Bill of the Dead (Book 2): Everyday Horrors

by Gualtieri, Rick

Shaking my head, I turned back to where Glen lay. “We don’t know what that would do to him. Your powers, the good parts anyway, mostly work on humans. The rest, it’s meant to kill guys like me and him. I don’t think...”

  “Ugh ... Freewill?” a weak burbling voice asked from inside the dead dog.

  “Glen?”

  “I ... I think...”

  “Yeah, buddy?” I asked, leaning down toward him.

  “I think ... I found one of those Magi wards.”

  The crumpled corpse of the dog began to shudder in front of me, its legs straightening out as a pair of eyes bulged out from the semi-charred skull of the dead Irish Setter. The body continued to contort and jerk, until finally it lurched unsteadily to its feet – three of them anyway.

  I backed up to give him room. “You’re okay?”

  “Dude,” Tom said. “That was hardcore.”

  “Thank you, Icon,” Glen replied, if possible looking even more disgusting now than he had. “Although, I fear I may need to consider a new disguise.”

  No shit. “Don’t worry about that.” I knelt down in front of him. “The important thing is you’re okay. You are okay, aren’t you?”

  There came the sound of bubbling from inside the dog’s body, pretty fucking gross if we’re being honest here. At last, though, he replied, “Nothing appears broken, although I must admit that was most unpleasant. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not experience being blown up again.”

  “No complaints here. Don’t scare us like that, okay?”

  He stared up at me from the now nightmarish dog corpse, as if someone had decided the world needed a fan film mashup of Old Yeller meets The Living Dead. He’d been borderline gross before. But now there was no way he was walking around in that thing without attracting a whole shit ton of unwanted attention.

  “I suppose I should air this out a bit for now.” A few moments later, the dog opened its mouth and the entirety of Glen came puking out of it. The dog body deflated and fell to the ground, leaving a pulsing mass of gooey eyeballs looking up at us.

  A few of his eyes appeared to be blackened and, in some spots, his normal unhealthy mustard color was now a bit darker, but he otherwise seemed to be in reasonable shape for an amorphous pile of snot.

  “Much better,” he bubbled. “Although if it’s all the same to you, perhaps I’ll stand guard out here while you lead the charge forward.”

  That seemed a reasonable decision. I had a feeling we’d gotten lucky and he’d hit a stun ward, although it was a hell of a stun ward if you asked me. Nevertheless, I didn’t care to press our luck again – at least with him.

  Speaking of pressing our luck, though, I stood and turned around. Both the city street behind us as well as the warehouse at the far end of the dock appeared quiet.

  Guess the glamour was still holding. That was good. As for Falcon himself, I don’t know. Maybe he was sleeping, or locked in his bathroom jerking off to thoughts of Christy...

  Okay, I really didn’t need to go much farther than that.

  This fucker had fitted Sally with that goddamned bracelet. That had been bad enough. But if he was in there, posh British cock in hand, muttering about how utterly marvelous it would be to plow my girlfriend at teatime, there was going to be hell to pay.

  But first we had to get there.

  “All right,” I said, preparing myself for the hurt to come. “Glen, you stay and keep watch. Tom...” Was I really going to say this? Yeah, I was. “You’re with me. Here’s the plan.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Okay, it really wasn’t much of a plan, but that was fine. In programming it was well known that sticking to the KISS method – in which one kept it simple, stupid – was often the way to go. Leave the in-depth planning to the Navy SEALs, I say. For this, we only needed to wipe out as many of Falcon’s wards as possible – as it was painfully obvious the welcome mat was no longer rolled out – and make it to his door before he could make an appearance and go all Lord Voldemort on us from afar.

  As far as ranged combat went, Magi definitely had the advantage over vampires. But I had an ace up my sleeve in the form of the Icon – the being who’d singlehandedly wiped out their race, until Gan came along anyway. Before now, I probably wouldn’t have considered Tom a plus in any plan, but with him having discovered a trigger mechanism for his power – a trigger which I now realized shouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest – we had a chance.

  “Now!” I shouted, taking off at a full run on the left, while Tom screamed out “Thundercats Ho!” over on the right flank, causing his aura to light up around him.

  Whatever worked.

  Years ago, Sheila and I had carried out a similar plan against a group of witches holed up in the Bunker Hill Monument outside of Boston. It was simplicity itself. I attempted to set off the wards nearest me, but at vampire speed, so that I was hopefully already out of range when they went off.

  Over on his end of things, Tom adopted a far more casual pace, moving through what we’d guessed to be the center of the magical minefield, his powers causing the wards in range to sputter and fail.

  The smart thing would’ve been to let him take the lead and follow at a safe distance, but I wasn’t dick enough to let him face all the danger alone. Not to mention, I considered it a piss poor strategy for us to group up, just in case Falcon made an appearance. True, his powers likely wouldn’t work against Tom but, as any gamer worth their salt knew, staying too close together was practically begging to be hit with every area of effect spell in the Player’s Handbook.

