Holier Than Thou (The Tome of Bill Book 4)

by Rick Gualtieri

  I turned back toward the street. “Hey! Someone call for help!”

  My cry went unanswered, as people continued to walk by, not even glancing in my direction or at the towering inferno behind me. New Yorkers are supposed to be jaded, but seriously? Goddamn, these people were cold-hearted bastards.

  I was stuck somewhere between utter terror and outright confusion when a groan came from behind me, triggering my sensitive vampire ears.

  It was coming from where the entrance had once been. It wasn’t hard to figure out the source, as a moment later I heard the scrape of rubble as something pushed up from beneath the fallen masonry. Sally!

  I rushed over and began digging. A moment later, a hand appeared from the debris. I grabbed hold of it and pulled, hoping it wasn’t a human. If so, I’d be lucky to not rip their arm right off. Even relatively young vampires possessed strength that would make most NFL linebackers jealous. Despite the fact that most elder vamps were complete assholes, I wished one of them was there now, so I might borrow their power. That’s one of my Freewill abilities. If I put the bite down on another vampire, not only do I remain upchuck free, unlike most vamps, but I also temporarily add their power to my own. It can be quite a charge, especially if the bitten vampire is considerably older than me.

  “Pull harder, asshole.”

  Gotta love Sally. Do her a solid and she’s eternally grateful ... sorta.

  With one last heave, the rubble gave way and she came free. She stood up, coughing, singed, and covered in dust. Her dress was in tatters, giving me a moment’s pause while I noted the color of her undergarments (pink, in case you’re interested). She otherwise appeared to be okay for someone who just had a chunk of building collapse on top of her.

  I took one last look at Sally, committing the image to memory for later introspection, and then dragged her back toward the street.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she snapped. “This dress cost me seven hundred bucks.” Nice to see she had her priorities straight.

  I ignored her comment. “Wait here and call 911. I’m going back to see if anyone else made it.”

  Before I could even grasp where my newfound sense of bravado came from, though, I stopped dead in my tracks. The building that stood before me was whole and untouched again.

  What the fuck?

  Hocus Pocus

  “Please tell me you’re seeing this and I haven’t gone completely batshit insane.”

  “I can’t vouch for that, but if you are, I’m apparently coming along for the ride.”

  “It’s fine ... again.”

  “Again?”

  “I’ll explain later. I want to try something. Tell me what you see.”

  “I see you standing there wearing a dorky...”

  “Not yet! Give me til the count of five.”

  Readying myself, I walked back toward the Loft. One step ... no change. Two steps ... nada. Three steps ... whoa! I was back on the set of a disaster flick. Smoke choked my lungs and made my eyes water. The green flames had died down, but the place was still hotter than Hell.

  “What do you see, Sally?”

  She stood where I had left her, looking both confused and annoyed.

  “Sally?”

  A passerby noticed her ruined clothes and mouthed something too low for me to overhear. Her eyes flashed black and she turned toward him. Oh crap.

  “Sally, stop!” I shouted, but she ignored me.

  I stepped back toward her. “Down girl!” My voice echoed out louder as the heat disappeared and my lungs cleared. Goddamn it was weird.

  That she heard. She turned to face me again, forgetting whatever she had planned for the dude who snarked her.

  “Glad to see you’re paying attention to me again.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I asked you to tell me what you saw.”

  “No you didn’t,” she replied. “You just walked up to the building and stood there while some asshole with a death wish...”

  “Wait,” I said as her words sunk in. “Just watch and tell me if you see anything strange.”

  I stepped backwards until the blistering heat surrounded me. I grabbed my crotch and pumped it twice at her – all while giving her the finger. She stood there nonplussed as she watched. That was definitely not normal, but it confirmed ... well, I’m not sure what it confirmed other than something really weird was going on.

  Sally’s brow furrowed and her mouth moved, but there were no sounds save from the destruction behind me. I stepped forward again – passing once more through the unseen line in the sand – and at once the sounds of the city were plainly audible again, including her voice.

  “...and now they’re trashed again.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your clothes ... they were fine a moment ago and now they’re ruined.”

  “That’s all you saw?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. We need to know which one is real.”

  “Which what?”

  “Reality.” I probably sounded like an extra from Doctor Who. “This?” I grabbed Sally by the hand and dragged her to the point where the smoke again stung my eyes. “Or this?”

  “I see what you mean.” She raised her head and sniffed the air.

  “Maybe we’re in another dimension,” I pondered aloud. “Or maybe this is some twisted future we’ve been thrust into.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why? Obviously something...”

  “It’s an illusion,” she stated flatly.

  A sinking feeling hit my gut. I remembered the gnome illusionist, Festus the Astounding, I had once played at my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. “Magic?”

  She nodded. “I can smell it ... a little trick I picked up from your girlfriend.”

  “Sheila?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, the other one.”

