The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 (Goddamned Freaky Monsters, Half A Prayer, The Wicked Dead, The Last Coven)

by Rick Gualtieri

  As we continued on our way, though, he caught up to us.

  “Not in the mood for...”

  “So what was that back there before those meatheads tried to fuck up our shit?” he interrupted.

  “Huh?” I muttered, barely audible over the screams filling the night. I glanced at Christy to see what her reaction was, but from the expression on her face, you’d have thought we’d done nothing more than cross the street. I guess she meant what she said about protecting her child. Note to self: don’t even joke about that shit with her.

  “You were talking about cancelling something dangerous.”

  “Oh, that,” Tom replied. “Bill’s got some shit wrong with his head. Christy’s gonna help him out with it, but if it goes wrong, then chances are he’s gonna wig out and kill us all.”

  “Thanks,” I replied dryly. “That’s really helpful, a real vote of confidence.”

  “What? It’s true.”

  I nodded. He had a point. “It is indeed. That’s why we need to cancel it.”

  “What’s different from before?” Dave asked.

  I explained to him about Sheila, going into a bit more detail on her powers than I had earlier with the rest of the group around, and finished by explaining how the plan was for her to stand guard in case anything went wrong.

  “Sounds like someone I probably don’t want to piss off,” he concluded.

  “Nope. She can cut through vampires like butter. Hell, she killed one of the Draculas maybe a week ago.” Seeing his confused expression, I explained, “That’s a pretty damn tough thing to do.”

  Sure, it had been an accident, on our part at least. Alex, on the other hand, had set up the pieces that were our part to play and let them fall like perfectly aligned dominos. The whole thing was the very definition of clusterfuck. Alex had not only gained more leverage over us to use in his kangaroo court, but we’d lost a potentially valuable ally in the process.

  “So she was your failsafe?”

  “Yep.”

  “Against?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent certain, but it’s badass and it lives inside of me. The only other one of us here who probably stands a rat’s chance in Hell against me if it goes badly is Christy and since she’s gonna be a bit indisposed at the time ... well, as I said, we need to bag it.”

  We continued walking, the cries behind us eventually rising in pitch before falling silent.

  “Sounds like the Defilers have earned some XP,” I commented to no one in particular, waiting to see if any guilt struck me from the fact that I had essentially turned them loose to do as they pleased against those humans back there.

  I was just about to conclude that wasn’t going to happen when Dave spoke up again. “We may not need to.”

  “Not need to what?” Ed asked.

  “Cancel the experiment.”

  A small chill ran up my spine. It was never a good thing when Dave considered something an experiment. I glanced his way and caught that familiar semi-psychotic gleam in his eye. “It’s not an...”

  “Of course it is. Everything like this is.”

  Christy rounded on him. “This is life and death we’re talking about – not some rats in a maze.”

  Dave, for his part, seemed unfazed. It was usually hard to rattle him when his brain was busy going a mile a minute. “You say potato...”

  “Get to the point,” I said, sure that Christy was currently debating between ignoring him and turning him into a gecko.

  “You said Princess Sheila was your failsafe.”

  Tom and Ed’s snickers were like fingernails on a chalkboard. Assholes. “Just Sheila,” I growled.

  “Whatever. You say she’s the only one who stands a chance of stopping you, but what if that’s not true?”

  “Believe me, dude, you ain’t got what it takes.”

  “I’m not talking about me,” he replied dismissively. “Leave the fighting to the fighters and barbarians, I say. I’m more the mage of the party.” At Christy’s quick glare toward him, he amended, “Or an alchemist. They’re cool too. Anyway, what I meant was Ed.”

  “Me?” Ed asked.

  “Well not you, but your blood.” Dave turned to me. “You saw what it did to Carl. I’m betting you’ve seen it happen to other vampires too.” He took my silence as affirmation and continued. “Well, why not use that?”

  “You want Ed to bleed on me? Not a bad idea, but if he’s doing that, then I have a feeling his day has already taken a turn for the worse.”

  Dave let out a heavy sigh. “How you ever graduated from college is a mystery to me. What I’m talking about is drawing some more blood and hooking it up to you via an IV.”

  “But won’t that immediately blow me to bits?”

  “I’ll be there monitoring you. I’ll clamp off the line to keep it out of your system, but if anything goes wrong...”

  I stopped walking as I processed this. The others took a few extra steps before noticing.

  Holy crap, it could work. I mean, I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted Dave to not let some of Ed’s explosive fluids – wow, that sounded wrong even in my head – flow into me just to see what would happen. Even so, it was a pretty good idea.

  “What do you think?” he asked, his tone betraying that he already knew he’d made his argument.

  “I think we’re wasting time standing here bullshitting. Let’s get where we’re going and do this thing. If it works, we’ll have maybe the best weapon we stand to gain against Vehron.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Ed asked.

  “That one’s easy,” I replied with a smile. “I won’t be around to care what happens next.”

  Dreamscape

  “Just for the record, I’m not sure I like this,” Christy said as she lit the candles deep within the bowels of the safe house.

