Sunset Strip: from the Tome of Bill Series

by Rick Gualtieri

  What the fuck? Did he think I’d gone stupid in the past hour?

  “See?” Kara asked, trying to weasel out of my grasp. “Let me go and they’ll...”

  “You really are your brother’s sister, aren’t you?”

  “We can do this all day!” Christy called out from opposite me. She’d regained her composure, but was apparently all set to lose it again. She raised her arms and started chanting softly. What the hell? It was doubtful she had enough juice in her to send a ball of fiery death at our pursuers. The truth of the matter was some part of me still wasn’t sure I wanted her to - a thought I was probably smart not to vocalize.

  Christy finished what she was doing and slumped down again, breathing hard. I waited for something to blow up, but nothing happened. After a moment, she got back to her feet, using the wall to steady herself. “Let’s go,” she called out quietly.

  I was about to question whether she’d just lost her mind, when I heard a voice call out from nowhere, “Step on out so I can knock someone else’s head off!” It sounded nearly identical to my own. What the hell?

  Christy smiled in the light of her magic glowball, then stepped away from the wall...or at least one of her did. I saw two Christies. One was crouched with her head peeking out toward the entrance. The other, standing there, waved me on.

  “Let’s go,” the second one said. “It won’t last long.”

  Dragging Kara with me, I stepped toward her, half expecting a hail of gunfire to follow our movement. When nothing happened, I looked back, only half surprised to see that another me had appeared in the same spot I’d been - some kind of illusion no doubt.

  I let out a small laugh. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

  In response, Kara screamed Mark’s name at the top of her lungs.

  I turned, balling a fist, but Christy said, “It’s okay. That glamour will block sound from this side. But we need to move. I don’t think they’ll be fooled for long.”

  I nodded, but then remembered where we were. Magic or not, drawing attention to ourselves probably wasn’t a good idea. Pulling Kara close, I got right in her face and bared my fangs. “Here’s the deal. You know witches are real, and now you know vampires are, too. Want to know another secret? I’m pretty sure we’re not the worst things down here. Keep your fucking mouth shut unless you want to meet whatever is.”

  Thankfully, the water hadn’t reached our section of the tunnels yet. Marlene apparently had the good sense to build in some serious drainage runoffs in this area. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good feeling for what lay ahead. Even back during my tenure in this city, flash floods were known to carry away anyone unlucky enough to get caught in them. We needed to get far enough away to surface safely, but not so far that the floodwaters or the creatures who now ruled the underground could find us.

  “What are we up against?” Christy asked.

  “Not sure,” I replied, “but Marlene was afraid of them. It’s a safe bet that’s not good news for us.”

  Chapter 30

  I knew the sewers of New York pretty well. Sadly, my knowledge of the Vegas tunnels was both incomplete and rusty. Thus, I made a best guess, trying to use my nose to pinpoint any wafts of fresh air that hit us - a losing proposition if ever there was one. The smell of those creatures, whatever they were, seemed to get stronger with every twist and turn.

  I tried to keep us pointed toward the heart of the city. Coming out on the fringe of the desert wouldn’t be great. Mark and his buddies could potentially mow us down out in the open if they caught us there. Bullets weren’t typically lethal to vampires, but if one were to get lucky and blow a hole in the wrong place, it could be bad. And they were definitely on our tail.

  Christy’s illusion had bought a five, maybe ten-minute lead. Eventually, though, shots echoed through the tunnels, followed by voices shouting. Every few minutes afterward we’d hear some sound indicating they were still coming - although it soon became difficult to tell, even with my enhanced senses, just how close or far they were.

  For our part, we kept as quiet as we could, speaking only in whispers - with the occasional threat to Kara when she looked like she was about to open her yap and scream. Christy kept her ball of light going, but had shrunk it so that it was just enough to illuminate the path. Sadly, judging by the strain on her face, it wasn’t just to thwart our pursuers. She was nearly out of gas.