  It took me a moment, but then I realized she was talking about Gan. I groaned. When the little psycho was last in the city, her senses had proven acute enough to sniff out the machinations of Harry Decker and Christy. Sure, she had at least two-hundred and fifty years of experience on either of us, but that didn’t mean Sally wasn’t a fast learner.

  “So is this really happening?”

  “Yep. It’s real.” She put hands on her hips and surveyed the damage, her tone surprisingly calm. “The Loft is gone. It’s just that the rest of the world can’t see, smell, or hear it.”

  “But...”

  “Isn’t it obvious? They weren’t looking to burn down the whole city.”

  “Let me guess ... just me.”

  “If I were a betting woman...”

  “Which you are.”

  “Exactly. And instead of getting you, they got the rest of the coven. Guess I should thank you for making us late.”

  Oh shit! The whole thing had been such a mind-fuck that I had forgotten the coven was inside when the building blew. “We have to...”

  “No we don’t,” she said coldly, turning to face me.

  “But...”

  “But nothing. If there are any survivors, they’ll have to fend for themselves. Going in there would be both suicidal and stupid. I’m neither.”

  Damn, she was a reptilian bitch. “Well then I’m...”

  “No you’re not.” She stepped in front of me. “You’re getting the fuck out of here with me before they decide to nuke this place again just to be safe.”

  “We don’t even...” but I stopped protesting. I may not always be quick on the uptake, but my gaming days had taught me a thing or two about magic (sorta). Whatever was creating this barrier, keeping the destruction penned in, probably wasn’t very far away. We could be surrounded by witches. If Decker was controlling them – and as leader of the only group of mages I was aware of, that was a fair bet – they’d probably be more than happy to finish the job once they realized I wasn’t a smoking pile of dirt.

  Goddamn it! I felt my frustration boil ove
r and I kicked at a mound of rubble, sending debris flying. Sally waited silently, letting me get it out of my system.

  At last I calmed down, realizing that I wasn’t the only one affected by this. “Do you think anyone made it?”

  “I guess we’ll find out. Now move it. I don’t want to get blasted by virtue of my association with you.”

  “Yeah, because you’re so beloved otherwise,” I shot back without any real venom. “So what’s the plan?”

  “We get underground fast.”

  “The emergency entrance?”

  She nodded and took off running toward the alleyway, where a conveniently placed dumpster marked the manhole that would lead us downward.

  Rallying the Troops

  I thought Sally would lead us back to her new safe house, being that it was supposedly safe and all, but I was wrong. Instead, her plan was to stay below ground until daybreak and then head to the Office, the hub of our coven business activities, which also conveniently possessed a sewer-based entrance.

  “But the Office isn’t a secret to anyone,” I protested, facing her in the pungent tunnels. I’ll admit part of my annoyance stemmed from not being overly joyed at spending the rest of the night wading through knee-deep shit water.

  “That’s the point. If any of the coven survived, that’s where they’ll go. We can get a headcount there. The building will also be packed with humans by then.”

  “You’re assuming they won’t blow up a group of people to get to us.”

  “A big assumption, I know. That sure wouldn’t stop me.”

  Big surprise there. Still, if our attackers were the mages, that might be a different story. During our past encounters, they had gone out of their way to avoid hurting normal humans including...

  “Oh shit!”

  “Well it is a sewer.” She crouched, entering a section of the tunnel where the ceiling was lower.

  “Not that.”

  “Then what are you blathering about?”

  “Tom and Ed.”

  “What about them?” She lifted a hand and casually flicked at something nasty that had fallen on her bare shoulder. I doubted she held Tom in much higher regard.

  “Christy’s coven ... they know where we live.”

  “Not much we can do at the moment.” She shrugged. “Cell service down here sucks, go figure. You’d better just hope that witch isn’t tired of fucking your idiot friend.”

  She had a point. I could try to get home, but that might be painting a big target on my apartment. Hell, my renter’s insurance was high enough as it was. Even so, my roommates had been a part of my adventures since I had first been turned. If things started to get weird ... well, okay, weirder ... they’d hopefully spot it and get the fuck out of Dodge.

  Sally was probably right. The Office might very well be our best bet. Decker’s witches might be able to take down an entire building, shielding the effects from those around it, but selectively disintegrating the couple of floors we rented might be a tad harder to disguise. If they wanted a showdown there, they’d need to do it personally. The odds would be more evenly balanced, especially since Sally kept a loaded gun in her corner suite – a Desert Eagle, a fifty-caliber welcome mat for uninvited guests.

  “All right, the Office it is.”

  “Once we get there, I’ll tell Starlight to get on the horn with Boston – see what James makes of all this.”

  “Sounds like a ... wait a second. How do you know she survived?”

  Sally stopped walking and pretended she found a section of the tunnel wall particularly interesting.

  “Don’t tell me you made her work late.”

  “What? It’s not like the coven paperwork is going to file itself. Besides, I probably saved her life. She should thank me.”

