Sam Harlan (Book 3): Damned Cold

• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  

Damned Cold

Kevin Lee Swaim

Copyright © 2016 Kevin Lee Swaim All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying form without written permission of the author, Kevin Lee Swaim, or the publisher, Picadillo Press.

Published by: Picadillo Publishing

Cover Design by: The Cover Collection

Editing by:Clio editing

Proofreading by: Donna Rich

ISBN: 978-0692622186

DEDICATION

To my wife, MaryAnn
.

They say a
watched pot never boils. I disagree. I once owned a diner, and I can assure you a pot boils whether anyone watches the damned thing or not.

I stood at the kitchen sink, thinking about watched pots and my recently developed urge to smash a pot against someone’s face.

Anyone’s face.

Before I fled my old life, I had rarely felt anger. Not
real
anger. Not that kind that makes you want to hurt people, to make them bleed and cower in fear and piss themselves. No,
this
anger was new and fresh and terrifying.

I was scrubbing a skillet, still contemplating watched pots, when the phone finally rang. I glanced back to the kitchen table, where Sister Callie Calahane was quietly reading the book I had given her for Christmas.

She raised an eyebrow, her emerald eyes wary.

I held up my soap-covered hands and nodded down the hall. “Can you?”

She closed her copy of
The Epic of Gilgamesh
and hurried to grab the phone before the answering machine picked up.

I went back to scrubbing the cast-iron skillet, then rinsed it off, turned on the stove, and put the skillet on to dry. While the skillet warmed, I listened as Callie spoke quietly with whatever lost soul had called for our help.

Her end of the conversation was as clear as if she were standing next to me, even though she was fifty feet away. People who knew about such things called it the change—the result of my first kill, the vampire essence burning through my body, enhancing my senses, giving me great strength and resilience.

They neglected to mention it also brought a soul-crushing, mind-numbing hunger. My meals were full of bloody rare steak, and the grease and blood that drained down the back of my throat never quite satiated the hunger.

And, apparently, it gifted me with a bottomless pit of rage.

Just fantastic.

I could barely discern the man’s voice on the other end of the call. Callie answered, her voice warming by degrees. “Yes,” she said. “We will be there. Yes, Father. Of course. Let me write it down.”

There was a scratch-scratch of the pencil as she hurriedly scribbled information on a pad of paper, then cleared her throat. “Thank you, Father. See you soon.”

She hung up and returned to the kitchen, a pad of paper in her hand. Callie was a young woman in her mid-twenties, tall, with striking auburn hair and wearing jeans and a dark flannel shirt. She constantly reminded me she was a sister, not a nun, and she had followed me home from Peoria after I had murdered my daughter.

Her twin sister, Katie, had helped me during my first vampire hunt, until a vampire named Pearl had ripped her guts out.

The death of Katie Calahane lay between us during every moment and every conversation. The death of my daughter, and my wife, and my kin, Jack Harlan, lay there too. Their deaths cast a long shadow, and Callie dealt with it better than I did.

“That was Father Jameson,” she said.

“What does he want?” Father Jameson was a priest from St. Louis. I had last seen him in the basement of the Cathedral Basilica when he helped me up the concrete stairs and into Jack’s truck. I mentally counted up the weeks and winced.

Fourteen weeks. It has only been fourteen weeks.

Callie absently thumbed the pad of paper. “A woman is missing.”

I laughed before I could stop myself, a grating sound that carried no humor. “There always is.”

Callie frowned. “Sam—”

I turned away, afraid to speak, and took a seat at the kitchen table, trying to avoid her gaze. “Tell me about it.”

“The Father received a call from a priest in Bement,” Callie said, taking the seat across from me, watching me intently.

“A vampire?”

She shrugged. “The priest isn’t sure. It’s not like the Church prepares them…”

It was a sore subject with Callie. And, now that I was in the family business, it didn’t sit well with me, either. “What’s Jameson want us to do?”

“He would like us to look into it.”

“I’ll bet he would. Why doesn’t he go himself?”

“He’s there now,” she said.

I tried and failed to hide my surprise. “He is?”

She nodded. “I told him we would help.”

“Of course you did.” I was still avoiding her gaze, but from the corner of my eye, I saw her lips quiver.

“We need to talk about it.”

I shook my head. “Talk is overrated.”

“It’s not your fault. You did everything you could.” The growing sense of frustration in her voice belied the pity in her eyes.

“Tell that to Lori Glick,” I said, shoving away from the table. The oak chair screeched against the wooden floor, and I was up and walking before Callie could answer.

I made my way down the basement stairs, past the freezer full of paper-wrapped beef, and swung the door to the armory open with a clang. The armory was a forty-foot-long, thirty-foot-wide concrete room, with a domed ceiling I couldn’t reach with a stepladder. A dizzying array of weapons lined the walls, with knives and swords and guns hanging from pegs. A wooden bench full of gunsmithing tools occupied the center of the room, and gray carpet tiles covered the floor.

Industrial metal shelves full of ammunition stood neatly arranged to my left. Beside them was a Rubbermaid container full of wooden stakes. At the far end of the room, near the door that led to the garage, sat an old-fashioned black steel safe as tall as a man and nearly as wide.

