Bill of the Dead (Book 2): Everyday Horrors

by Gualtieri, Rick

  Then there was the issue of taking Sally to meet him, something I wasn’t particularly comfortable with. He was here to catalogue, investigate, and put an end to any paranormal weirdness he found, and she now potentially fell into that category.

  Still, the alternative was to leave her home alone with a bunch of freaked out vamps while I tried my best not to stick my foot in my mouth again. Probably not a great strategy all in all.

  I suppose I could’ve given her the keys to my apartment but ... well, let’s be realistic here. I fully remembered the damage that had been done there in prior years. Did I really want to send Sally to a place that she freely admitted to thinking was a shithole?

  Yeah, so instead I’d brought her out into the public domain, where she could potentially endanger untold lives if she gave in to the general stress that is New York City.

  So nice to see I hadn’t gotten any better at thinking this shit through in the intervening years. Oh well, at least if Sally lost her cool and went all supernova, I’d probably be caught in the blast and thus no longer burdened by whatever horrors my lack of foresight had wrought. That’s me, a glass is half full kinda guy.

  “Are we sure there’s no other Magi we could’ve called for a second opinion?” I asked, dragging myself back to the here and now.

  “None I trust,” Christy replied.

  “Kelly’s still AWOL?”

  “She isn’t AWOL. Fine, okay, maybe she is. But I’m sure she and her husband have just as much to deal with at the moment as the rest of us.”

  “Liz, maybe?” She narrowed her eyes at me to which I quickly held up my hands in supplication. “Relax, it’s only a suggestion.”

  Guess that was to be expected. Liz had orchestrated an attack on Christy’s home not too long ago that had put her child and friend in danger, not to mention left one of her neighbors dead. Still, beggars couldn’t really be choosers.

  “Remember what I said about what I’d do if I ever saw her again? It still stands.”

  “I knew there was a reason I always liked you,” Sally commented.

  Christy grinned at her then turned back toward me. “As for the other local covens, or former covens anyway, I’m not sure what help they’d be. Far as I’ve heard, it’s been mostly a nonstop party in the vast majority of the Magi community. I spoke last week to a few of the witches from my support group. If anything, they’re drunker now than they were when they didn’t have magic.”

  “Not sure I can blame them,” Sally replied. “But even so, there’s gotta be other wet blankets out there. I mean, back in the day we ran into plenty of humorless shitheads from the magic world, no offense.”

  Christy waved off the concern. “Trust me, I know. Harry had contacts with most of the Mentors on the east coast, as well as a few High Mentors. Problem is, a lot of them died down below when we stormed the White Mother’s lair. And those that didn’t ... well, five years is a long time. The old gatherings have mostly been abandoned, the lines of communication gone stale. I even reached out as far as New England. A few of the covens up there were known to have fairly extensive collections, but no dice. Some of the former Mentors are missing, a few didn’t return my calls, and at least one died of lung cancer in the ensuing years.”

  I winced. “Let me guess. Lack of magical health insurance.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So that leaves us this guy we’re going to see,” Sally surmised. “And we don’t exactly trust him, do we?”

  “Nope.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Sally glanced at us both then raised one eyebrow. “At least he’s local.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We reached our stop to find a bit of luck thrown our way, and by that I mean my way. A weather system had moved into the area. It had been partly cloudy earlier, but now a light drizzle had begun, meaning I could traverse the final few blocks without having to don a Unabomber motif.

  The place had been cleaned up quite a bit in the days since Night Razor’s reign had ended. Back then, it had been a haven for derelicts in need of a place to piss, puke, or pass out – in short, the perfect spot for vampires to pluck victims off the street without anyone caring.

  Now, however, the vast majority of the old warehouses had been replaced with buildings full of closet-sized luxury apartments, no doubt priced for one-percenters with more money than sense. Progress? Yes. Positive progress? Debatable.

  But we weren’t there to scope out new rental units. Christy led us past them to where a few of the old warehouses still stood, walled off with a rusty chain link fence that looked to be in good enough condition to stop basically nobody from crossing its threshold.

  We made our way to a gate, chained but not locked, telling us this particular entryway was more ceremonial than anything. As far as security went, the owners of this place obviously had few, if any, shits to give.

  “There’s ... something here,” Sally said as we approached it.

  Or maybe not.

  “A glamour,” Christy confirmed. “How did you know?”

  “I’m not sure. I just did.”

  “Bill?”

  I took a sniff of the air. From past dealings with older vamps, I knew that it was possible to smell the magic in the air. And once upon a time – when I’d developed control over the mindless brute inside of me – I probably could’ve done so. However, the clock had been reset on my vampire tenure so, while all the scents were greatly multiplied, all I could sense was garbage, decay, and the not too clean water of the Hudson. “Nope. It just looks like a fence to me.”

  Christy held out a hand for a moment, no doubt the Magi equivalent of a check for traps roll, then she led the way through the gate.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect as we crossed into the derelict parking lot. After all, I’d seen glamours before and knew they were capable of showing a reality completely different than what was actually happening. However, as I stepped in, noting the air shimmer around me, I saw nothing different than what I’d seen on the outside.

