As we entered the encampment, a voice called from off to our right. “I will take them from here, Grulg. They are under my protection now.” It sounded familiar. I glanced over in that direction and my eyes immediately went wide.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered. Looking back toward the rest of my group, I saw that Sally’s face held the same surprised expression. No wonder, in her case. The vampire who strode toward us was the very same who had casually lopped off her hand with a silver blade just a few months back. Judging by how he looked, he was every bit as well armed now as he had been back then.
“Nergui?” I asked disbelievingly as he came toward us.
He ignored me, instead walking up to the monster that had been our guide and locking eyes with it. A tense moment passed. Eventually Grulg bared his lips in a snarl and broke the gaze. He turned back to us.
“You with own now. We begin tomorrow,” he said, then turned to wander off, leaving me to wonder if I had a tomorrow. The guy he was leaving me with had every reason, and ability, too, I might add, to make sure I didn’t live to see another nightfall.
As Nergui turned to us, I could almost feel Sally tensing behind me. Sure, we bickered like five year olds most of the time, but when push came to shove, I knew she would be there to back me up.
However, Nergui surprised me by bowing. “Greetings once more, Freewill,” he said upon straightening. “It is an honor to serve you.”
“Really?” I asked, completely taken off guard.
“Why would it not be?”
“For starters,” Sally said, stepping up next to me, “you did kind of try to kill us both not too long ago.”
“Yes. As I explained at the time to the Freewill, it was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunder...”
I interrupted Sally before she could blow her top. “Yes, an unfortunate misunderstanding for all of us. Still, considering what happened afterwards...”
He nodded, and a brief flash of emotion shone in his eyes before his normal stoic demeanor took hold again. “Yes, the loss of my master is regrettable. If I could, I would gladly have given my life to save his.”
“From what I’ve heard, it wouldn’t have done any good.”
“The Wanderer has said the same to me. Perhaps, perhaps not. I cannot change what has occurred. I can only serve my new mistress with as much honor as my worthless self can manage.”
“New mistress?” asked Sally.
“Gan,” I answered.
“Yes, the princess. She now commands what was once her father’s.”
A horrible thought hit me. Oh, crap. The last thing I needed was that psycho little hellion coming after me like a hungry piranha. “Nergui, is Gan here?”
“No,” he replied. If he noticed the sigh of relief I let out, he didn’t acknowledge it. “My people need a leader now, and her place is there.”
“So then why are you here?”
“When she learned of this gathering, she dispatched me immediately. The princess is aware of the possibility of treachery against her beloved” ARGH! “She has entrusted me to watch over you.”
Despite her wariness of Nergui, Sally couldn’t help but comment. “Aww, that’s so cute. Gan is trying to protect her Billy-willy.”
“Aren’t there some lumberjacks around for you to proposition?” I spat out of the corner of my mouth.
Oddly enough, despite Gan’s twisted reasons for sending him, a small part of me suddenly felt a bit better. I knew that Nergui’s attack against us hadn’t been personal. He was a product of his culture. He lived to serve. It just so happened that, at the time, the fuckhead he served had wanted me dead. Now the situation had changed. Though I had absolutely zero intention of returning Gan’s affections, her interest in me had provided perhaps the first glimmer of hope I had seen so far this trip. Sally, Ed, and Tom were great, don’t get me wrong. I’d trust them – well, Tom and Ed, anyway – with my life. Nergui, however, was three and a half centuries old. He could mop the floor with all four of us and still have plenty left in him to go a full twelve rounds.
“What about my friends?” I asked.
“The princess’s orders were specifically for you, Freewill.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered under my breath. “Perhaps,” I said a bit louder, “but my friends are vital to my success in this endeavor.” Sorta. “Their safety is my safety. I will accept your protection, but only if you agree to watch over them as well.”
Nergui appeared to consider this for a moment. Finally, he nodded. “If your cattle and the wh...”
“Don’t even think of saying it,” Sally snarled.
I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Whore had been Gan’s pet name for her.
“My apologies,” Nergui said evenly. “If the Freewill’s advisors are important to him, then so, too, shall they be to me. I offer my protection to you all.”
“Did he just call us ‘cattle?’” Tom whispered to me, followed by, “Oof!” as Ed elbowed him in the gut.
“We gladly accept,” Ed replied.
“Awesome!” I cried. “I’m happy to hear I don’t need eyes in the back of my head in case these monkeys decide to try anything.”