  I took stock of our little band as we marched through the damp tunnel. We were going to be quite the scene once we surfaced. One of us was practically naked, and I looked like I’d just escaped from a slaughterhouse.

  Another shot echoed through the sewers somewhere behind us, causing even me to jump. We doubled our pace and kept going, turning down another side tunnel to try to evade them.

  “Why are they shooting at us?” Kara whined.

  “They’re not.”

  “Do you think they met up with those things you mentioned?” Christy asked.

  “No, there’d be a lot more gunfire if that were the case.”

  “Then what?

  “No idea, but if I had to guess, I’d say they're trying to drive us forward, keep us from doubling back. The longer we’re down here during this storm, the better chance we have of running into whatever it is we don’t want to meet.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We continued on in silence for a while, stopping only for Christy to catch her breath. Though her pregnancy wasn't that far along, our forced march through the sewers was definitely taking a toll on her.

  “What’s that?” Christy asked.

  There was a slight rise ahead, and it appeared something blocked the way. Moving closer, I could see it was a filthy curtain strung up between the sides of the tunnel. I described it to my companions.

  “People?” Hope crept its way into Christy’s voice. “Think they’ll know a way out?”

  “I have a feeling they don’t know anything right now,” I muttered, stepping forward. I approached the curtain and pulled it aside. A humble living space lay before us. It was small, damp, and dingy, but livable nevertheless. Plastic bins stood off to one side full of old clothes. There was a desk with two small chairs. A ramshackle bunk bed was on one side. Various broken toys lay about, suggesting a family had called this place home...once. The scent of dried blood lingered.

  I’d been lucky, despite being young and stupid when I first came here. My former apartment had been little more than a drafty closet. Even so, I’d managed to keep my head above water. I had a job, a roof over my head, and a boyfriend who adored me. It wasn’t much, but there’d been a sense of satisfaction to it all. If I’d stopped to realize how much I truly had to lose, perhaps things would have ended differently. I might have turned down the offer to work at Pandora’s Box and continued to enjoy my simple life.

  No! That was too easy to imagine. Colin had marked me from a young age. Sooner or later, I’d have wound up in my current situation.

  “Sally?” Christy asked from behind me.

  “Huh?”

  “Are you okay? You kind of zoned out there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “These people aren’t coming back, are they?”

  “They never stood a chance,” I replied, only partially referring to their ultimate fate.

  “Come on. Let’s go. If whatever took them is...”

  “MARK!”

  Oh shit! We both turned and watched as Kara, the stupid little fuck, ran off down the tunnel screaming the name of someone she wrongly thought was trying to rescue her.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “You must really love Tom to go through all this shit for that little bitch.”

  “Well, yeah,” Christy replied, panting as she tried to keep up.

  “No misgivings about sitting around the holidays with that girl for the rest of your life?”

  “I’m used to people with attitude.”

  “Touché.”

  Considering she was running in the dark through a wet tunnel and wearing nothing but her unde
rwear, Kara led us on a merry little chase - albeit it didn’t help that Christy wasn’t quite up for a long-distance sprint. I could’ve gone on ahead and caught up to the little twat, but I found myself reluctant to leave my traveling companion. Something about the abandoned toys back in that makeshift dwelling had unnerved me.

  Goddamn, I must really be going soft. If this kept up, I’d be crocheting baby blankets by the end of the week.

  Well, okay, my feelings weren’t entirely because of Christy growing on me or because I didn’t care to see her eviscerated in her current condition. The truth was that if Marlene had been afraid of whatever was down here, then that was worrisome. Vampires didn’t freak out easily...at least those that weren’t complete dumbasses.

  Sure, plenty of vamps were afraid of Bill, but they fell into that latter category. Hell, I’d barely blinked when facing down a monstrous Sasquatch up in Northern Canada. Yet down here in strange tunnels with a supernatural storm brewing overhead, I found myself shaken. Hah, some big bad monster I’d turned out to be.