  “Okay, am I crazy or was that the world’s shittiest illusion?”

  Christy shook her head. “It actually makes a lot of sense, showing what things look like under normal circumstances. It just so happens nothing out of the ordinary is going on right now that would need to be masked.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “There’s more here,” Sally said, her head cocked to the side. She was wearing sunglasses to mask her freaky eyes, but I could still see her glancing every which way.

  “You’re not wrong.” Christy made another gesture and immediately began to glow with yellowish energy. “Behold.”

  The air before us once again shimmered, and suddenly the empty lot lit up in all directions for about fifty feet around us.

  Countless sigils, glyphs, and wards appeared, all glowing bright yellow. Some were painted on the cracked pavement. Others were on the sides of dumpsters, trash cans, and light poles. Still more hung in midair, like magical spider webs waiting for unsuspecting flies to walk into them.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Am I wrong?” Sally asked, “Or is this pretty much a Magi minefield?”

  Christy lowered her hand and the sigils disappeared from sight, not really making me feel any better, as I hadn’t exactly memorized their locations. “More or less. It’s an impressive amount of work to do in such a short time for such a large space. And I think those were only the tip of the iceberg.”

  She continued onward, but I caught her arm. “Are you crazy? You just said...”

  “They’re all inert at the moment,” she explained with a grin, obviously at my discomfort. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have made it even this far.”

  “And if they hadn’t been?” I asked, not even remotely comfortable walking through the magical demilitarized zone around ghetto Isengard.

  “The wards around the gate are relatively low level,” she said, calmly and collected, as if we weren’t surrounded by enough magic to blow us t
o several hells at once. “It’s meant to daze, confuse, and redirect people. It gets more serious, however, the further in we go.”

  “As in the direction we’re currently headed?”

  “Bravery thy name is Bill,” Sally remarked. “What’s the matter? You want to live forever or something?”

  “Forever, no? Past the next five minutes? Preferably.”

  Christy turned to me, amusement etched onto her face. “Relax. Like I said, they’re inert.”

  “And how much effort would it take to make them not inert?”

  “The wave of a hand, chum,” a voice called to us from further in, Falcon’s.

  I glanced that way to find him standing in the doorway of a derelict warehouse down near the waterline.

  He was leaning against the door frame, shirtless. Motherfucker! Night vision aside, my eyesight wasn’t exactly supernaturally charged, but even from this distance I could tell the asshole was ripped.

  “You know, luv,” he called out with a laugh, turning his attention to Christy, “it’s rude to show off another wizard’s party tricks.”

  Oh, how I was beginning to hate this guy.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I made it a point to be last in the door – partly because I didn’t trust this asshole as far as I could throw the fucking Titanic – but also for somewhat pettier reasons.

  Sure enough, I detected Christy’s gaze making a quick crawl over Falcon’s annoyingly perfect washboard abs. Then came a far more blatant stare by Sally, over the rim of her sunglasses.

  Et tu, Bitchy?

  “Excuse my dress,” he said, acknowledging both with a nod. “Just finished a long shift down in the sewers. Was finishing up my third shower when you texted, luv. Didn’t expect you lot to get here so quickly. Sending?”

  “Subway,” Sally replied.

  He smiled back at her. “I take it you’re the reason for this visit. Mentor Matthias Falcon at your service. Sally Carlsbad, I presume?”

  However, before I could opine whether he’d been snooping magically on us, he added, “Relax, everyone. I simply cross-referenced what Mentor Fenton told me with what we already had on file about the Freewill. No extraordinary cleverness required.” He then turned his focus squarely back to Sally. “Although, judging from your most recent media photos, Miss Carlsbad, I’m going to assume your American cameras tend to add a few years.”

  “Sally is fine,” she replied. “My last name is still up for debate, at least going forward.”

  “Very well, Miss Sally. Please make yourself at home and kindly forgive the mess.”

  I was planning on very much not forgiving any mess as I stepped past him, but then found myself scooping my jaw off the floor.

  Holy shit!

  I’d expected ... well, a warehouse. We’d had one back in the Village Coven days and it looked exactly like you’d expect a warehouse to look, just a wee bit more ominous. I’d expected old shipping crates with a cot off to the side, along with maybe a chemical toilet and a sink – all of which would have at least served to make me feel marginally superior in a petty way.

  Instead, it was like stepping foot into a palatial estate as imagined by the folks who’d built Hogwarts.

  It was as if someone had designed a studio mansion – all the comforts of luxury, but in an open floor layout with an extra dose of freaky thrown in. There was a massive leather couch close by with a large screen TV floating in midair in front of it. An indoor waterfall, of all things, emptied into a crystal clear pool off on one end. And that was just the start. All around us, the trappings of wealth and magic combined into sheer spectacle. There wasn’t even the customary girders and rafters above to break up the illusion. Instead, a bright blue sky complete with blazing sun shone down upon us ... obviously fake as I didn’t immediately turn to dust, but of course not before I flinched in a very unmanly way.

  Goddamnit!