“Be wary, Freewill,” Nergui said in a low voice. “Treachery need not come only from the Alma.”
“What do you mean?”
He took a quick look around and then simply replied, “It is not my place to speak further of this. I simply offer you the warning.” With that, he turned and beckoned us to follow.
Great, as if I already didn’t have enough to worry about.
♦ ♦ ♦
Nergui led us across the crude village. As we walked, I could hear a bit of a commotion going on up ahead. One didn’t need vampire ears to be able to pinpoint it. Standing in front of one of the huts was a tall, well-built man. He had dark hair and a pencil-thin mustache of the variety that had gone out of style with Prohibition. He was busy bitching out some others who stood around him. My command of languages other than English was somewhat less than stellar. However, I had seen enough Pink Panther movies to surmise he was speaking French.
“Let me guess,” I said out of the corner of my mouth to Sally, “François?”
Suddenly his head swiveled in our direction. Oh, shit! I kept forgetting that older vampires likewise had superior senses. Since this guy was supposedly even older than the Khan, he could probably hear a fly taking a shit from a hundred yards away. He wasn’t the most physically imposing creature I had ever seen, especially not with nine-foot apes wandering about, but there was something cold in his eyes. He hadn’t even blackened them, yet they held a kind of darkness to them. I’m no psychoanalyst, but if I had to guess, I’d say Frenchy here was psychotically insane. How wonderful.
I didn’t need to worry about Sally. She had more experience dealing with asshole elder vamps than I did. Instead, I threw a quick warning glance back to my roommates, Tom in particular.
As we approached, all of the vampires in front of the hut stopped what they were doing and turned toward us. Most of them were focused on me, which was fine. There were a few salacious glances toward Sally, no doubt undressing her with their eyes – also not a big surprise. What worried me, though, were a few nakedly hungry looks toward my roommates. That would need to be nipped in the bud. My friends were strictly off the menu.
Nergui stopped in front of the group and gave a curt bow, noticeably shallower than the one he'd given me. He then stepped to the side. “The Freewill and his advisors,” he announced.
The one I presumed to be François stepped forward. This close, his presence had a decisively slimy feel to it. However, whereas Colin’s greasiness radiated a massive inclination toward ass-kissing, this guy was far more ominous. I got a bad feeling in my gut that this was the sort of jerk who would literally do anything, no matter how depraved, to further his own agenda. Of course, that could all be bullshit and maybe I was just psyching myself out due to James’s warning. Whatever the cas
e, though, I had learned in the past year that a little paranoia wasn’t exactly a bad thing.
He looked me over, shot Sally a sideways glance, and then gave a sniff, barely laying his eyes on my friends, as if they were beneath his contempt. “You are the Freewill?” he asked with just the slightest accent.
Since I had been raised to always put my best foot forward (as Dad always said, let the other person be the asshole first), I held out my hand and said, “Yep. I’m Bill.”
He gave me back a sour smile as if I had just used that hand to wipe my ass. Ah yes, douchebag status confirmed.
“There are a few things you should be aware of,” he said, ignoring my greeting. “Regardless of what you have been told, I do not care if you are the Freewill or the second coming of Moloch himself.” Huh? “I rule here. Respect that and we will get along fine. Cross me, and I will stake you with your own spine.”
Before I could even think about it, my mouth opened on its own. What can I say? My subconscious had an automatic defense mechanism against shit heads. “Eh.”
“Excuse me?”
“You forgot the ‘eh.’ You said you rule here. Well, this is Canada. You should at least speak like a Canadian, eh?”
His eyes narrowed at me, but I continued drawing upon my lexicon of Canadian language, learned from multiple viewings of South Park. “We traveled all this way, eh. I mean, it’s aboot time we arrived, eh. You’d think you hosers would be a little more hospitable, eh.”
François’s eyes darkened and I could see his fangs extend. Fortunately, two things stopped him from outright killing me right there. First, Nergui’s hand flew to the hilt of one of his daggers. Secondly, flunkeys or not, a few of the vampires behind him chuckled at what I said.
He quickly turned his head and hissed at his lackeys. Silence resumed amongst them. Regardless, the moment was over. That was good. Considering François’s age, I wasn’t entirely sure even Nergui would be able to stop him. When François turned back to me, his eyes had resumed their normal color. To my surprise, a smile actually crossed his lips. That didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
“Your reputation for having a quick, if somewhat crude, tongue is well earned,” he said.
