She seemed to consider this a favorable outcome. Though she could now tolerate daylight with ease, it had done nothing to give her anything even remotely resembling a sunny disposition.
“I was correct,” she said as we neared the landing site. “The change in Alma leadership you forced upon them, my love, has opened a small window of opportunity. They are willing to hear us out. The presence of the Shining One will be the catalyst that gains us entry.” She turned to Sheila. “You will be at the forefront of our party, sword out and raised high.”
“Won’t that come across as aggressive?” Sheila asked.
“Yes, but a show of strength is necessary here.”
“Okay,” I said. “So what about us? I assume this thing comes equipped with a weapons locker.”
“Indeed it does,” Gan replied.
“But we won’t be using it,” Sally added.
“Huh? What do you mean by that? She just said a show of strength...”
“By the Icon,” she explained. “She’s the big cheese of this show. The rest of us need to tuck our tails between our legs and look like our asses have been kicked.”
“In a sense,” Gan said. “We are to follow in supplication. Though not prisoners, we must be unarmed and carrying traditional Alma tokens of peace. A show of strength on the Shining One’s part will be met with respect. One on ours will be...”
I reached up and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Let me guess – will be met with a lot more strength than we can handle.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?”
Rather than answer, she said, “The witches are considered a neutral party. So long as they appear aloof to our plight, they will be treated respectfully in their role as witnesses to this event.”
“Okay,” I replied, resigning myself to whatever unpleasantness was ahead. “I guess that’s everyone. I suppose we can suck up a bit of humility if it’ll get us what we need.”
“No, that’s not everyone,” Sally said with a sigh. “You’re forgetting the meatsack.”
“Good point. The Feet don’t particularly like humans, so I guess he’s with us.”
“Except he’s not human,” she pointed out. “The Feet smell even better than us.”
“I might debate that.”
“With their noses, shit for brains.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Don’t think for a second they aren’t going to notice he doesn’t smell like a person. Hell, he doesn’t smell like anything. They aren’t going to like that, especially since I’m willing to bet they’re well versed with that tactic your fiancée here used when we were trying to get to Boston.”
I narrowed my eyes. “She is not my...”
“Your whore is correct,” Gan said. “The human will...”
Sally leaned forward, quick as a snake, and grabbed her by the throat. “I am getting really tired of that.”
Sheila’s eyes widened at the attack, and a white glow began to emanate from her.
Oh shit! If she went full spotlight mode in these close quarters, we wouldn’t have to worry about the Feet killing us.
“It’s cool,” I said to her, lifting my hands in a placating manner. “They ... err ... play like this all the time.” I glanced over and gritted my teeth. “Isn’t that right, Sally?”
Gan, for her part, didn’t seem overly concerned that she had a clawed hand wrapped around her neck. In fact, she was so unconcerned, she slowly reached up, grabbed Sally’s wrist, and pulled her off with seemingly no effort.
Sally’s eyes widened ever so slightly. She no doubt remembered that, despite Gan’s size, she was on the order of two and a half centuries older.
Double shit.
“That’s enough, all of you!” I said, my voice lowering a full octave until it barely resembled mine at all. With a small sense of horror, I realized I sounded like Dr. Death during those moments when we had conversed in my head. I quickly cleared my throat, pretending to cough. “Sorry, frog in my throat. Anyway, that’s more than enough.”
“You,” I said to Gan, “enough with the whore shit. Her name is Sally.” I turned to Sally. “You, no attacking our gracious host.” And then, finally, to Sheila, “And you, no killing us before the Sasquatches get a chance.”
GENEVA CONVENTION 2.0
Though Gan stopped far short of apologizing, she did throw an “As you wish, beloved” at me, serving to both acquiesce to my demands and skeeve me out.
The other two were a bit more cooperative. They knew the stakes at play and the big risk we were running to even have a shot at it.
Unfortunately, there was one risk I wasn’t aware of until we had landed and it was far too late.
“What the ever living fuck?”
“As I told you, beloved, we are expected to present the Alma with the traditional totem of peace to show our sincerity.”
“Yeah, I get that, but why not just a white flag?”
“The Alma neither utilize nor acknowledge flags.”
“But they fucking acknowledge dead skunks?”
“It is their way,” Gan replied as if she were holding a bouquet of flowers instead of a stinking rodent corpse.
Of course, to the Feet – ripe fuckers that they were – maybe a dead skunk was the equivalent of a dozen roses, or perhaps a stick of deodorant. “Okay, fine, but what about the rest?”
“Only the three of us represent the nation that is at war with the Alma. The others are here as guests.”
“Guests,” Sheila echoed from several steps away, “that will be doing their best to march upwind of you.”
She wasn’t the only one. Everyone else, outside of Gan’s people, were giving us a wide berth, too.
We were at the edge of the forest, where the tundra began. A large contingent of Gan’s followers had met us there, having already set up a basecamp. Unfortunately, they weren’t coming with us. Though the Feet were willing to hear us out, they only extended the invitation to a small group. Gan’s people were forbidden from entering the forest. If they did, we’d be killed instantly. Though I’d been happy to see them, thinking an extraction force was relatively close if we needed one, in truth, we’d be on our own if anything went south.
