Evidence suggested the White Mother was more a motherfucker – the creator of the Jahabich, unholy monsters made of stone and the enslaved souls of their vanquished enemies. Yeah, it had probably been a bit of a stressful week for the poor girl.
When she spoke at last, her voice was steady, even if her haunted eyes betrayed her. “Controlling a mindless monster is a dangerous game. Even with my skills at mind manipulation, relentless rage is nearly impossible to contain, much less master. But if Bill is right, and this other personality...”
“Dr. Death,” I added. “At least, that’s what I call him.”
“Yeah, but didn’t James and that little Chinese bitch call you that too?” Sally asked.
“Her name is Gan.”
“Whatever. Bottom line is that’s gonna get confusing.”
“Well,” I said slowly, “since neither of them is here right now, who gives a flying fuck?”
Tom opened his mouth, probably to chuckle, but then closed it again quickly. Sally hadn’t been big on him when she had her memories. Now? Well, who knew how she might react?
“Okay, it sounds like we’re all in,” Ed said, stepping in before someone got decked. “So when do we unleash the beast?”
I winced at his use of words, but replied, “That’s easy. Right before we leave.”
Though it didn’t need to be said, I had a feeling everyone in the room knew it might be for the last time.
Busy Little Bees Buzzing Around
“So when are we going?” Tom asked as if we were discussing running out for coffee.
“I need about three days to get myself ready,” Christy said, putting a timetable to our plans, which up until then had been nebulous. She turned to Sally. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to suspend our sessions until then. I have a feeling I’m going to need all my strength for this.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure everyone here will be more than happy to keep reminding me of random shit that might or might not be true.”
“Hey,” Tom protested. “I was serious when I said we were like this before you got mind zapped.” He held up two fingers intertwined. “BFFs until the end of time.”
“Somehow, I’m having a bit of trouble buying that,” she said.
Tom opened his mouth to print some more invitations to the pummeling party he was organizing for himself, but Sally continued. “I need to check out the scene in Manhattan anyway.”
That one caught my attention. She hadn’t ventured out since we’d arrived. It may have been because she knew we might be forced to leave at any time, but I had a slight suspicion it had also been partially out of fear. Facing the world with big chunks of your life missing struck me as particularly daunting.
“I can come...”
“In your pants? Yeah, I kind of figured that.” Suddenly, her tone softened as she became serious. “Relax, Bill. I may not remember much of you, but I still remember Village Coven, and I remember coming back to pick through the ruins of the Office.”
“Then you have to know there’s nothing left.”
“No vampires, maybe, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything we could use. There’s a lot of buildings we had space in. There’s gotta be something salvageable in all of it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sheila said.
Sally nodded, which I found a bit odd. I didn’t expect her to want to go traipsing through coven properties, including safe houses, with the Icon in tow. It just didn’t seem a very vampiric thing to do – especially with her scrambled memory.
They must have sensed me staring, because Sheila added, “I kept up the rent at my old apartment just in case. Assuming the building hasn’t burnt to the ground, I wouldn’t mind grabbing a few extra changes of clothes. I’m getting tired of stealing whatever your neighbors left behind.”
I was tempted to remark that she looked kinda cute in Mrs. Mahoney’s afghan sweater, but now was not the time. Likewise, there probably wasn’t much I could do to dissuade them. From what I’d heard, Manhattan was a mess – probably already halfway devolved to making The Warriors seem like a Nostradamus prophecy. It certainly wasn’t a place for two attractive women to be wandering alone after dark. Of course, most women didn’t come pre-equipped with extra options like superpowers.
As long as they didn’t run into anything overly nasty, they’d be fine. Besides, I had been considering a field trip of my own. Now that Christy had laid out her timeline, it seemed a good idea to do so before she started mucking with my head.
“I’m going to scout out the Brooklyn safe house,” I said.
“Safe house?” Sheila and Christy both asked.
