The Tome of Bill (Book 6): Half A Prayer

by Gualtieri, Rick

  Oh, yeah!

  At least until he threw me off of him like I weighed nothing.

  “You little punk. Even if I wasn’t better than I was before, I’m still older and stronger than you.”

  “Maybe so,” Sally said, rising behind him - whole, if limping a bit. “But I brought you into the underworld.” She followed up with a swing of that pipe she was still holding. It connected solidly and Mark went stumbling across the room. “And I can sure as shit take you out.”

  She glanced toward me and, for a second, I was worried she might decide that two nerdy guys needed to die this night, but then said, “You gonna just stand there staring at my tits or do you want to help me kill this asshole?”

  “You are so hot when you’re...”

  She flashed her fangs at me.

  “Which I mean in a purely platonic way, of course.”

  Unfortunately for us, Mark was barely even dazed. A large dent stood out on the side of his head, but it rapidly filled in...and then kept going as his form shimmered and thickened, his eyes collapsing in on themselves until all that remained was an empty orange glow. “We will enjoy killing you both. Then we will find the pure one and deliver him.”

  “Over my dead body, asshole,” I replied.

  “Your terms are accepted.”

  Oh shit.

  Sally tilted her head slightly to the side. “Pure one?”

  “Long story,” I said as we backed out of the room and into the kitchen. I glanced around, hoping for reinforcements. Sadly, neither Gan nor Vargas were anywhere to be seen - same with the other combatants. It appeared the fighting had moved on without us.

  “Tell us where the pure one is.”

  “And you’ll let us live?”

  “No, but your death will be painless...mostly.”

  Hell, it wasn’t an entirely bad deal compared to what else I’d gotten that day, but still... “I hate to break it to you, Rocky, but he’s not all that pure.”

  “Mother wants him.”

  “Mommy will have to find a new plaything...oh, crap!”

  Mark had used my own ploy against me, letting me banter until he’d closed the gap. I so hated when the bad guys studied up on this shit. Why couldn’t they just stick to their clichés and die when they were supposed to?

  Such speculation would have to wait, sadly. Spreading his clubs out to the side so as to maximize his reach, he came right at us. Being a chivalrous fellow, I moved to shove Sally out of the way, forgetting that she’d been in her fair share of scrapes. Before I could reach her, she nimbly leapt into the air, cartwheeling over Mark and leaving me right smack dab in the way of his charge.

  Fortunately, a nice industrial-strength grill assembly eventually stopped his momentum, allowing him to smash me against it in a not-so-gentle fashion. Ouch. The wind knocked out of me, Mark closed his arms around my midsection in the kind of gentle embrace an angry grizzly might make against a lost hiker. The razor sharp shards protruding from him immediately tore into me. It was like being hugged by a giant blender. Blood began to drip from my body as I was slowly shredded from every direction.

  Mark grinned, the smile on his pumpkin head nearly a foot across, every inch of it filled with rock-like daggers. He opened wide and leaned forward. I wound up with my right and punched him square in the forehead, mindful of not feeding him my hand.

  Yeah, it felt about as good as punching a concrete wall.

  He tightened his grip, then, just as suddenly, spun us both around.

  Before I could wonder what he was doing, I saw stars as something collided into the back of my head with enough force to make me momentarily forget my name.

  “Sorry,” Sally said.

  I would’ve admonished her to watch her fucking aim, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was a bloody gurgle as Mark put on the pressure. He once more moved in to give me the last hickey I’d ever receive. I grabbed hold with my claws on either side of his head and kept him at bay, but just barely. I had no leverage and the best parts of me were currently spilling out in rivulets

  “Let him go, Mark.”

  So nice to see she cared...”ARGH!” Something snapped inside, a rib probably. It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced that, but what made this especially excruciating was the feeling inside of me. I’m no doctor, but if I had to guess, I’d say a broken shard of bone was the culprit. It was jabbing against something in my chest and it hurt...badly. I didn’t think I could stand if it got worse.

  Oh no!

  A rattling cough escaped my mouth, but I cut it off halfway to scream out again as the shard continued to scrape against my heart.

  This was it. I was going to stake myself from the inside out. What a fucking...OH GOD!...what a fucking way to check out.

  “Let him go and I’ll surrender.”

  “You will be mine regardless.” A deep chuckle escaped its mouth.

  “And I’ll throw in the pure one.”

  Mark cocked his head to the side as if thinking. “You do not know where he is,” he concluded, calling her bluff.

  “No, but I can sniff him out.”

  Mark didn’t let up on the pressure, but he stopped making it worse for a moment. How nice of him to give me a couple of seconds to enjoy the agony as my body did what no enemy had been able to do so far. “We will find him.”

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, lover,” she said. “You would have done so already. I can see you’re a lot stronger now than you were, but I’m willing to bet you lost some things in the exchange.” She tapped her nose. “Me, my sniffer works better than ever. I can find this pure one you’re talking about. Then you’ll have everything you wanted. You can take us down below and do whatever you want to us...to me.”