  “What’s the plan now?” she asked.

  “We find her and get the fuck out of here.”

  “Once again...”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You could have thought of that.”

  “What about Mark?”

  “Fuck him. He’s not worth it.”

  “It would be better if we killed him, you know.”

  “I know.

  “For what he did to Kara.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And what he did to you.”

  “Oh,” I mused, “what did he do to me?”

  “Come on, Sally,” she huffed. “I’m not stupid. Are you telling me it’s coincidence that he came all the way out east for Kara alone? That it was just dumb chance that she also happened to be connected to you in a six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon way?”

  “It’s possible.” I forged ahead, feeling her silent stare dig in between my shoulder blades. “Well, maybe not probable.”

  “I thought so...whoa!” She slipped on the wet concrete. My reflexes immediately took over and I spun to steady her. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” I turned a corner, following Kara’s scent. “Crap!”

  Here, the water level was rising fast. Whereas the most we’d had to deal with up to then had been a few puddles, it looked like we’d be wading the rest of the way.

  “Are you sure she went this way?”

  “I can smell her cheap perfume.”

  “Mark and the others?”

  “Hard to tell.”

  “Do you still care about him?”

  The question caught me off guard, and for just a moment I hesitated. I was tempted to throw back some lie or bit of snark, but down here in the darkness with the open sky seemingly miles away, my sense of sarcasm waned. “He was a good man once.”

  “He’s not anymore. You know that, right?”

  “I know.”

  “But still...”

  Yeah, that was the kicker. He was a cold-blooded killer bent on a revenge that was utterly pointless for no other reason than empty satisfaction. But had I been all that different? I’d killed countless people, most of them with a smile on my face. I’d hardened my heart and let it shrivel up into an icy ball of coal. Even now, I found myself with few qualms about erasing those who got in my way.

  And yet...

  Little by little, that humanity inside of me, the one that James had told me to search for - which I hadn’t believed was still alive - started to open its eyes and take a look around. What it saw wasn’t pretty, but it seemed it didn’t quite want to go back to the grave from which it had crawled. Couldn’t the same be true of Mark? Maybe he just needed a push, a reminder that there was still some good in him.

  Maybe...

  An angry hiss sounded at us from out of nowhere, snapping me back to the present, and ending my tortured internal debate. I wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or relieved.

  Either way, whatever it was that Marlene had been afraid of, we were about to meet it.

  Chapter 31

  It was as if a section of the wall began to move. One moment it was solid rock, and the next it was a writhing mass of darkness. It disengaged from its spot and dropped into the knee-deep water where it rose up and took shape.

  It was humanoid, but only in the vaguest of sense. About my height, but twice as wide, it stood on squat legs upon which rested a thick, nearly cylindrical body. Arms extended from it that ended in clubs made of the same stony material that comprised the rest of it. A misshapen head topped it off. Glowing orange eyes stared hollowly at me, but it was the mouth that drew my full attention. It grinned with wicked, obsidian teeth - the same smile I’d seen in the casino the day before. Obviously these things were shape shifters of a sort, able to blend in - mostly - with humans. Also obvious was that down here, the thing didn’t feel the need to play dress up.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” I said, backing up.

  To my surprise, a gravelly voice replied, “We do.” Not exactly a promising answer.

  “Be thou fae or demon,” Christy said from my side, “know that I am a Magi, neutral in your war. This vampire is here with me under protection of truce. Let us pass and there shall be no transgression.”

  I looked sideways at her. It was hokey, but still better than anything I had. Hell, if it worked, I wasn’t above letting a little diplomacy save my ass.

  “Truce? War?” it gurgled as it advanced a step. “We know not of such. Slept we have in the deep for age beyond count. Now we awaken. Something calls to us.”

  “Something called to you? What? By the provisions set forth in the Humbaba Accord, I demand you identify your allegiance.”