“Yeah, it’s over in the naval yards. Village Coven jointly owns it with the Howard Beach Coven. It’s neutral ground between us.”
Not too long ago, Sally would have known that was bullshit, but Tom and Ed were both kind enough to scoff in her place.
“Fine, supposedly neutral ground,” I corrected. “Doesn’t always work out that way. Anyway, it’s a place where we can fall back during times of emergency. Being that Village Coven is gone and so is most of the HBC ... hopefully ... I...”
“That’s where you want to do it. That’s where you want Christy to try to coax your powers out, right?” Sheila asked.
I nodded, choosing to ignore the “do it” line. New Bill was cooler than that, mostly. “Yeah. The place is reinforced, there’s room to maneuver if something goes wrong, and unlike my living room, I don’t care if it gets trashed in the process.”
I left out that it also gave me an excuse to leave our apartment building unquestioned, giving me ample time to scout an entirely different location.
* * *
First, though, Christy had a whole ton of stuff she wanted me to set up for her. Space needed to be cleared, symbols drawn on the floor, and incense burned. I didn’t really mind that last part. Abandoned warehouses tended to smell funky at the best of times. Ones that had been the scene of past slaughters were usually even more ripe – all the worse for those of us with superhuman senses.
Unsurprisingly, Tom and Ed both volunteered to come along. Christy, however, nixed Tom’s departure. She wanted him close by to work with her on some enchantments – something about the faith-channeling amulet he owned. It was pretty much a watered-down version of what Sheila could do naturally ... albeit still pretty damned effective against vampires.
I managed to talk Ed down from joining me. Despite being explosively resistant to vampire bites as of late, he was still no match for them in a fight. He offered to bring his shotgun as a precaution, but I declined. We’d need that firepower later, but it seemed an unnecessary risk for now. Besides, as a vampire, I was a lot faster than him. I could traverse the streets quickly and avoid any trouble. Or at least I hoped that would be the case.
* * *
During the day, Brooklyn seemed almost normal – at least, the parts I could see from our windows. Hell, we even got mail sporadically – mostly flyers for home security systems interspersed with bills. Jesus Christ, even in the middle of the apocalypse the fucking phone companies still didn’t stop haunting people. So sorry your husband got eaten by a cave troll, but you still owe us two hundred dollars in data overage charges.
Anyway, my roommates’ brief forays out had confirmed how routine life appeared to be out there. Heck, many of the businesses on 86th street were still open, even if the bars on their windows were now thicker than before.
Once darkness came, though, odd shrieks could be heard in the night ... even odder than the usual New York fare. Sometimes, bizarre arcs of energy flashed in the sky. I hadn’t taken too many strolls since our return – I may have some semblance of superpowers, but I’m not fucking insane – but I had little doubt that dark alleyways, tunnels, and other such nooks held strange alien things mortal man was not meant to behold. Bottom line: if one felt the need to go jogging past sundown, it might have been best to notify one’s next of kin first as a precauti
onary measure.
Of course, it’s possible some of that was just my imagination running wild. I managed to make it to the Brooklyn safe house with no real issues to report. The streets were mostly dark – courtesy of the fluctuating power grid – as well as pretty empty. That was a small blessing – it allowed me to utilize the unnatural speed afforded to me as one of the undead.
Sure, every so often I could have sworn I heard something. Once or twice, I even looked up to the rooftops, certain something was about to descend upon me, but I chalked it up to basic paranoia. Besides, I had only adopted my newfound lease on life in the past twenty-four hours. One doesn’t shake off a lifetime of acting like a victim all in one fell swoop, y’know.
Even so, I was kind of proud of myself. My immediate instinct was to pour every bit of speed into my legs and run from the invisible boogeymen. Instead, I forced myself to maintain pace – continually asking myself what Chuck Norris, Duke Nukem, and Mr. T would do in this situation. Would they run? Well, okay, they – or at least their memes – would probably level the block just to be safe. I decided to opt for a slightly less aggressive stance and just kept on my merry way.