  That last part had enough seductive intent to almost make me forget I was about to die horribly. She stepped up right behind me. I hoped it was to pry this fucker off, but she instead laid her head on my shoulder and...holy shit...ran her tongue down the side of my face ending at my earlobe. Of all the ways I’d thought I might die today, I’d never have guessed it would be with a mega-boner.

  “What do you say?” she purred to him, her hot breath washing against my cheek. She reached around me and touched Mark’s arm, running a finger across it, leaving drops of blood behind. “You’ll have all eternity to prove to me you’re as hard where it counts as the rest of you.”

  Mark’s Jahabich form wavered. His body remained as it was, essentially a barbed-wire-covered vise grip that was currently crushing the life out of me, but his face changed back to its human guise.

  He leaned forward, a sly grin on his face. “Oh, you have no idea the things I am going to do to you. If you thought I used to make you scream before, that will be nothing compared to what you are going to experience.” The smile widened into something predatory. “But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’m still going to kill this...guh!”

  I drove my head forward into his, smashing my forehead directly into his nose. What’s good for the goose is good for the asshole...or not. Mark might have looked human, but he wasn’t soft and squishy like one. I nearly caved my skull in from the effort, my vision doubling and then tripling.

  Three Mark heads swam in front of me, leaning back from the blow but looking a lot more pissed than hurt. Within a moment, they turned back into three wavering monster faces, their orange eyes...opening wide in surprise?

  Just like that, Sally had used the distraction to leap over us and onto Mark’s back. Ignoring the pain of being in contact with him, she extended her claws and drove both hands deep into his glowing eye sockets. These creatures didn’t have eyeballs, at least none that I could see, but he still didn’t like that - not one bit.

  He threw back his head in a roar of rage...and then I was free, free to fall right down to the ground in a pool of my own blood. Yeah, that ought to do it.

  I glanced up to see Sally holding on for dear life. The creature’s girth prevented it from using its clubs against her for
anything more than glancing blows. They probably hurt, but that was nothing for a seasoned vampire. The Jahabich freak next tried to spin its head around toward her, but she was wrist deep in its skull and had the leverage to keep it from doing so.

  That left one thing for the monster to try...whirling around blindly in a rage and trying to smash her against whatever seemed solid.

  There was no way she’d be able to hold on for long, and then what? We’d be pummeled into pudding, that’s what. On the upside, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with Gan when she got back. It would also save me from further pontification by Alex. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad...

  No, that wasn’t particularly positive thinking.

  I wanted nothing better than to pass out for five or six days, but mind scrambled or not, Sally had still proven that, together, we were an unbeatable team. There was no way I’d let her down now.

  Also, I had every intention of living long enough to recall the way her tongue had felt during my next session of alone time, if you get my drift.

  I pushed up off the floor, once more crying out in pain as the shard of hurt continued to threaten popping the organ essential to my not turning into a pile of ash.

  The sound of a collision caused me to glance over my shoulder. Sally still hung on, but Mark was pummeling her against every hard surface he could find. She was getting bloodier by the moment. There was no way she could hold out for long against such punishment.

  I took a deep breath...well, really a shallow one. I was pretty sure I had a punctured lung in addition to all the other fun injuries my vampire healing was probably shaking its head in disbelief at. Gathering what little bit of power I had left, I crawled to the nearest wall and used it to brace myself as I clawed back to my feet. I lost my balance for a moment and found myself leaning against a massive steel refrigerator. Hmm, wonder if they had any cold cuts left. I sure as shit could’ve gone for a sandwich and a cold beer right about...wait a second.

  A bloody smile crossed my lips. Fuck it all, it was worth a try.

  “Yo, Marky Mark, let’s finish this. The better man gets to lay claim to your girlfriend, and I think we already know who that is.”

  He spun toward my voice, teeth grinding together and making a most uncomfortable sound. Sally’s head also whipped in my direction, but I put a finger to my lips - hoping she took the hint and kept any snark to herself.

  She didn’t.

  “When this is over, I want you to tear my panties off with your fangs and take me on top of this asshole’s corpse.”

  Uh...okay.

  With my current injuries, I really couldn’t afford for blood to start rushing to my crotch, so I did my best to think unsexy thoughts...Gan handcuffing me to a bed...yeah, that did it.

  Unfortunately, it almost did me too. Mark was rushing blindly toward my position, driven into a frothing rage by Sally’s disturbingly X-rated taunts. A few more moments of daydreaming and I’d have been pulverized.

  He was nearly within range, so I grabbed the back of the refrigerator and shoved...

  ...and it didn’t budge. What the fuck?!

  Oh shit, he was almost on me.

  I quickly gave the fridge a once over. Was the fucking thing bolted to the floor? No, as it turned out, it was bolted to the wall. Goddamned nuclear bunkers. Did they need to take every fucking precaution under the sun?

  “Any year now,” Sally growled, trying her best to slow him down.

  “Working on it.”

  I grabbed hold of the appliance again and heaved with everything I had, definitely not doing my innards any good. Motherfucking military-grade bolts!

  Finally, though, a squeal of metal on metal rang out as the mooring started to pry lose.