  “All that’s in there?” I asked, referencing the ancient treaty, now broken, that once kept the darker forces of the world from tearing each other apart.

  “Of course. Didn’t you read it?”

  “I was waiting for the movie.”

  Fortunately, our mineral-encrusted friend saved me from further embarrassment. “Accord? Allegiance? We serve only ourselves. We take what we wish. We wish for this city.”

  “Good luck,” I said as it shambled forward. “The tourism board is gonna probably have a few words to say about...”

  One of the club-like appendages shot forward, cutting my pithy reply short. It wasn’t wholly unexpected, but still faster than I'd have thought a pile of granite could move. I brought up an arm to block and lost a hunk of skin as its arm grazed mine. Fuck! It was like fighting something covered in broken glass.

  It swung the other club, but this time I saw it coming. I ducked and sidestepped.

  Christy backed up and raised her arms in a familiar gesture. She meant to blast this thing to hell. I just hoped she had enough juice left to get the job done - and quickly, too. With me out of its immediate way, the creature went after her, not being overly discerning about which of us it killed first.

  Once upon a time, I’d have saved my own ass and let her keep the thing busy with her death throes. A part of me almost wished I was still like that. Fuck that whole growing as a person thing.

  I balled my fist and drove it into the creature’s back, mentally promising myself to give Bill two ass-kickings if he ever showed his face around me again.

  I got lucky, if one considered a possible broken hand lucky. The creature’s midsection was ever so slightly more pliable than its arms had been. Even so, it was like punching a brick wall. Luckily for me, vamps tend to be strong enough to do things like that.

  The creature let out a grunt and spun its head one hundred and eighty degrees to face me - neat trick. Its wicked teeth, far larger than my fangs, were inches from my face. One good chomp and I’d receive the mother of all facelifts.

  I didn't want to wait and see what other feats of contortion this abomination had up its sleeve. I wrapped my arms around its torso and craned my head back as far as possible to avoid the worst French kiss in the history of smooching.

>   I lifted...ugh! I’m no lightweight, despite my size. I can rip the door right off a Cadillac, yet this thing barely budged on my first attempt.

  “Get out of the way!” Christy shouted.

  “In a second,” I grunted, giving another heave. The beast finally left the floor, just as I reached the limits of my strength. I fell back, throwing it over my head. I landed in the water and submerged, but even so, still felt the impact its body made as it landed behind me.

  I tried to sit up, but a foot planted me back down in the unsanitary stew. What the fuck?

  A moment later, the water heated up, nearly painfully so. I was about to become a scalded lobster when the foot stepped off and a hand pulled me up. I grabbed hold, but we stumbled and I plopped down again. Blinking the muck out of my eyes, I found Christy sitting in front of me, breathing hard. “I was hoping for a hot bath tonight, but not quite what I had in mind.”

  “What the hell was that?” I asked, splashing some slime her way.

  “Sorry,” she gasped. “Didn’t want to hit you by accident.”

  Oh yeah. I stood up and saw the water around us turn brownish from all the blood that had washed off me. It wasn’t really an improvement. I’d take sticky over slimy any day of the week.

  The creature lay face down, smoking. Its body was mostly intact, and it shuddered once. I backed up a step, but that was all the movement it made. It appeared the heat had fused it together.

  “Didn’t want to waste time trying to find a soft spot,” Christy said from behind me.

  I turned and offered her a helping hand. “Good call.”

  “Thanks. Let’s hope we don’t meet any more. I don’t think I have another shot like that in me.”

  “I didn’t think you had that one.”

  “Almost didn’t.”

  “Horseshoes and hand grenades.” I was glad that we didn’t have to find out what would have happened had she not.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The water was now up to our waists and a current had begun to push at us. The storm must have been dumping a lot of rain above. It wouldn't be long before a raging torrent of fast-moving water would flood the tunnels. If we didn’t find Kara and get out before then, she was done for. Back during my days here, there were stories every year of bodies found in the drainage tunnels after the rains came.