* * *
Pardon the undead pun, but the safe house was quiet as a tomb. Of everything that had freaked me out on the journey over, that was perhaps the most unsettling. Perhaps, I considered, it had to do with the fact that every single time I’d visited this place, something had tried to smash my face in.
The anticipation put me on edge, followed by the certainty that an ambush lurked around every corner – despite my nose telling me otherwise. But no. It was empty. Judging by the distressed state of the rooms I passed, it hadn’t seen much, if any, occupation since the last time I’d visited.
Both James and Calibra – current prefect of the Northeast – had been present that day and it had still almost turned into a total clusterfuck. Four angry and afraid – but mostly angry – members of the HBC had been waiting for us. Following a brief scuffle, Calibra had stayed behind to take stock of their situation. I spared a brief thought, wondering what she’d told them and what had become of them afterwards. Whatever the case, they weren’t here now and hadn’t been in some time. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t return, but it seemed safe enough for the time being.
I unshouldered the supplies I’d brought along and then pulled out a detailed printout of instructions from Christy. Screwing this up wasn’t a particularly smart option, so I’d had her work with Ed to Photoshop everything in as much detail as they could. A fucked-up “Klaatu, Barada, Nikto” was pretty damn funny in a movie, but I had a feeling it would be slightly less amusing in real life.
Before getting to work, I sucked down a blood pack I’d snatched from our rapidly dwindling supply – trying to steel myself for what might need to happen once we ran out. I had to force myself to face that reality despite every fiber of my being trying to distract me with more pleasant thoughts, like Sally and Sheila confessing that it was perfectly cool to share me, followed by a sweaty honey-soaked threesome. I let that play out in my head for several minutes longer than I should have.
Yeah, like I said, distractions were my Kryptonite.
The Mean Streets
To say the safe house wasn’t the tidiest place I’d ever seen was an understatement. For the most part, Village Coven’s other properties had been kept in good order. Hell, the last place Sally had set up before everything went to shit was pretty goddamned swank. However, given two rival covens jointly maintained this building, it meant neither gave much of a shit about it. After all, why clean when a bunch of assholes you don’t like are just gonna pop in and mess it up again?
Alas, it was also the perfect place for Christy to perform whatever skull-fuckery she needed to do with me. I found a room deep within the structure, with thick concrete walls and only one exit, likewise reinforced, that would serve us nicely. Sadly, it was also a fucking mess. Had I been human, it would have taken me half a day just to clear it out, even after bribing my friends with beer to help. For a vampire, though, it was the work of maybe an hour. – helped by the fact that I wasn’t overly concerned about breaking anything.
Another hour found the place prepped and smelling a bit nicer thanks to the burning incense and an economy-sized can of Lysol I’d brought along. I’d breathed in far more than my share of rancid odors in the past. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tolerate it in situations under my control. Needless to say, I’d developed a newfound respect for the concept of lemony fresh.
By the time I finished, the night was still young and I had plenty of time to head to my next stop – one I hadn’t bothered to list on my official itinerary. There was a good chance it was all for naught, but if my friends asked, I could always say it had taken me longer than expected to prep for Christy ... or maybe that I got jumped by rabid hobos along the way.
It was probably dumb to go it alone, but the last time I’d made this trip, it hadn’t worked out so well for everyone else. I didn’t care to tempt fate before we headed north to our near-certain deaths. What I had in mind probably wouldn’t bear fruit anyway. Who was to say Dave was even there?
Regardless, I had to try. He was my friend and, considering I’d set in motion the events that led to his current condition, also my responsibility.
He’d gone missing right around the time I’d ended up in Vegas for what turned out to be a short-lived tenure as Sally’s bitch-boy in Pandora Coven. He hadn’t made contact since, which was worrisome on several fronts. Dave was my friend and I didn’t want to see any harm ... correction, any more harm come to him.
Conversely, he was also an ethically deprived dick when he wanted to be. Hell, I used to joke to my gaming group that if I ever found myself in a hospital under his care, I’d sign a DNR form and then hold my breath until I passed out.
