“General Patton, you are not,” Sally finished for him.
“Quite true, my dear. Alas, that was never the First Coven’s intention. They can be ruthless leaders, but they aren’t insane. Your status as the reborn Freewill grants you certain liberties, not the least of which is that our ruling coven would prefer not sending you forth a lamb to the slaughter.”
Their mockery of my abilities aside, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good to...”
“I’m not finished,” James interrupted, wiping his chin with a napkin. “Your status as a Freewill comes with certain downsides as well. I heard from Gansetseg about your altercation with the wizard. If they’re aware of your existence, it’s reasonable to assume other factions of the supernatural world are as well, including the Alma.”
“Is that why they attacked when I was over there?”
“No. Otherwise you would have been a prime target. I believe that was just a coincidence. Still, it is prudent to assume they are aware of you by now. This is where you come in.”
“I’m all ears,” I replied with a complete lack of enthusiasm.
“The Alma are a caste based society. They place great weight upon one’s station in life. Their chieftains are given all the trappings of royalty. So, too, are the rankings of enemies given much consideration. The slaying of the Khan was a great moment for them. Much honor has been heaped upon those responsible.”
“Yeah, but I’m just a...”
“We know,” Sally quipped.
James ignored her and continued. “The Alma are a highly spiritual race as well. Great heroes and others who their legends speak of are afforded the same honors as their highborn. Once again, so too with enemies.”
“I’m not even remotely following you.”
“The First Coven has reached out to the Alma in an attempt to avert a war. The Alma in turn have shown themselves to at least be open to discussion. However, due to their victory against the Khan, they see themselves as having the upper hand. They’re willing to talk, but they insist on setting the rules for this engagement. Their first demand was that these talks take place in person between the upper echelons of both sides.”
“I see where this is going,” Sally chimed in. “The Draculas, not being stupid, aren’t about to waltz right into the lion’s den.”
“An over-simplification, but essentially true,” James confirmed. “Being that Dr. Death is the long lost Freewill of vampire legend...”
“Oh, no fucking way!” I cried, standing up. As they stared at me, I noticed the eyes of the other patrons in the café likewise turning in my direction. Thinking quickly, I added, “Ten bucks for a cup of coffee? Wow, this place is expensive.” Several piteous glances came my way, but soon enough, people turned back toward their own business.
“Way to work the crowd, Bill,” Sally commented, sipping her drink.
I sat back down and lowered my voice. “So let me see if I’m hearing this right. The fucking ape-men consider me to be on par with our leadership, correct? So, being that the Draculas see me as important ... yet still oh-so-expendable ... I get to go sit down with these monsters and hope they don’t eat my fucking face. Does that sound about right?”
“Said with your usual eloquence, but in a nutshell, yes,” James replied.
“You do realize that growing up I couldn’t even convince my neighbors to keep their dogs from shitting on our lawn. I don’t know what kind of treaty you’re expecting me to negotiate.”
“Believe me, I am all too familiar with your somewhat unique way of communicating,” he said. “You won’t be going in alone. This isn’t a one-on-one affair. You’ll be there as a figurehead at most.”
“You should be used to that,” Sally said out of the corner of her mouth.
“This will be more of a summit than anything else. There will be negotiators there with you, as well as bodyguards. I wouldn’t be surprised if other factions wished to make themselves present as well. In short, you will be there to preside over our side, but ultimately others will be doing the work.”
“And if I refuse?” I asked, knowing full well that wasn’t really an option.
“If you refuse, then I daresay the First will find some other sort of duty for you. It’s a fair bet that whatever they choose will make this seem like a vacation in paradise, comparatively speaking.”
Ringside Seats
The check came and suddenly I found two sets of eyes looking at me expectantly.
“What?” I asked.
“Coven hospitality,” James replied, a grin on his face. “It’s tradition.”
I turned toward Sally, who gave me her best innocent expression before replying, “Don’t look at me.”
“You handle the coven’s finances,” I protested.
“True, but I left my purse back at the Office.”
Grumbling, I pulled out my wallet to cover the tab. Vampires were immortal, arrogant, and powerful ... I made a mental note to add cheap to that description.
“Some of us still have to work for a living,” I griped.
“Then win the lottery,” she cooed. “Oh, wait ... you get to work with me, so you already did.”