  Unfortunately, I was also out of time. Homing in on our banter, Mark took a massive swing, intent on making sure one couldn’t tell where my head ended and the metal of the refrigerator began.

  I ducked, and he hit it on the side full on - leaving a dent big enough to have fit my cranium had I been obliging enough to stay put.

  He wasn’t finished, though. Apparently tired of the blonde monkey on his back, he spun and slammed Sally into the front of the appliance with a massive crunch.

  Oh no!

  That was more than even she could take. Battered and bloodied, she started to lose her grip on his back.

  He must have sensed this too, because once more, his form shimmered and, this time, his hands resumed their human guise. He reached back, grabbed a handful of her hair, and slammed her over his shoulder into the floor.

  I still wasn’t in very good shape, but I managed to stand up straight, ready to do whatever it took to save her. I stepped forward to engage him, only to receive a contemptuous backhand that sent me crashing into the wall.

  Mark, his eyes now free of fist-shaped debris, completed his transformation back to his human-looking self. He glanced at me, chuckled, and then turned away as if I was no threat. Unfortunately, he was probably right in that regards.

  “Now, little Lucinda, I believe you and I have a long overdue date with destiny.”

  I steadied myself for another charge, hoping maybe this time was the charm, when something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. Holy crap. Whatever damage Mark had inflicted upon the fridge had actually freed it from its mooring. There was no time to lose.

  I had no idea if she was still conscious or not, but I couldn’t afford to wait. I grabbed hold of the heavy structure and pushed with everything I had left. “Sally, move!”

  Amazingly, she rolled to the side as Mark spun around just in time to see several hundred pounds of the finest in Uncle Sam’s reserve of food storage devices topple down on him. He hit the floor, the fridge pinning him from the chest down, but I didn’t have any delusions. That kind of weight might have crushed a human, but when dealing with beings of supernatural strength, such items were often a minor inconvenience at best.

  Of course, even minor inconveniences could be fatal when a person such as myself, happily willing to take cheap shots at a downed foe, was around. Before Mark could topple the stainless steel box off of him, I stepped around and delivered a kick to his head that would’ve punted a Jeep onto its side.

  Fuck me!

  And pretty much broke all my toes in the process. It was worth it, though, as his head whipped to the side, stunned.

  Limping badly, I debated my next move when I saw something being tossed in my direction. I caught it and looked up to see Sally had a similar hunk of metal in hand - having just torn the legs off a nearby table. She looked like hell - splattered in blood, clothes torn to shreds, and with numerous cuts and abrasions covering her. None of that diminished her in the slightest, though. She was still beautiful - perhaps more so than ever - her eyes shining with black fury as she stepped to the opposite side of Mark.

  He blinked a few times, no doubt clearing the cobwebs, then focused on us just as she raised the weapon above her head.

  “Consider this our official breakup, lover. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I faked every single time.”

  The Cleanup Crew

  I felt safe in assuming that would be the last time Mark darkened our doorstep, unless someone happened to wander by with a shitload of industrial-strength epoxy. A part of me felt a bit of regret, though. Despite Sally’s iron exterior, I could tell offing her ex had been more a necessity than something she truly wanted to do. I also doubted the Jahabich as a whole would be so easily dissuaded from coming after Ed, for whatever asshole reasons they had, but for now, I could at least try to be comforting.

  As we limped away from the scene of the battle, I put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, if you want to talk, I just want you to know...”

  In one violent action, she grabbed me by my shirt and shoved me against the wall - hard enough to make me wish I’d waited until I was fully healed before saying anything.

  “Just because we fought off my asshole ex together doesn’t mean we’re friends. I want you to listen a
nd listen well. I am not a nice person. I killed my own sister, ripped her still beating heart out of her fucking chest. I have no problem doing the same thing to you if you piss me off.”

  Whoa. I didn’t know that. Of course, she could have just been acting all tough to try to keep her bitch queen reputation intact. Still, something in her eyes told me I didn’t want to pick that moment to push my luck.

  “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  “Nope.” I held my hands up in surrender. “Heard you loud and clear.” It wasn’t that I was worried about her killing me right then, but she was in prime position to smash her knee into my two best friends in the world.

  “Good, just so there’s no confusion on the subject.” She turned and took a few steps further down the hall.

  “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” It was a stupid question and I knew it. Alex himself had compelled her. If he had said her name was Bonzo the dancing monkey, she’d be doing cartwheels and begging for bananas. Even so, one couldn’t blame a guy for trying.

  “I...” Her eyes faded from focus for a moment, as if she was doing some internal soul searching. “I don’t know. It’s all a jumble. Some memories are clear as day, but with others, it’s just fog. I do know one thing, though.” She pointed a clawed finger at me. “I don’t remember your face in any of them, and something is telling me to stay away from you.”

  “And you would be wise to heed that advice, my darling child.”

  We both turned to see Alex step round a corner. His outfit was smudged and his hair slightly mussed, but he otherwise appeared fresh as a daisy. He was also alone.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, a deer in the headlights. Had I not gotten the piss recently beaten out of me, I was certain it would now be running down my leg.