Half A Prayer (The Tome of Bill Book 6)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Okay, that was bullshit. I’d do the same thing regardless. As awesome as the fantasy of being Dr. Doom or Lex Luthor might be, at the end of the day, I’d probably always choose to be the underdog hero fighting to stop them.

  Goddamn, I must be out of my fucking mind.

  I burst out laughing at all the irony, all the idiocy, everything that seemed to drive me forward toward what were no doubt impossible goals.

  “Something funny, Bill?” Sally asked, dropping Tom - whom she’d been holding aloft by the shirt collar, presumably with the intent to clock him.

  Tom coughed for a moment, catching his breath. “Think maybe he’s finally lost his mind?”

  Before either of them could answer, the heavy door to our holding cell opened from the outside. A man standing in the doorway blocked the concrete walls beyond. Scratch that - he wasn’t just a man. Of average height, but strongly built, his mismatched eyes took us all in as he strode forward.

  “The Freewill’s mind has always been far afield, as far as I am concerned, human,” Alexander said. “It is one of the traits about him I most admire.”

  Monologuing for Fun and Profit

  I immediately regretted the lack of bathroom facilities because the smell in this place was gonna get real funky if I ended up pissing myself out of fear - something I was seriously considering. Back during my vacation in Switzerland, Alex had attempted to coax my Dr. Death persona to the surface. That coaxing had resulted in me being beaten and broken with near surgical precision - all while he maintained the coolly detached attitude of someone reading a particularly unengaging book.

  I sincerely doubted most sociopaths could have kept as straight of a face.

  Now, here I was again in a similar situation, except this time I had my friends around to either watch him do so...or for him to torture while I looked on.

  Oh, crap, what if that last part was his plan? Maybe Alex thought he couldn’t break me - which was complete bullshit. I would have confessed to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby with fairly minimal persuasion. The tough-guy routine wasn’t my shtick. I was more of the class clown type.

  There was little chance of me stopping him from hurting my friends, but I realized one thing as he stepped forward...

  I would die trying.

  * * *

  Tom, in a fit of apparent insanity, approached Alex and said, “Dude, bringing in that old guy to piss off my girlfriend was not cool. Do you know how much shit I’m gonna have to listen to...”

  “SLEEP!!” Alex barely whispered the compulsion, but my friend dropped like a bag of rocks.

  I started forward, but Sally put a hand on my arm. Her meaning was crystal clear: Alex could have done a lot worse if he’d wanted to.

  “Much better,” he said. “My apologies, but your friend here seems to have a singular talent for inane chatter. I was even told that two of the sentries tasked with his retrieval had to be physically restrained from killing him - against my direct orders. They, of course, have since been relieved of their duties.”

  I glanced sideways at Sally. I had a sneaking suspicion their relieving was less a reassignment and more of a permanent retirement.

  “Regardless, it is for the best,” Alex continued. “Human ears are not fitting audience for any discourse we might share.”

  “Then why’d you lock him up with us?” I asked.

  A wry smile played across his lips. “I was curious to see if either of you would drain him for nourishment.”

  Well, that was ever so slightly sick as all fuck.

  “Interesting.” He looked down upon my blissfully snoring roommate. “I can see the hunger in your eyes, Freewill, yet you resist without any obvious temptation. You too,” he said, turning to Sally. “Even more so, since I am well aware of the carnage you caused prior to replacing Marlene.”

  I glanced in her direction, but if there was something to what Alex said, she wasn’t in a confessing mood.

  “The meatsack grows on you after a while,” she replied, her voice steady and showing no sign of the terror I felt in my gut. “Besides, I’m kind of afraid to bite him. You never know when stupid will become contagious.”

  He appeared to consider this and his grin widened. “Indeed. A pleasure to make your acquaintance again, my dear.”

  She nodded respectfully.

  Alex reached into his pocket and produced something like a remote control. He pressed a button on it and then put it away again. “Alas, human ears might not be a worthy audience, but I prefer our conversation be a private one from all others as well.”

  “Let me guess. There’s going to be a section of the videotape that’s mysteriously missing?”

  “White noise and static, actually. Regardless, what is said here stays here.”

  He didn’t even need to ask if that was clear or not. His word was law and he knew it. Of course, what we did when he wasn’t around to crush our skulls into paste was a whole different story, but I decided against saying as much.

  “So are you here to gloat?” I asked.

  “Gloat? Quite the contrary. I have come to apologize.”

  * * *

  A part of me wondered if maybe the Jahabich had knocked a screw or two loose in my head during our little underground misadventure. Hadn’t we just been marched in, accused, and utterly humiliated - all at his bequest?

  “Come again?”

  “I wished to apologize for all that has transpired and what is yet to come. It was not my intention to inconvenience you with such pointless spectacle.”

  “You seemed to be having a pretty damned good time doing it, though,” I pointed out, a small part of me realizing that I was mouthing off to the worst person on the planet to do so against.

  “One must play the part one is given. Shakespeare was quite astute when he penned that all the world’s a stage. Alas, when it became public knowledge that the Icon had survived, I had no choice but to take action. Sadly, your involvement in that affair was too well-known to overlook.”