In life, that had translated into him being an angry god of a dungeon master, happily raining spite down upon his players whenever we pissed him off. In death, well, I knew how tempting blood could be for a vamp.
This was something I should have done months ago. As a friend, he deserved better. Instead, I’d been all too content to lick my wounds following Sheila’s rejection of me and too caught up in my own rapidly growing interest in Sally.
Bros before hoes be damned.
The problem was that Dave had been AWOL now for three months. The trail was pretty cold if he’d decided to skip town. That being said, in my former life as a programmer, we always kept this saying in mind: KISS – keep it simple, stupid. Always try the easy shit first because oftentimes therein lay the solution.
In this case, that low hanging fruit was called Newark, New Jersey.
* * *
Going from one place in Brooklyn to another was a relatively simple matter. Getting from Brooklyn to Jersey was a pain in the ass under even good circumstances. These days, public transportation was iffy at best during the day. The subways and buses ran sporadically – sometimes on, sometimes not, and that was before the sun set every night. I’d likewise been told the ferries were down, a few quite literally at the bottom of the Hudson thanks to a series of unfortunate accidents.
I didn’t own a car. Running through the subway tunnels at top speed was an option, but a potentially risky one. Considering what had happened in Vegas and then in the bunkers of NORAD, I’d become a little leery of being underground. It was one thing to try and adopt a new persona of bravery, but there was a thin line between heroic and being a fucking idiot.
Thus, I relied on the one trait of humanity that was simultaneously its failing and savior – greed. Where the public transportation system had failed, intrepid souls had stepped in to fill the void with independent car service. Cabs, both licensed and not, could be found fairly easily – at least in the relatively good neighborhoods.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m normally not a fan of any sort of racial profiling, for humans anyway – most supernatural entities were dicks. However, I won’t lie. For once,
I was glad to be a harmless-looking, nerdy white guy.
* * *
Roughly two hours later, I stepped out of the cab onto one of Newark’s main drags. The streetlights were still lit, which told me this place probably was hanging on pretty well. The ride hadn’t been too bad either – a little slow, and we’d had to take the long way as the bridges from Staten Island to Jersey were closed off. Fortunately, the roads were otherwise mostly clear. The world might be going to shit, but it was still in its early stages. We hadn’t yet reached a point where the highways were littered with cars full of people who’d decided to just pull over and die right there.
Don’t ask how much the whole thing cost. Let’s just say I was glad nobody was stopping by these days to ask for a rent check. Thankfully, I had planned the trip in advance and had left home with a pocket full of bills – albeit probably not enough to get me home again. Oh well. I’d cross that proverbial bridge when I came to it.
My plan of action was simple: try Dave’s apartment and then, if that didn’t pan out, make my way to the hospital where he once worked as a resident. Dave was a smart guy, but a shitty doctor – at least when it came to bedside manner. However, the hospitals were doubtlessly overflowing with patients these days. They were also hopefully home to a generous supply of bagged blood. If so, maybe Dave was still responsible for saving lives and not taking them. It was a long shot, but in these crazy days, hope was the one commodity that was still free.
I hiked several blocks toward my first destination – noting the rapidly deteriorating state of the neighborhood as I went. No wonder my cabbie hadn’t wanted to go any further.
Dave’s apartment complex wasn’t exactly in the upper crust section of the city to begin with, but it had previously been safe enough for a group of guys to gather for a weekly D&D game. Now, though, I could easily envision the rest of the group not so politely bowing out of the game. I passed multiple burnt out buildings. Graffiti proclaiming the end of the world shown on others, and that wasn’t even counting the bizarre scratches gouged into the walls of a few. All of it combined into a sense of being watched. If I hadn’t been an unholy creature of the night myself, I’d have said fuck it and found myself a nice, well-lit place to loiter until the sun came up.
The Wicked Dead (The Tome of Bill Book 7) Page 3