Just wonderful.
Right as we were getting ready to go, Gan walked away to converse with the leader of her strike team. I figured it was to give instructions for him and his whole family to commit suicide if they forgot to do something minor – typical Gan stuff. However, just as they were finishing up, I noticed him hand her something small and disturbingly metallic.
My palms began to sweat. Oh fuck. It was another detonator. I was just about to tell everyone to perform an emergency striptease when she walked back and held it out to me, palm up.
A metal vial lay in her hand. “What?”
“Blood,” she replied.
“Yours?” I asked.
“Yes, as well as a drop from every man you see here. If things go wrong...”
There was no need for her to finish that sentence. I realized she didn’t need a bomb. She had one standing right in front of her. And I’d been right. This was a detonator of sorts, just not electronic in nature. This small amount wouldn’t last for long, but it was easily palmed. Also, the results were bound to be ... interesting.
“Thank you, Gan,” I said. “That’s actually a really good idea.”
“The anticipation of once again seeing the beast inside of you fills my body with joy.”
“And the moment’s over. Thanks.” I put the vial into my pocket then turned to where most of the others had gathered. “Okay, let’s get this over with. We get in there, present them with our dead rats, and get the hell out.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re complaining about!”
I turned to find Tom stalking over to us. He seemed a bit miffed. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that his fur coat was dripping with blood and entrails.
Though I tried to keep a stoic look upon my face, I coul
dn’t. Gan had taken seriously our musings on Tom’s lack of scent. Upon our arrival, her people had been waiting for us, complete with a slaughtered moose. Before he could so much as open his mouth in protest, they’d dragged him over and tossed him into a pile of innards.
Well, that was one problem solved. Now only a shitload more to go.
* * *
“So is there any particular direction I should be going?” Sheila asked from up ahead, her aura alight to keep her from tripping in the dark forest.
“March forward,” Gan replied stoically. “We are already under observation. The Alma will present themselves at a time of their own choosing.”
“It had better be soon,” Tom griped. “I think I have a piece of intestine in my shoe.”
He was walking with us, having been shunned by the witches marching a dozen or so paces behind, their magic lighting their way and making them easily seen despite the foliage.
I stopped abruptly and spun, not-so-accidentally smacking my friend with the skunk in my hand. “Y’know, a positive attitude would probably do you well.”
“I never liked you.”
I grinned back at him, then turned and continued walking. “I can’t see why not.”
“I’m not really liking anyone right now,” Sally said. “I can’t believe I volunteered to come back up to this God forsaken place.”
“Adversity makes for strange bedfellows.”
“Hah!” Tom chuckled. “Like how you and Sally...”
In a flash, she grabbed him by the greasy collar of his bloodied coat and dragged him down to her level. “What did we discuss about that?”
Uncertainty flashed in my friend’s eyes. “Um ... that we were never ever to mention it again?”
“Yes, and what would happen if you did?”
“You’d melt me down into a pile of suppositories and pass me out to crackheads.”
“Same rule applies up here, except I might have to substitute our hairy soon-to-be friends instead.”
“Mention what?” Sheila asked from up ahead.
“Nothing,” Sally replied, still glaring unblinkingly at Tom. “Just a tiny incident that happened on the road to Boston.” She glanced at me sidelong. “A very tiny incident.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and continued on my way. It was probably something we needed to discuss at some point, although up until now, Sally had purposely blown me off. She didn’t seem to think it was a big deal – one of those things that happened between vamps. Me, I wasn’t quite so certain. I mean, my alter ego Dr. Death had forced himself upon her with the intent of killing her when he was done. It was meant to be the ultimate slap in the face to me, the last thing I saw before being shunted into my own subconscious forever.
Pity for him, it hadn’t quite worked out that way.
Even so, neither Sheila nor Gan knew about it, as far as I was aware. And, quite frankly, I thought it best to keep things that way. Gan might flip out and do something Gan-like. As for Sheila...
Oh, Jesus. I had no fucking idea there anymore. Talk about getting mixed vibes. Albeit, in all fairness, I was probably giving them off myself. In truth, I had feelings for two women, either of whom was both a wonderful prospect and a potentially dire mistake at the same time.
I glanced quickly at Sally by my side, then forward again toward Sheila.
There would have to be a reckoning soon between us all. As for what that would mean, I had no idea.
No. All I knew was that I was a doofus marching through the woods, searching for Bigfoot with a dead skunk in my hand – the plot of a romantic comedy if ever there was one.
Fortunately for me, as tended to be the case during times when I really should have been paying attention, fate decided to spare me from such deep thoughts.
I have little doubt the others noticed it first. They’d stopped walking, causing me to almost saunter into Sheila’s backside, a not so great thing with her aura up. As I backpedaled a few paces, I noticed my footsteps on the cold, hard ground sounded very loud. All sound, save that which we made ourselves, had ceased in the woods.
