous little town.”

Jamison looked like he wanted to argue, but he ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “Just … try not to hurt anyone. Violence is never the answer.”

“Depends on what the question is,” I muttered under my breath. I opened the door of the Prius and my boots sank into the dead grass. “Are you two coming?”

The priests frowned, but Jameson put his hand on Mosley’s shoulder. They got out and Jameson quietly shut the door. I slipped my hand under my coat. The silver Bowie knife was still strapped to my belt.

I didn’t know much about witches, but a slashed throat would cramp anybody’s style.

If it comes to that.

“You’re sure about walking to the shed?” Mosley whispered, eying the farmhouse nervously.

I couldn’t resist a smile. “Would you feel better if I said yes?”

Mosley frowned and put his hands together. “Dear Lord, help us rescue Sister Callie. Protect us from these witches and any harm they intend.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Mosley shook his head and rolled his eyes. “There’s a prayer I never thought I would say.”

“Look,” I said softly, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But either we try sneaking up and saving Callie or I’m going into that farmhouse and stabbing my way out. As a man of peace, I figured you’d prefer I try the sneaky way.”

“Of course,” Jameson said, shushing Mosley.

“Good. It’s time to beat our feet.” I motioned for the two priests to follow my lead and took off across the field heading west.

Walking across a frozen field takes an enormous amount of energy. There aren’t more than a few inches of level surface within reach of your footsteps because the dirt is an endless series of oddly angled ridges. And, if that isn’t bad enough, the remains of heavy-rooted cornstalks jut up, threatening to trip you.

To make matters worse, the sun was a little past its zenith and had warmed the earth just enough to melt the top inch of soil, making every footstep a squelching, sucking affair that drained my strength and made me question what kind of an idiot would go walking through the cornfields in the middle of the damned winter.

“We’re totally exposed,” Mosley whispered.

I glanced around at the priests, then pointed to the Kormans’ house. “There aren’t any windows facing east,” I said, just loud enough for them to hear. “Not on the first floor, at any rate. We won’t be seen as long as no one steps outside.”

Jameson nodded approvingly. “That’s smart, Sam. You’re really thinking.”

“It’s
almost
like I know what I’m doing,” I said, then hesitated. “Either it’ll work or they’ll kill us. Right?”

“Kill us?” Mosley said. His footsteps faltered in and he looked at me with concern.

“That’s a joke,” I said, continuing across the cornfield.

I hope.

* * *

We made it to the machine shed without incident. Either there weren’t any magical wards on the Kormans’ property, or they were set to prevent magical attacks, not three poor souls attempting a break-in.

The door to the shed was on the northwest side, and I turned to inspect the farmhouse. Windows faced south, with a clear view of the machine shed door. This was the part of the plan that worried me the most. If anyone happened to be looking to the south, we were totally screwed.

I stopped and waited for the priests to catch up. When they were pressed up next to me, I whispered, “We have to be quick about this.”

They nodded, but they were clearly worried. I was, too, but I could almost hear Jack telling me that worrying didn’t get the job done.

I took a deep breath, gave a silent prayer for luck, and twisted the knob, pushing against the door.

The door didn’t budge.

Mosley and Jameson were standing so close I could feel their body heat. “It’s locked,” Mosley whispered. “What now?”

A firm shove opened the door with a scrape. “Not locked,” I said. “Just stuck.”

We entered the building and I shut the door behind us. A soft light streamed from transparent panels overhead, but not enough to fully illuminate the hallway.

I held up my hand and whispered, “Hold on.”

The priests stopped in their tracks.

My hearing was better than it had ever been, and I turned my head, listening for movement.

It was quiet, but there was a rustling coming from inside the building, like the sound of fabric flapping in the breeze.

What the hell?

The rustling stopped suddenly, plunging the building into a deathly silence, then the noise resumed.

It wasn’t a sound I could readily place, like a coat or a jacket snapping in the wind, but it definitely hinted at movement. I rotated my head, unable to pinpoint its source.

A low moan came from ahead. It was a sound that I
did
recognize—a woman’s moan. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a cold ball felt like it was about to drop from my stomach and into my bowels.

I rushed forward. The door that led to the room where Callie was held wasn’t stuck. It was locked. I growled in anger, then twisted the knob until it sheared off with a metallic ping.

Callie was right where I had left her, still tied to the chair in the middle of the room. Her head lolled to the side and she moaned again, a wet sound that rattled inside her throat. Jameson and Mosley stepped past me before halting in their tracks, held in place by the same invisible magical force that had trapped me.

“Step back,” I whispered.

They were like flies trapped in molasses, but seeing Callie bound in the magic circle killed any humor I might have found in the situation. They finally managed to step back far enough to free themselves, and their bodies returned to normal motion.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “
That’s
what I was talking about.”

Jameson turned to me and blinked. “Now I understand. There is something here, some magic that keeps us from approaching.”

“Can you remove it?” Mosley asked.

“Let me see,” Jameson said, crouching down to inspect the etchings in the outer rim of the circle.

While Jameson was doing his thing, I heard the rustling noise again. “Do you hear that?” I whispered to Mosley.

Mosley squinted at me and shook his head. “No.”

There was another round of noise, a swish-swishing that was louder than before. “You don’t hear that?”

Mosley closed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Hear what?”

I pulled my silver Bowie knife. “There’s someone else here.”

“Where are you going?” Mosley whispered.

“Follow me,” I answered, “but stay behind, just in case.”

The young priest’s eyes widened. “In case of what?”

I shrugged. “In case they know we’re here.”

* * *

I eased down the hallway, heading back to the room where I’d been kept. Mosley followed a safe distance behind, panting heavily.

The door to the room with the pit stood open, but that wasn’t the source of the noise. It was coming from another door on the west side of the hallway. I hadn’t noticed the door before, but I hadn’t been at my best, either.

I put my hand on the doorknob and felt the vibrations through the brass. The noise was definitely coming from behind the door. I turned the knob and found a room just like the one where I’d been kept. This room also contained a pit in the middle of the room, just like the one I’d woken in hours before.

“What’s in there?” Mosley whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said, edging closer to the pit. “Maybe it’s Dorothy.”

“Should you be … getting that close to the edge?” he asked.

“Probably not,” I whispered, then took another step forward. I was almost to the edge when I felt an oily black presence grow stronger with each step. It was a familiar sensation that filled me with dread.

It was the feeling of evil. Of hunger. It was a stain against everything that was right. The darkness wrapped around my soul, and my own darkness rose to greet it.

I clutched my Bowie knife with shaking hands and peered over the edge, but I already knew what I would find.

A young woman at the bottom was moving almost too fast to see, the rustling coming from her clothes as she bounced against the concrete walls. She wore jeans and a black t-shirt with shredded sleeves, and her long brown hair flowed in the wind like a streamer as she spun around the room like a whirling dervish, her hands never quite touching the etchings in the walls.

She came to a halt and her hair finally caught up to her body, then she snapped her head back and glared at me with eyes of solid black.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.

The woman was a vampire. Jodie Rexford and her coven had captured a vampire and bound it in a concrete pit, and the thing was staring up at me, its lips pulled back in silent rage and its ivory fangs fully extended.

I heard a gasp behind me and turned to see Mosley, frozen in fear. The young priest’s face had drained of color, and I knew that he’d finally felt the vampire’s presence. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, and his eyes were full of panic.