Free Hard-Boiled Immortal (The Immortal Chronicles) by Gene Doucette

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
Hard-Boiled Immortal
By Gene Doucette
     
GeneDoucette.me
 
Amazon Edition
 
Copyright © 2014 Gene Doucette
All rights reserved
Cover by Kim Killion, Hot Damn Designs
 
This book may not be reproduced by any means including but not limited to photocopy, digital, auditory, and/or in print.

     
     
     
     
     
    The Immortal Chronicles: Hard-Boiled Immortal is one of an ongoing series of short stories written by Adam, the immortal narrator of Immortal and Hellenic Immortal .  Look for more from Adam in future Chronicle stories, and get ready for the third book— Immortal at the Edge of the World —coming in October, 2014.
     
    The Immortal Chronicles: Immortal At Sea (volume 1)
    Adam's adventures on the high seas have taken him from the Mediterranean to the Barbary Coast, and if there's one thing he learned, it's that maybe the sea is trying to tell him to stay on dry land.
     
    The Immortal Chronicles: Hard-Boiled Immortal (volume 2)
    The year was 1942, there was a war on, and Adam was having a lot of trouble avoiding the attention of some important people. The kind of people with guns, and ways to make a fella disappear. He was caught somewhere between the mob and the government, and the only way out involved a red-haired dame he was pretty sure he couldn't trust.
     
    The Immortal Chronicles: Immortal and the Madman (volume 3)
    On a nice quiet trip to the English countryside to cope with the likelihood that he has gone a little insane, Adam meets a man who definitely has.  The madman’s name is John Corrigan, and he is convinced he’s going to die soon.
    He could be right.  Because there’s trouble coming, and unless Adam can get his own head together in time, they may die together.

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Hard-Boiled Immortal

    I knew she was bad news the minute she walked into the bar. 
    She was a redhead.  I always had a thing for redheads.  One in particular, actually.  She was dead, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t holding my breath for a second or two every time I saw another girl with red hair. 
    This one was very much alive, and once she walked in she was also the life of the room.   Men I’d been serving drinks to for years, who smiled so little if you told me they had no teeth I would’ve believed it, lit up like a kid meeting the world’s cutest bunny.
    The girl’s name was Lucy and she was there to see a buddy of mine, who we’ll call Al.  That wasn’t his name, but Al turned out to be kind of important, and this story is kind of embarrassing for him, so even though he’s not around any more let’s stick with Al.
    The redhead was either going to get him killed, or she was going to get me killed.  I could tell right away.  Call it gut instinct if you want, but I’m alive today because I know what bad news looks like as soon as I see it.
    Also, she was a succubus.
    *   *   *
    The year was 1942, and there was a war going on.
    I don’t like wars.  I try to stay out of them whenever I can, and I give that same advice to other people as often as possible. I’ve even introduced myself that way a couple of times: hi, I’m whatever-my-name-is-in-this-era, nice to meet you and stay out of wars.
    The people who most need to hear this advice almost never do.
    Sometimes it’s impossible to stay out of a war, though, and there are a couple of reasons for that.  For one thing, there have been so many it’s almost impossible to move around without stumbling across one from time to time.  It’s hard to appreciate—from a modern perspective—how very often war broke out, especially if you were trying to make a living anywhere in Europe or Asia.  I’m pretty sure whoever said war was politics by other means had it exactly backwards.
    Another reason it’s sometimes impossible to stay out of war is every now and then the war is too big to stay out of.  Like when they started calling them “world wars.”  This is not to say there