  “Public?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I, of course, surmised her survival almost immediately following the incident in question.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You knew she was alive?”

  “I was not aware of the details, but yes. Between the inconsistencies of the fiction presented to us as fact and being well aware of the Wanderer’s lack of providing the necessary equipment for his strike team, it was quite obvious.”

  “So why didn’t you...” Sally started.

  “But how did you know I had feelings for her?” Whatever her question, it was probably more relevant to our plight, but fuck it. I needed to satisfy my curiosity first.

  “I did not,” he replied with a smile. “That was merely conjecture on my part, a bit of window dressing to make the proceedings appear more dramatic. Imagine my surprise, though.”

  “Once again, good job, Bill,” Sally said, clapping me on the shoulder. “But that still doesn’t answer why you didn’t immediately continue on with the witch hunt.”

  “It is simple. The Icon is inconsequential.”

  “What?” Sally and I both asked in unison.

  “What do you mean ‘inconsequential’? From what I’ve heard, covens up and down the Eastern seaboard were shitting bricks and then using them to seal up their doors.”

  “Quite the interesting imagery you paint there, Freewill.”

  “Yeah, the world lost a great philosopher when we brought Bill into the fold.”

  I shot Sally the stink eye. “Don’t you have some dollars in your g-string you could be counting?”

  “You assume I’m wearing underwear.”

  Wait, what?

  A slight sigh escaped Alex’s lips. “As I was saying, the Shining Ones have been present since the dawn of time. They even fought alongside us in the first great war with the Grendel.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “I imagine every person was one back then, worshi
pping the moon spirits or whatever the fuck.”

  “It does not, nor has it ever worked that way, child. That anyone of strong enough faith can become an Icon is nothing more than myth - used as a way of inspiring soldiers that they, too, could become legendary heroes if they fought hard enough for king and country.”

  “No?”

  “Of course not,” he replied dismissively. “As you said: otherwise, every priest, zealot, or self-proclaimed prophet in history would have become so empowered. It is no different, I suppose, than with Freewills. One is either born with the gift or one is not.”

  “Gift?”

  “Magic, genetics, call it what you will. Had current events not played out, in a couple of decades I suppose science would have advanced to the point where we could have foretold from birth who held such a destiny - and taken appropriate measures.”

  He shook his head as if to say “What ya gonna do?” before continuing on. “But that is of no consequence. My point is that Icons have existed all throughout history, and yet, we are still here. They are to be feared and respected upon the battlefield, but that is all. One lone Icon will no more destroy our way of life than one lone Freewill.”

  “And yet people seem to think otherwise,” I pointed out, pretty certain that Alex wasn’t talking about me.

  He clasped his hands behind his back and chuckled. “I suppose I am partially to blame for that.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s talking about the disappearance of the Freewills,” Sally said.

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “I thought you might eventually figure that out. You are a clever girl. Despite your age, together you both make for a surprisingly formidable team.”

  “Technically, I’m the one who figured it...”

  “So,” Sally interrupted, apparently happy to take credit for my brainstorm, “if I’m reading this correctly, what you’re saying is it’s simply a matter of vampires not being used to them anymore?”

  Alex clapped his hands together. “Precisely. That was an unexpected, albeit not entirely unwelcome, result of culling Freewills from the world. Fewer and fewer Icons were born until such time as centuries passed before the world had seen either. Unfortunately, many of our kind suffer from the same weaknesses as mortals...they talk amongst themselves, spreading rumors. These rumors eventually become myth, and myth becomes legend. Barely an eon goes by before what were once merely considered warriors of note become the so-called destroyers of our race.”

  “Wait, but what about the prophecies?”

  “What of them? Magic exists, and so does the ability to peer through the mists of time. But what of it? One can either sit idly and wait for events to play out, or one can manipulate them so that they come to pass at a time of one’s choosing. Fools drop to their knees in worshipful reverence when lightning flashes in the sky. True visionaries see it for what it is and use it to guide the masses in the direction they so dictate.”

  Sally and I once again shared a glance. Holy crap. The only thing scarier than a nutcase was a nutcase with a dangerously high IQ and the charisma to put it to use.

  With Alex at the helm, the Earth and everyone on it was headed toward a world of hurt.

  Two Ships Passing in the Night

  “So all of it...”

  “Careful planning, a little luck, and the ability to improvise,” Alex proclaimed proudly. “I was originally unsure how you would play your part. Unlike how our official history reads, there have been others of your kind over the past few centuries.”

  “Others? But where...” I paused as realization set in. “You killed them.”

  “And all witnesses to their power.”

  My mind reeled. Alex had basically told us nearly everything I’d had shoved down my throat over the past year was bullshit. Don’t get me wrong - I never quite fully embraced these so-called prophecies, but enough weird crap had gone down that I’d begun to wonder. Now, though, it seemed a puppet master had been behind the scenes, manipulating the marionettes since the very start.

  “But why me?”