Trying desperately to keep myself from stabbing her with a fork, I changed the topic back to business. “So what next?” I asked James.
“For now, just wait. The details are still being hashed out, participants are still being considered, all of that.”
“Do I get any say in this?”
“Of course. You are perfectly welcome to bring along your own contingent. They’ll be figureheads much like yourself, but as the honored Freewill, you’ll be expected to have your own band of supporters.”
“Awesome,” I said and then quickly added, “I nominate Sally as my first choice.”
“WHAT?!” she cried.
“You heard me,” I replied with a sly grin. “You got me into this whole mess. If I’m destined to get corn-holed by Sasquatch, you get to be next on deck, partner.”
Ultimately, that was true on many levels. Sally had gotten me into just about every mess I had found myself in these past several months. She was the one responsible for my becoming a vampire. Through her machinations, I became the leader of Village Coven. Finally, she was the primary reason I had wound up in Asia to begin with. All roads led back to Sally. It was about time I got a chance to “repay” her.
“But what about the coven?” she stammered.
“Starlight can watch over things for a few days. It’ll be good practice for her.”
“James...” Sally said, turning to him.
He, however, just chuckled in response. “I’m sorry, my dear. But, alas, it is his choice. He is officially the coven leader. There is certain protocol to be followed here.”
She glared flaming, poison-tipped daggers at me. Oh, well, when one plays with fire, one does tend to occasionally wind up with burnt fingertips.
“Now, if we’re all finished here,” James said, ignoring the swordfight Sally and I were waging with our expressions, “I have a car waiting. I need to get back to Boston and continue working on things from my end. You’ll be contacted with details soon enough.”
“Thanks, James,” I replied, albeit there wasn’t much gratitude in my voice.
“Just one last question,” Sally said. “Why’d you come all the way down here? I mean, if you were giving Bill a death sentence, that would be one thing (thanks, Sally), but you could have said all of this over the phone.”
“True enough,” he countered, and then added, “But then I wouldn’t have been treated to such a wonderful evening of discourse.”
“In other words, you came for the espresso,” I said.
“Of course. One must have one’s priorities straight.”
♦ ♦ ♦
I departed before Sally could corner me. I had no desire to be chewed a new asshole. Also, it let me leave on a smug note. If we had started talking about things, I probably would have let slip that my desire for her to come alo
ng was only half motivated by dickish pettiness. The truth was, when push came to shove, she was one hell of a person to have watching your back. Sure, she practically jumped on every chance to piss me off but, over the past year, she had more than made up for it. I didn’t need to be reminded that she had almost gotten killed defending me against the Khan’s assassins. She had even lost a hand in battle with them. Sure, it had grown back, but it was the thought that counted.
If there was the possibility of shit going down during this peace conference – and let’s face facts: I’ve seen enough episodes of Star Trek to know these never went smoothly – then I wanted her there beside me. I had called Sally my partner as a dig to her, but the truth was, I believed it. The only downside was that I was going to have to listen to her bitch about it all ... and she would, probably to the point where I would start looking forward to whatever horrific death was waiting around the corner.
Speaking of bitching, I returned to my apartment to find my roommates engaged in their typical type of conversation.
“There’s no way the Galactica could take out a Star Destroyer, end of conversation,” came Ed’s voice as I walked in the door.
Right on cue, Tom replied with, “Two counterpoints, dude: nukes and FTL drive. They jump in, blast the shit out of the Empire, and jump out before Darth Vader is even aware that he’s now floating in the cold vacuum of space.”
Before I could add my opinion that the Enterprise E’s quantum torpedoes would fuck up anyone’s shit, they both turned toward me.
“Since you’re here,” Ed asked, “is it safe to assume that the words ‘immediate execution’ didn’t come up?”
“Thankfully, no. In fact, it wasn’t so bad. I thought they were sending some vampire goon squad. Instead, I wound up spending the night sipping espressos with James.”
“Ozymandias?” Tom asked, referring to the pseudonym James used back when my coven was still run by Jeff.
“The one and the same.”
“I thought he was missing in Mongolia,” Ed said.
“Not anymore. He’s back and up for a big promotion, too.”