  She wasn’t talking about the procedure itself. Even had Sheila been there, the stakes would have been the same. It would either work, which would be great, or it might not, which would suck, but it wouldn’t leave us any worse than we’d been. The third option was it went horrifically wrong, in which case the failsafe was to kill me before I could return the favor. If there was anyone who shouldn’t like things, it was me.

  What was bothering her was the change in our contingency plan. Christy believed in a prophecy that Sheila would be the one to eventually end her and all mage-kind. However, they also shared a certain level of comradery, Christy even confiding in me that she felt Sheila was on the right path ... for now, at least.

  The flipside of this was she really didn’t like Dave. Couldn’t blame her there. He was an acquired taste along the lines of poorly prepared Fugu.

  As Dave pulled Ed into one of the many empty rooms of the complex to draw more blood – hopefully, my roommate had brought cookies and juice along for the trip – Christy not-so-subtly suggested Tom should hang around to keep an eye on things, preferably borrowing Ed’s shotgun to do so.

  I had to put the kibosh on that, pointing out my roommates would better serve as lookouts near the main entrance. My heightened vampire senses would be useless while we were mucking around in my head, and I doubted Dave would notice much more than his finger on the proverbial trigger, probably drooling at the chance to see me go boom in the name of science.

  As for Adam and Mike, I expected them to join us once they were finished eating their fill of street punk. The problem was they wouldn’t be worth shit when it came to telling friend from foe.

  Once Dave was finished with his bloodletting, holding up a partially filled drip bag like it was the Ark of the Covenant, I told Ed to inform the Defilers that their orders were to wait in the large conference room in the center of the building. It had once served as the site of a failed meeting between the HBC and Village Coven – ah, the memories. Should they balk at doing so, he was free to kneecap them both with a silver twelve-gauge slug.

  That done, my roommates sealed the three of us into
the room that would either prove to be our salvation or damnation.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Christy had me lie down in the middle of the circle I’d painted on the floor. She positioned me so that I was in alignment with other symbols that lay at even intervals just outside it, taking a few moments to double check my work as I got into position – only slightly insulting, mind you.

  The floor was cold and uncomfortable, so I grabbed one of the backpacks we’d brought along and used it as a pillow. Christy then positioned herself behind me, her palms on either side of my head.

  “Don’t break the circle,” she hissed at Dave as he set up the IV, causing him to miss the vein.

  “Ow.”

  “Really?” she asked, looking down at me.

  “What? I don’t like needles.”

  “You know, I could just blow him up now,” Dave offered.

  “Do your job and stay silent, please,” she replied frostily.

  “How will I know if something goes wrong?” he asked, his tone indicating her dislike of him had gone right over his head.

  I winced as he inserted the needle again. “Believe me, you’ll know. If I do anything that reminds you of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, don’t hesitate. Otherwise, your arms will probably be ripped off.”

  He immediately scooted back a couple of steps. “Good thing I brought a few extra feet of tubing.”

  Christy’s soft chanting, just barely audible, refocused me. After a few moments, I felt the slightest tingle in my temples. Things were about to get interesting.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, her eyes closed.

  “Yep,” I lied. “How long will it...”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Take?” I was no longer on the floor of the safe house. Gone were the harsh concrete walls, the burning incense, and Dave. I was standing upright in ... it was hard to tell. The whole place was fuzzy, as if I’d forgotten to put my glasses on that morning.

  “Focus,” a voice said.

  Well duh! That’s what I was trying to do. People with twenty-twenty vision just didn’t understand what a pain in the ass it was to...

  “Focus on where you wish to be,” the female voice clarified.

  Where I wanted to be. Well, fuck, that was easy.

  I concentrated, and the scene around me shifted. Where before there was a sense of being nowhere, now things began to take on form. The area where I stood expanded, the edges pushing outward until I was standing in an opulent bedroom.

  I immediately recognized it. It had belonged to Alexander the Great, his residence within Chillon Castle, the fortress that served as the nerve center for the vampire world – located, in all places, within Switzerland.

  No, that wasn’t right. I turned and surveyed the room, realizing that some things had changed. Where once stood a massive statue of the great conqueror now stood one far more familiar. My own countenance grinned down upon me, carved from the finest marble. Oh yeah, this was more like it.

  There was a large bath the size of a swimming pool next to it that I knew would be heated to the perfect temperature. The only thing missing was...

  A muffled giggle from somewhere behind me caused me to spin around. Ah, there it was, the massive bed, covered in silken pillows and sheets with a thread count higher than my bank account.

  But that wasn’t all.

  There was a bulge in the center of the bed, something hidden beneath the blankets. No, someone ... or make that two someones.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I playfully called.

  At my beckoning, the sheet was thrown off, revealing both Sally and Sheila.

  “We were wondering when you’d join us, master,” Sally said in a voice so hot I was surprised my pants didn’t immediately immolate.

  “Ignore her,” Sheila replied with a pout that was both petulant and wicked at the same time. “It’s time to fulfill your destiny. The Icon needs conquering.”

  Fuck yeah! Now this was what I was talking about.

  I took one step toward the bed when everything in front of me froze.