“And here we go again,” Tom muttered. “Try not to shit on any sacred trees.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Would you both shut the fuck up?” Sally hissed at us.
“I am forced to agree,” Gan said quietly. Then, more loudly, “Shining One, now.”
Sheila glanced back, uncertainty in her eyes ... strange, considering the force that powered her.
“You can do it!” a voice further back cried – Kelly’s.
Sheila nodded, then turned to face the darkness before her. She drew her sword, and it blazed white fire as she lifted it over her head, becoming an unmistakable beacon in the night. “I am Sheila O’Connell of the...” She hesitated for a second. I couldn’t really blame her. This next part was kind of stupid. “Of the Silver Eyes. I have come here to parlay between the two great warring nations as set forth in the Humbaba Accord.”
“Accord broken,” a gravelly voice replied from somewhere up ahead. Even with my enhanced night vision, I couldn’t see the source. However, it probably wasn’t a stretch to imagine the owner was very large and smelled terrible.
And there it was. One moment there was nothing, save the stench of Tom and our peace offerings. The next came an odor that made me want to bury my face in the skunk’s ass and breathe as deeply as I could.
Sheila coughed a few times, but thankfully kept her composure. Sadly, the witches behind us weren’t quite as magnanimous.
“Dear goddess!”
“I think I’m gonna hurl.”
Oh well, hopefully their status as a neutral party held.
“A sword which is broken can be reforged,” Sheila said, her voice tight but loud. I had little trouble imagining her eyes were watering something fierce right now, but she held it together. “So too can a broken accord.”
The crunch of dried pine needles beneath enormous feet could be heard all around us. Where a moment ago there was nothing, now enormous shapes moved between the trees. We were surrounded.
If things went badly for us, we would be fucked in the ass as thoroughly as if we were under contract with Vivid Video.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, but the trees immediately in front of Sheila seemed to bend away from each other, revealing the massive form of a Sasquatch. Over nine feet tall, he approached to just outside her aura and stood looming over her. The look on its face was one of ... well, these things always looked pissed off, so that wasn’t really anything new.
It occurred to me that none of us really had any clue whether an Icon’s power could work against the Feet. I mean, they were basically spirits given flesh ... really big flesh, that hit really really hard when it wanted to. Then again, hadn’t Alex once said something about vampires originally being like that too before something happened to cause us to adopt our current forms? I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that something had a name that started with I and ended with B.
Still, that was speculation best saved for another time. No matter what the Feet actually were, it would be a particularly lousy time to learn that Sheila’s powers didn’t do jack shit against them.
The two beings, both of them supernatural wonders in their own right – the legendary Icon and fucking Bigfoot – stood there staring at each other. A Mexican standoff in the woods of Canada.
And then, without a word between them, the impasse was broken.
C IS FOR COOKIE
Sheila’s sword blazed furiously, casting a ghostly light on the monster in front of her. Its eyes flashed red and its lips pulled back in a snarl.
Then she drove the tip of the sword into the frozen ground between them and took a step back.
The ugly fucker in front of her glared down for a moment, then nodded as if it liked what it saw. At last, it opened its mouth and spoke. “Silver Eyes great warrior. Cunt honored by your presence.”
Wait, what?
No. I did not just fucking hear
that.
I turned to Tom and saw his eyes widen with surprise as he no doubt wondered the same thing.
“Excuse me?” Sheila asked. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear you correctly.”
The Sasquatch turned its head and blew out a wad of snot, perhaps the Bigfoot equivalent of clearing its throat, then addressed her again. “Great Cunt, leader of the Northern Clans, welcomes you.”
“Don’t do it!” Sally warned us, her voice barely audible.
Tom snorted beside me and I couldn’t help myself. I raised my hand to my mouth so as to not audibly lose my shit – hoping beyond hope that maybe the stupid fucking apes thought I was just caught up in the moment. Oh God, and I thought Turd was bad.
Sally shook her head and sighed. “We are so fucking dead.”
“Yes,” the Sasquatch replied. “T’lunta who stupid enough to enter this sacred place die. You here, so must be very stupid.”
Oh shit, I forgot these things had senses to rival our own.
“My frien...” Sheila began, then caught herself. Yeah, putting it out there that she was buddies with their sworn enemies was not something she wanted to do. “I mean, these tuh-luntas have come here with me at great risk to themselves. They have approached me with humility. Their nation has suffered great losses at your hands. They have asked me to broker a new peace with you, oh mighty...”
She trailed off and then glanced back at us, panic in her eyes as she bit down on her quivering lips. Well, at least it was good to know I wasn’t the only one who found these fuckers to be as ridiculous as they were terrifying. A small part of me wondered if whoever had first translated their language to ours hadn’t been a smartass of the first degree.
“Oh come on,” Meg shouted from somewhere behind us. “He’s a big cunt. This isn’t so hard.”
The Tome of Bill (Book 8): The Last Coven Page 12