“Awesome,” Tom replied. “It never hurts to have friends in high places.” If anyone understood that concept, it was him. He worked over in Manhattan’s financial district. As he was fond of telling us, it was a game of kissing ass and gaining favor with the higher-ups. He’d once told me, “You just pucker up, apply some super glue, and latch on.”
“I’m assuming he didn’t drive in just to tell you about his new executive parking spot,” Ed said.
“You assume correctly.”
“Spill, dude,” Tom said.
So I did. I spent the next half-hour telling them about how I was supposed to be the vampire nation’s new peace envoy and how my status as the Freewill of vampire legend afforded me this high honor.
“And if you happen to get snuffed in the process,” Ed surmised, “these Draculas can just sit back and say ‘too bad, so sad.’”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I think that settles things,” he said. “You’ve been putting it off for too long.”
It took me a second, but then I got his drift. “No way. It’s too dangerous. Who the hell knows what’ll happen?”
“What’ll happen is it’ll save your life if those Sasquatches decide to make you their sacrificial lamb.”
“We don’t even know if it’s controllable,” I protested. “It only happened those two times. For all I know it was just a fluke.”
Ed gave me his most condescending look, the one he reserved for when he thought I was acting like a stupid child, but I held my ground. I wasn’t quite ready for what he was suggesting.
See, being a Freewill came with a few other perks above and beyond what a normal vampire could do. For starters, there’s the ability for which it was named: the power to resist the mind control of another vamp. I was glad for that ability. Nothing worse than some asshole giving you a compulsion and having no choice but to follow it through, no matter how demeaning it might be.
Of somewhat more practical use was the ability to somehow leech another vampire’s strength. Most vampires weren’t able to drink another vamp’s blood. Something about it is incompatible with their systems, violently so. In our tussle with the Khan’s assassins, I had seen Sally take a bite out of one of them. The effort had saved me, but reduced her to a retching basket case for the next several hours.
It’s different with me, though. Not only could I drink vampire blood, but doing so temporarily turbo-charged me with their power. I could go from zero to hero with just a swallow. The more powerful the vampire, the more power I absorbed. The only downside to this was that I had to get in close enough for a bite, something that most weren’t exactly keen on letting me do.
Unfortunately, though, that’s almost the extent of my knowledge. I’m the first of my kind in over half a millennium, so the records weren’t exactly up to date as to what else I could do. There’s more, though, and some of it was frightening as all hell. Twice, during my ordeal from a few months back, I lost control. The first time I recovered quickly. The second time, Sally had been near death. The rage I felt had pushed me over the edge. I don’t know what happened next except that something about me changed and I could suddenly take on two vampires whose power both eclipsed mine by many times over. Take your pick of either Bruce Banner or Dr. Jekyll, but either way I had something similar in me. The only question was what?
Since then, I hadn’t been in any utterly enraging situations, nor had I given in to my friends’ insistence that this was something that needed to be tested. I had nothing against a power boost, but not at the risk of waking up to find myself ankle deep in the blood of my buddies.
“Not worth the risk,” I stated adamantly.
“But...”
“No! Not going to happen. It’s one thing for you two to continually stab, slice, and set me on fire to chart my powers, but this is just too dangerous. We’ve all seen enough movies to know that the ‘we’ll stick you in a cage while you transform’ scene always ends badly.”
Ed considered this. “I get what you’re saying, Bill. But still, this whole scenario has a bad vibe to it. If things turn to shit, you’re going to need every advantage you can get.”
“That’s why I’m bringing Sally. She’ll be there to watch my backside.”
“But who’s going to watch hers?”
“Us,” Tom chimed in. Ed and I stopped speaking and turned to him questioningly. “We’ll be there watching her ass, amongst other things.”
“Hold on just a sec...”
“Didn’t you just tell us that you were allowed to bring a contingent of supporters?” he asked. “Well, who else is going to support your sorry self better than us?”
“No fucking way...”
“My point exactly,” he stated. “No fucking way are we missing a possible vampire/Bigfoot death match. Not happening. Even if you weren’t my bud, I’d still be sneaking along just to see that shit.”
“He does have a point,” Ed said. “A couple of them, actually, which is probably a new record for him.”
“It’s settled, then!” cried Tom jubilantly.
The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill Book 3) Page 4