  An angry voice sounded from out of nowhere. “You have got to be kidding me!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I spun around, wondering who had pressed pause on the most awesome scene in the history of mankind.

  “This is not what I meant, Bill.”

  “Um, sorry, disembodied ... err ... ghost lady,” I replied, having no clue what was going on. Jeez, the days I had sometimes.

  Footsteps sounded in my periphery, and I turned to find a figure beginning to coalesce. At first, it was as fuzzy as my view of the bedroom had originally been, but then I was able to make out features – a slim body clad in a tight mini-dress, brown hair so dark it bordered on black, a pendant hanging from her neck of a woman in gleaming white robes with arms outstretched – and then, finally, her face came into focus.

  “Christy?”

  “Who else would it be?” She sounded annoyed.

  All at once, it slammed into me, what we were doing and where we were supposed to be. Oh shit, we were inside my head.

  I blinked and found myself gawking at her trim figure. I mean, Christy had always been way above Tom’s pay grade looks-wise, but she’d usually been a fairly conservative dresser. Not prudish or anything, but nothing like this. Here, she looked like she was about to take on every rave in New York City and leave dozens of broken hearts in her wake. In short ... damn!

  Glancing back toward the bed and the lusty wenches within, still frozen as if time itself had stopped, I had to ask, “Um, did I do...” I indicated what she was wearing. “...that?” Oh crap, if I was subconsciously in love with her too, then I was in some deep shit for sure.

  She appeared confused for a moment, but then looked down. “Oh this? No, this was me. We can appear however we like in the mindscape. Let’s just say once I push this kid out, I am getting back to the gym pronto.”

  “Okay, I get that, but you ... well, you look like ... you’re dressed like...”

  “Sally?”

  “No offense, but yeah.”

  “I know. She kind of turned me on to this look when we were in Vegas. I guess I enjoyed it more than I wanted to admit at the time.”

  “And when was this?” The only time I’d seen her with Sally in Las Vegas was for the few minutes when she’d teleported me there and then left. I mean, she’d been less pregnant than she was now, but not quite in the shape to pour herself into the outfit she currently inhabited.

  “We really don’t have time for that. We’re here for a reason, remember?”

  “Yeah, of course I do,” I said, not quite ready to focus yet. “What’s with the necklace?”

  She lifted it and looked it over, a sad smile on her face. “I guess I’m also not quite as willing as I thought to give up on everything I’ve held dear in my life.” She idly caressed the white figurine hanging from the silver strand. For a moment, she looked like she was about to cry, but then her face hardened. “Let’s not worry about that for now. We’re here for Dr. Death. Let’s go find him.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I hesitated for the barest of moments.

  “He’s not here, is he?” she asked, trying to keep the horror out of her voice.

  “Oh God, no!” I replied. “Believe me, I don’t like extra sausage on my sandwiches.”

  “I really didn’t need to know that.”

  “Sorry. Uh, yeah, let’s blow this pop stand.” I took a breath, trying to clear my mind, but once more turned to her. “If it’s all the same to you...”

  “Don’t worry. This little, whatever it is, is just between us.”

  “Not even Tom?”

  “Not even Tom,” she reassured.

  Good. The last thing I wanted was for him giving me shit about ... well, stuff he could probably figure out on his own. Even so, he didn’t need the visuals to go along with it.

  I steadied myself again, silently promisi
ng my two lovely bedmates I’d visit them once I had a chance to catch up on my sleep without any third parties looking on. A small shiver of fear worked its way through me as I forced myself to think of the cage I’d been kept in. It wasn’t quite the dank prison I’d been stuck in during my tenure in Switzerland, but what was in it was far worse than a bunch of damp rocks and a door thick enough to withstand a bazooka blast.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Christy. Somehow, she’d moved to my side without my noticing. “It’ll be okay. I’m here with you.”

  Smiling, I nodded, hoping she was right.

  The dream gave way to nightmare as the scene before us shifted. Gone was the penthouse suite of my fantasies and in its place was the dull reality of the hallway on the top floor of my apartment building – the one right outside my door.

  “This is a bad idea,” I muttered.

  Unfortunately, Christy didn’t have any words of encouragement to offer other than, “Go on.”

  These things always seemed so much easier when they were far enough off into the future so as to not seem real. But she was right. We couldn’t just stand here for all of eternity, or however long had passed since we entered my mind. Eventually, time would move on – the Draculas would find us, the world would burn to a cinder, I’d have to pee.

  There was also the chance that Dave would eventually grow bored and tell the scientific method to go take a flying fuck.

  Yep, there was no turning back.

  I took another deep breath, reminding myself that I was a new Bill, one who was unafraid of his destiny. I put on my best tough guy sneer and raised my hand to give the door a manly knock.

  No, fuck that. This was my apartment. I didn’t need to knock. Hell, I could beat the fucking door down with impunity. It’s not like some dream landlord would show up and dock me my security deposit.

  Yeah, that was the ticket. I cocked back a fist and let it fly ... just as the door was opened from the inside.

  My momentum carried me forward. I stumbled a step, then tripped over something – a foot – and ended up eating a mouthful of scuffed hardwood floor.