  That alone made it tempting to grab this asshole’s douchetastic mustache and give it as much of a yank as my vampiric strength would allow.

  Before I could let that fantasy play itself out, though, the entire place began to pulse with a greenish yellow glow.

  “Any reason for the disco lights?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from splendor which made Alexander the Great’s old quarters back in Switzerland seem practically humble by comparison.

  “Those are my personal wards,” Falcon replied, sounding far more guarded than he had a moment earlier.

  “No offense, dude,” I said, totally meaning to cause offense, “but if you knew we were coming, why didn’t you shut them off like the outside ones?”

  “I did.”

  Oh. “Just for the record, if I’m about to get vaporized, I totally blame y ... OOF!”

  Before I could finish my pithy accusation, a bolt of blue energy slammed into me, lighting up my nerve endings and dropping me to the floor like a sack of wet shit. My only solace as I hit the rich mahogany flooring – who the fuck installs hardwood in a warehouse – was seeing that same energy envelope Falcon and knock him ass over teakettle to land in a crumbled heap.

  But who...?

  That was answered a moment later, as I managed to turn my head enough to see Christy – still awash with bluish power – throw herself to the floor, her hands laced behind her head as if being arrested ... or ducking for cover.

  What the fuck?

  Sadly, the answer to my unspoken question came in the form of pure devastation, as if God himself had taken affront to Falcon’s abode and decided to smite it with both middle fingers.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  An invisible wave of intense pressure flattened me against the floor, letting up a moment later, only to be replaced by the sound of seemingly everything in this entire fucking place being blown to pieces.

  It was only after it passed that I realized, pride notwithstanding, I was mostly unhurt. I pushed myself to a sitting position to find that only Sally remained standing, a look of shock and confusion etched onto her face.

  All around us, the opulent dockside palace was in shambles. Where there had been rich magical excess mere moments earlier, now there was just a rich magical mess. The TV was busted, the couch was in tatters, and the waterfall now looked more like a cesspool. In fact, the only thing that appeared untouched was the illusion of a clear blue sky far above us. Glass half full and all that shit.

  “Oh crap,” Sally said. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

  “Is everyone okay?” Christy asked, pulling herself to her feet, looking a bit windblown but otherwise unhurt.

  Last to recover – hah – was Falcon, but he had to be all flashy to make up for it.

  “What the bloody hell?!” he cried, standing up, an angry green glow surrounding him – battle magic if I had my colors right.

  Not a great look for him, or us for that matter, if he decided that all of our asses had to die. On the upside, at least it would give me an excuse to pop the guy in his perfect chin.

  His ire, however, appeared directed entirely at Christy, since she seemed to be the culprit behind zapping our asses, for whatever reason. Can’t say I minded having anger pointed elsewhere for a change, but if he thought I was going to just stand there while he went all avada kedavra on her, he had another...

  “I’m sorry about that,” Christy said, raising her hands, “but it was better than the alternative. Believe me.” She indicated the destruction around us which, in all truth, was pretty extreme. It was as if someone had rolled a giant wrecking ball through the place.

  “Explain,” Falcon ordered, his tone not at all to my liking, “and make it good. I will warn you, those weren’t my only wards.”

  Looking around the place, I highly doubted that. Everything the guy owned seemed to have been reduced to a pile of junk more suited to how this place looked on the outside.

  “You knew I was going to blow, didn’t you?” Sally asked.

  Oh shit.

  I remembered what she’d done to Stewart, and that had been over nothing
more than a freaking board game. Yet here was Falcon, lit up like Times Square, flashing colors of a variety that was probably a bit more stressful than asking if we wanted to play Parcheesi.

  Though a small part of me wouldn’t have minded seeing him reduced to a gallon of Magi paint, Christy was right. He was our best bet for figuring out what was going on, for now anyway.

  Fortunately, Sally’s attention seemed entirely focused on Christy for the moment.

  “Mostly,” Christy replied to her. “Not a hundred percent, but I figured worst case was apologizing for a stun spell.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Falcon asked.

  “Um, yeah, what he said,” I added unhelpfully.

  Though I enjoyed being tazed about as much as a swift kick to the balls, Christy’s spell couldn’t have come at a better time. What Sally had done here had utterly dwarfed the comparatively minor blowback of the prior day.

  “Back at my apartment you had a similar ... episode.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

  Christy shrugged then continued. “I’ve been thinking it over, wondering what caused it, and the only thing I keep coming back to is Tina.”

  “Kids are stressful? You don’t say.”

  Sally turned toward me and narrowed her eyes. “Here’s an idea. Maybe let the non-idiots talk for a bit. Go on.”

  “Tina radiates far more ambient magic than a typical witch. She’s like an entire battle-charged coven in one tiny body.”

  “Not following,” I said.

  Much to my consternation, though, Falcon jumped right in with, “Bloody brilliant! My wards...”

  “Exactly. The second I saw them going off, I realized what was happening.”

  “Care to explain for those of us who prefer fighter classes?” I asked, annoyed at the fact that I was playing catch-up again.

  “The wards,” Christy replied. “Deactivated or not, they and this place in general represent a lot of ambient magic in the air.”