  “Do not get me wrong. In all likelihood you would have shared the same fate as the others.” Alex began to pace as he spoke. “Sadly, news of your birth was slow to reach my ears. By the time it did, many were already talking about you as the harbinger of our destiny. A sign of the times and the technology at our disposal, I suppose.”

  I felt something brush against the back of my hand. Sally was attempting to tell me something, but I wasn’t sure what. I was still trying to make sense of Alex’s revelation. It made no sense. James had been present the night of my death and subsequent rebirth. He’d even proclaimed me a Freewill then and there - right after I’d gotten my ass handed to me by Night Razor.

  He’d been the Boston Prefect back in those days. It had been his job to...

  Wait. Was it possible? James, Mr. Rulebook himself who seemed to eat, breathe, and drink protocol - and espressos; let’s not forget those. Was that what Sally was trying to tell me? Assuming, that is, she wasn’t letting me know she wanted to hold hands. That would have been cool too.

  “I still might have had you slain,” Alex continued, discussing my death as casually as if an annoying gnat had gotten into his house, “but then François’s silly little gambit came into play - his petty revenge against the Khan. It was then I decided that perhaps the time had come to move forward with my goals. The rest is history...or soon shall be.”

  “Except for the parts that I fucked up,” I countered. It wasn’t much, but I was starting to feel mighty pissed. What was I, some fucking pawn in a chess match? Hell, I didn’t even like chess. I couldn’t physically hurt him, but maybe he needed a reminder I was still a potential fly in his ointment.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Like how I messed up your plans with Druaga. You talk of petty revenge, but you can’t tell me some of this shit here isn’t the same thing.”

  I half expected to find myself buried in the wall at that remark, getting a nice up close and personal demonstration of how thick the concrete of this place was.

  Instead, Alex once more smiled. “What exactly did you mess up, as you so put it? Did you not see Lord Druaga amongst our guests out there? Our alliance has been sealed in blood. Even as we speak, his forces are engaging the enemy upon the field of battle.”

  “How? I thought...”

  “You played your part perfectly, Freewill, as I assumed you would. Simply absorbing my strength would not have sufficiently impressed him. The bold move of attacking us both in your bid to escape ensured our alliance right then. The sheer audacity on display told Druaga all he needed to know - that our great nation was stalwart enough to march forward against any foe.”

  “Way to go...”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, way to fucking go, Bill,” I snapped, redirecting my anger at Sally. The bitch didn’t have to rub it in.

  Oh, crap! If that whole thing had been by design...did that mean he knew about Theodora and Yehoshua? Worst of all, had he also planned that I would... “So Vehron, too?”

  At that, a momentary pained expression crossed Alex’s face. It was only there for a second, but it said a lot. For all his brilliance, he couldn’t control everything. There was still chance to contend with, still - dare I say it - free will.

  “I will admit that was unexpected,” he confirmed. “An anomaly I hadn’t counted on.”

  “Then why did you stop us?” Sally asked. “We went after that guy once. You had to know...”

  “Of course.” He waved his hand dismissively. “One does not need the counsel of the elder seers to have foreseen that.” Once more, his voice assumed its normal arrogant undertone. “As I have already said, I did not achieve my position without learning the value of improvisation. The truth is, Vehron, though appearing as an agent of a long-dead foe, is in actuality doing my bidding.”

  * * *

  “What?!” Talk about your fucking bombshells.

  “
Not purposely, of course, but despite his military prowess, the lout was always a bit one-dimensional in his thinking.”

  “Not following.”

  “Vehron has proven useful. The forests of the Northeastern United States are a Grendel stronghold, but a containable one. However, if they are allowed to press north, they could potentially catch our Canadian offensive in a phalanx.”

  “What a shame that would be.”

  “Mind your elders, child,” Alex reprimanded. “François may be a shortsighted imbecile, but he is one that shall be disposed of at a time of my choosing, not our enemy’s.”

  “When we tracked him up to Boston,” Sally said, dragging us back on topic, “we came across a group of Feet. There were a few survivors, but the majority had been slaughtered.”

  “Exactly,” he confirmed. “And that was only those who got in his way. He is a brutally efficient warrior. In his attempt to fortify his stronghold, he and those foolish enough to follow his banner have undertaken a scorched-earth policy - cleansing a rapidly expanding radius of all supernatural entities unfriendly to their cause.”

  “And how is that good for us?”

  “It was a simple matter to inform our troops and allies to stay clear and let him conduct his work.”

  I had to admit it was a good idea in the short term - introducing a hostile new species into an area to clean out the pests. But the problem with such strategies was in the long haul when they didn’t play nice and die out when they were supposed to.

  “Worry not, Freewill,” Alex said as if reading my mind. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, but only until such time as they outlive their usefulness. The Cult of Ib was crushed eons ago. Vehron is a fanatic to their cause; powerful and a ruthless battlefield commander, but he is a man out of his time, embracing long-dead ideals. He is a weapon of war, but lacks the finesse to lead as ruler. The ancient magicks once used by their priesthood are lost to all save our archives, and I have taken the liberty of having those sealed.”