  Starlight was a former model turned vampire. She was both strikingly beautiful and a true sweetheart – a mother hen amongst the wolf pack. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t the sharpest tool in our shed, something Sally gleefully took advantage of. Since assuming her place as my silent partner, she had continually conscripted Starlight to act as her personal secretary. It would have been fine except, in typical Sally fashion, it was a flagrant abuse of her station. She often acted as if she was the goddamned empress of New York. Leona Helmsley had nothing on her.

  Still, I couldn’t be too mad. Starlight was one of the few members of the coven, outside of present company, that I didn’t want to see meet a bad end.

  I considered for a moment whether Sally’s flaunting of her position might actually be on purpose in case of contingencies like this – after all, she had proven herself to be surprisingly insightful with regards to the perils of our lifestyle. However, I quickly kicked that thought to the curb. If Sally had some foresight that an attack was coming, why hadn’t she shared that information? No, more than likely she had been enjoying her role as queen bitch and gotten lucky.

  “What should we do once we get there? Assuming, of course, there isn’t a firing squad full of pissed-off sorcerers waiting for us.”

  She turned around, catching my eyes wandering. I couldn’t help it. Her thong had been peeking through one of the many tears in her no-longer pristine evening wear. “Well, getting changed into something less drafty is pretty high on my list.”

  “Aside from that.” I backed up a step, not wanting to get slugged.

  Sally shrugged then continued walking in the oppressive darkness of the sewer tunnel. “Your guess is as good as mine. It’s my first time being directly part of a coven massacre.”

  “Directly?”

  “Well, I do get around, you know.”

  “Okay.” It was better not to ask, but I did anyway. “So what happened in those indirect cases?”

  “Let’s just say that things are so much easier when there aren’t any survivors.”

  “That’s really not helpful.”

  “Sorry. Attacks by outside forces are rare in recent times ... although I’m thinking they’re going to get more common. Most vampire prunings are internal matters, usually First Coven related. When they send a message, it tends to be a permanent one.”

  “What about when the Khan’s coven got wiped out a few months back? Weren’t there some stragglers?” It pained me to even think of it. The Khan was Ogedai Khan, one of the Draculas and also Gan’s adopted father. He and his forces had been destroyed by the Alma. At the time, his top assassins had been out of country – trying to execute yours truly. As a result, through some twisted logic, the whole thing had been blamed on me.

  Sally nodded. “The survivors got absorbed into the surrounding covens, but it was a little different since they were all underneath his rule. I’m hoping that’s not the case here because the nearest coven is our friends over in the HBC.”

  Ugh, not a happy thought. HBC stood for Howard Beach Coven, based out of Queens. Whereas Village Coven was – or had been – primarily a vampire frat house, the HBC was a little more hardcore. That wasn’t really the issue. Heck, neither group was really my crowd. What mattered was that they sort of had a grudge against me. Though they were under new leadership these days (thanks to me ... well okay, thanks to Sally), they weren’t exactly itching to kiss and make up yet.

  “Fuck that shit,” I said.

  “We’re in agreement there. I guess we could always go on a massive recruitment drive.”

  I gave her a sideways glance.

  “You’re going to have to get over that shit, Bill.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” I replied, stepping over a nasty pile of something.

  She ignored my attempt at levity, continuing as if I hadn’t spoken. “We can’t have a coven with only three vampires and you know it, especially with a bunch of magical morons hunting us down.”

  “So not only do you want to kill people and bring them back as vampires, you want to immediately line them up as cannon fodder, too?”

  “Well, if anything happens, at least we wouldn’t have time to get overly attached to them.”
/>   “That’s fucking evil.”

  “No, that’s realistic.”

  “What about calling Boston and asking their advice?”

  “I don’t think we have much choice there,” she said. “The only question is what we’re going to tell them.”

  That was a good question. I just wished I had a good answer.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We waited until the start of rush hour to ascend from the sewers, figuring there’d be enough humans present to keep us from being blasted into oblivion. Unfortunately, it also meant we ran into a few people on the way up. We got a few odd glances from our somewhat singed look and slight sewer-scented odor. So much for keeping a low profile.

  “Is Starlight even going to be in?” I asked as we reached our floor. “This is typically bedtime.”

  “Well, there was a lot of paperwork,” she replied with a smirk.

  “Slave driver.”

  “Flatterer.”

  I needn’t have worried, though. We had no more than stepped through the door when Starlight came running out to meet us. She wore a conservative business suit and had her long black hair tied back in a bun. Holy shit, Sally even had her dressing the part.

  “Bill, Sally, thank goodness! Did you hear what happened?”

  “Don’t know, probably don’t care.” Sally pushed past her and headed for the back.

  I locked the door behind us. “We have some bad news.”

  “I know,” Starlight replied. “The Loft is gone.”

  Sally stopped in her tracks and turned. “How’d you know?”

  “It was on the radio.”

  Sally and I exchanged confused glances.

  “What did they say?”

  “It was weird. When the sun came up, the place was just burned out. None of the neighbors saw or heard anything.”

  “I guess they dropped their illusion once the fire was out,” I said to Sally.