“What can I say? I like to make an impression.”
“I can see that.”
“This playful banter aside, I’m not here to make waves. I just want to do my part so we can hash out a truce with the Sasquatches. Once that’s done, I’ll go home and you can keep Canada.”
“Yes, of course. We’re all on the same side here,” he replied in a tone that implied we weren’t even remotely on the same team. God, what a creep. Even if James hadn’t warned me about him, this guy would still be giving me serious douche-chills.
“Cool,” I said. “Is Alex here yet? I’m thinking we should all sit down and discuss things. I want to make sure I know what to say and such.”
“Alex?” he replied, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah, the Drac ... err First Coven’s special envoy.”
“Interesting. I know of no Alex.”
Hmm, that was odd. Still, this guy looked like the sort of stuck up prick that would barely notice anyone beneath him in rank.
“Okay then, what about the negotiators that were being sent in? Maybe Alex will check in with us later.”
François’s face took on a look of concern ... mostly. I’m not great at reading subtle expressions, but I’d have sworn his eyes were twinkling with laughter. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“The team that the First were sending never arrived. They simply vanished ... without a trace.”
“Vanished?”
“Yes, it’s quite tragic,” he replied without a trace of remorse. “I suspect these beasts had something to do with it. Alas, I have no proof of their treachery.”
“Then we’re postponing the summit, right?” Sally asked from beside me. I was amazed. It was the longest I could remember her keeping her mouth shut.
“Child,” François replied, putting extra emphasis on the word as if to imply stupid child. “This gathering is far too important to put off. Every day that goes by is another step closer to war. And it’s not just us. The other delegations have all arrived. It would be an insult to cry foul and tell them to all go home. Believe me, there are beings present that are not to be trifled with.”
Emboldened, either by the fact that I was still alive or by Sally, Ed spoke up. “So what is Bill supposed to do? He’s not exactly a UN diplomat.” When I turned to give him a glare, he replied, “Let’s not fool ourselves here. You’re not.”
That’s the thing with Ed. He continually ticks me off by being right. I sighed and turned back to François. “He has a point.”
François seemed not to hear me, though. “You allow your food to speak for you? How quaint. I see James is letting discipline slip down in the States.”
Now it was my turn to flash my fangs, albeit I imagine I was just a wee bit less impressive than he was. I may be strong by human standards, but to an elder vampire, I was probably about as frightening as a kitten. Still, I couldn’t let him get away with treating my friends like an appetizer. “They’re my friends, not my food. They’re here to assist me and thus are under my protection.”
“Your protection?”
“Yes. You’ve heard stories about Freewills, right? Care to see if any of them are true?” I won’t lie. I was really hoping the answer was a resounding no.
“Silly boy. You’ll find I’ve faced down far scarier things than you.” His eyes momentarily flashed black then back to normal in no more than a blink of his eyes. Damn, I couldn’t do it that fast. I actually had to concentrate to get that stuff to work. “Regardless, now is not the time. Alas, your advisors are moot here.”
“How so?”
“Have you not been listening, boy? The First’s diplomats are missing. The peace meeting must go on. Thus, as leader of this region, I have hand-picked my own team of negotiators to fill in for the First’s.”
“Your own team?”
“Yes. Entirely loyal to the vampire cause, I assure you.” Yeah, right. “Your mission has not changed. They will hash out a treaty with the Sasquatch leader. You will go along with their suggestions as the figurehead you are. Were those not your orders?”
“Well...”
“As I thought. You will perform your duty as instructed. Once finished, you will leave my domain. IS THAT CLEAR?!”
I’m not sure if he meant to send that last part as a compulsion or if it just came out that way because he was pissed, but damn! The force of it sent me flying back into my roommates. Judging by the boneless way they collapsed under me, I assumed they had gotten a pretty hefty taste of it as well. Compulsion worked on humans, too, just not quite as well. It took a vampire of considerable strength to pull it off. Unfortunately, François definitely had a checkmark in that column.
As for me, my head was ringing. It felt like someone had beaten me senseless with the world’s largest tuning fork. Even so, I was by far the least worse off. I saw Sally, Nergui, and all of François’s vampires standing there with the same vacant, glazed look in their eyes. Each and every one of them was under François’s spell. I was going to need a bottle of aspirin when this was over, but at least I was immune to his control.
The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill Book 3) Page 13