Inside the safe was a fortune in gold, silver, and paper currency, a gift from my great-great-great-grandfather, Jack Harlan. The money, the armory, and the house and land in Toledo were his legacies—mine to use as I saw fit.

I
had
wanted to hunt vampires.

Until it all went so wrong.

The change had already healed my broken finger and ribs. The bruises and contusions had disappeared—gone as if they never existed. My side still ached, as did my back, my finger, and wrist, but my body was in some semblance of working order.

If I could just get my mind right.

I removed the Kimber .45 from my Galco shoulder holster, checking the magazine for silver bullets. It was a gift from Mary Kate Glick, originally intended for Jack, and its substantial weight felt good in my hand. Two extra magazines rested in leather pouches under my right arm, and I checked those as well, then holstered the Kimber.

It was my new nervous tic, like checking every room in the house for misplaced items and craning my neck to listen for unexpected noises.

Footsteps approached from the basement. Callie entered the armory and watched as I removed a plastic ammo can and filled it with boxes of silver ammunition, and then she grabbed several boxes of silver twelve-gauge shotgun shells from the metal shelves and handed them to me. I grunted and filled the ammo can to the brim, shut it, and looked up to her.

She had removed the modified Remington 870 from the wall, a heavy shotgun with a pistol grip and collapsible stock that she had claimed as her own after Jack’s death. She was now proficient enough with it that I no longer worried she might accidentally shoot me.

I had spent most of November and the early part of December practicing with the Kimber. After countless hours, it was now an extension of my arm. It had to be. The weapons were beautiful, well-maintained tools of our new trade, but more than that, our lives depended on them.

That thought depressed the hell out of me.

Callie set her Remington on the bench and said, “I’ve got the directions.”

“How far?”

“Bement is in Central Illinois. About three hundred miles, give or take.”

I grunted. “Anything nearby?”

“It’s east of Decatur,” Callie said.

I could almost hear her unspoken words.
The place where Katie died.

I bit my lip. “We won’t make it until after dark.”

She watched me, her face a careful blank. “I want to stop in Peoria if you don’t mind.”

“You want to see—”

“Father Lewinheim.”

It was the least I could do for her. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see
you
.”

“Sam—”

“What am I supposed to tell him?”

Her eyes were full of empathy. “You don’t have to seek his approval, Sam. He won’t judge.”

“He ought to,” I said. “He damned well
ought
to.”

* * *

It was only a short walk through the tunnel to the machine shed, a heated building with a concrete floor and a mechanic’s lift in the far right bay. A Camaro, an F-150 pickup truck, and even a vintage Indian motorcycle occupied the garage, but the Chevrolet Cheyenne had been Jack’s main vehicle. I had repaired it as best I could after a vampire had slammed me into the side and crushed the passenger door.

The truck wouldn’t win any awards, but it was powerful and functional, and that’s all I cared about.

Pegboards full of tools draped the walls. Rolling tool chests sat underneath. I placed Callie’s Remington inside the middle drawer of the four-foot-long black Craftsman toolbox against the back wall. The plastic ammo cases went in the top, along with several wooden stakes and an ancient Army Colt M1911, a duplicate of the one I had lost in October. The silver Bowie knife joined them. It was fourteen inches long and would be awkward driving with it strapped to my hip.

I grabbed the toolbox, picked it up, and made my way to the back of Jack’s truck. The toolbox weighed in at several hundred pounds, but I easily manhandled it into the truck’s bed before shutting the tailgate and topper.

Callie stood watch, dressed in a thick brown jacket and faded jeans. Her eyes swept over me, appraising. “Are you going to keep wearing that?” she asked.

I glanced down at my black leather trench coat. “It suits me.”

“It’s cold. Wouldn’t you prefer something warmer?”

“Don’t need it,” I said. “I don’t
get
cold. Not anymore.”

The corner of her eyes tightened. There was worry there, but there was also something else. I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t just empathy, but that she was carefully charting the progression of my bodily changes.

Jack had become something far from human, and Callie had to know it would happen to me. I hadn’t asked her about it because I really didn’t want to know the answer, but if push came to shove, I was hoping she would kill me before I turned into a monster.

“Will you need something to eat?” Callie asked.

I nodded. We had taken to carrying a paper bag full of beef jerky wherever we went.

There was no telling when the hunger would strike.

Callie left, and I climbed into the truck and pushed the remote button hanging from the truck’s visor. The door rumbled sideways behind me with a squeal of metal. I thought about replacing the home-brewed contraption Jack had built. The shed had enough overhead space for a roll-up door. Then I realized I would have to find someone I trusted to do the work.

It was probably the reason Jack had built it himself.

Callie returned with a heavy canvas duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a paper bag in her hand. She turned off the lights in the shed and got in the truck, stuffing the bag full of beef jerky behind the seat and the duffel in the floorboard.

I hit the button to close the shed door and backed down the lane. A light dusting of snow covered the gravel lane, just enough to make the rear tires slide. The temperature was hovering in the upper twenties. It wasn’t terribly cold, but wasn’t warm enough to melt the snowfall from the day before.

A few miles of gravel roads and soon we were heading east on US-30. The truck ate up mile after mile of interstate, passing rolling fields empty of corn and soybeans, the bleak, dreary landscape broken only by lonely stands of trees, rest areas, and the occasional blip of a town.