  When in doubt, always go for the flank bonus.

  I glanced over, happy to see things working on his end. With every step he took, something would light up – whether on the ground or in the air itself – then pulse and fizzle out.

  Even outside of any doomsday prophecies, I could understand why the Magi might not be particularly fond of Icons.

  Sadly, on my end, things were a bit different. Last time I’d done this, it had been in a magical forest, offering me tons of cover as shit blew up around me.

  Here, I was out in the open, exposed as chunks of asphalt exploded from quite literally beneath my feet, my vampire reflexes being the only thing keeping me from being turned into a pile of something that resembled Glen’s disguise.

  The upside was that the wards at the periphery of Falcon’s defenses seemed designed more to stun or scare than outright maim and kill. Christy had mentioned as much, and I’d also gotten that sense after seeing how Glen had fared. Though I had no idea how much punishment a pile of sentient eyeball goo could take, I felt fairly confident in assuming we’d still be squeegeeing him up had killing magic been involved.

  That said, a small part of me felt shitty sending Tom in to deal with the hardcore stuff. However, his powers were best suited to it.

  Of course, hardcore was a relative concept, especially as I set off one ward, leaping into the air a moment before the asphalt beneath me erupted in blue lightning, only to accidentally slam into one of the invisible midair sigils.

  A gust of tornado velocity air blasted into my chest from seemingly nowhere, slamming me into the ground hard enough to make me wish my parents had used birth control. Ouch.

  “Go, Freewill! You’ve got this!”

  Not wishing to disappoint my cheering section, I flashed Glen a shaky thumbs up, then pulled myself unsteadily to my feet.

  The only plus was that the momentary nap had given me a chance to rethink my strategy.

  Based on both past experience and discussions I’d had with Christy, I got the impression Magi wards could get disturbingly specific if so desired. However, doing so required more work on the casting mage’s part. Access to a hoity-toity archive of forbidden magic aside, Falcon had only recently come to New York. Yet the pier before us was practically drenched in defensive magic.

  I didn’t consider myself a betting man, but I was willing to wager that so many wards placed in such little time meant that he’d taken a whol
esale approach to them. These weren’t magical smart bombs so much as a shitload of eldritch landmines, happy to blow up for anyone or anything that set them off.

  The thing with landmines, though, was those crazy enough to employ them probably didn’t want them going off every time a mouse took a shit on one. A certain amount of pressure was needed. Seemed a logical guess that these were the same, otherwise Falcon would be out here with a mop every time a fucking pigeon flew past.

  Now to test that theory.

  I grabbed a few chunks of asphalt from the surrounding area, there being no shortage to be had. My best baseball days were well behind me, in that I’d never had any good days to begin with, but skill wasn’t necessary here. All I needed were heavy enough pieces thrown with sufficient force.

  I let fly with the first chunk, jumping in surprise when a purplish dome of energy – some kind of magical cage – sprung up around it.

  Yes!

  Glancing toward the warehouse, I saw no sign of a response from our host. Fuck it. The plan had been to make our way to his doorstep as quickly as possible, but maybe there was a bit of time to really rain on his parade.

  I glanced down at the rocks in my hands. I’d found the combination to this asshole’s safe. Now it was time to make off with the spoils.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “It’s about time you got here.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Tom had the easy job, just moseying along like his shit didn’t stink. I guess Falcon hadn’t anticipated a Shining One waltzing in and utterly decimating his hard work. If he had, maybe he’d have laid a few actual landmines.

  Things had been a bit more hit and run on my end, but eventually I’d made it to the warehouse entrance – breathing hard but with minimal damage to my person.

  I waved over to where Glen still waited. “All clear if you want to head over.”

  “I’m good, thanks!” he called back.

  To each their own.

  I turned back toward the door leading inside. “Ladies first.”

  He casually flipped me the finger. “Age before beauty, fucker.”

  “Immortality before assholes you mean.” I grinned then stepped up to the door.

  Subtlety had already been damned so, rather than knock, I kicked the door open with a loud bang.

  “Yoo-hoo! Anyone home?”

  “You are such a dick, dude,” Tom said with a chuckle.

  “If you’d seen the way this guy was shamelessly flirting with Christy, you’d be up for some property damage, too.”

  “Fuck that noise. It’s bad enough I got you putting the moves on my girl – unsuccessfully I might add. No way is this wrong-side of the street driving, scone-sucking dickhead getting away with that shit.”

  “I know this is probably a bad time to have that talk, but you do realize you no longer have the ... um ... equipment she prefers, right?”

  Tom looked at me as if his opinion of my intelligence had dropped several notches. “Seriously? That’s why they make strap-ons.”

  “And suddenly I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  I stepped inside, noting the place was still pretty trashed from my last visit. Guess that explained how I was able to kick in the door and yet still continue breathing.

  “Whoa. What a fucking shithole,” Tom said from behind me. “What the fuck happened here?”

  “Sally happened.”

  “No way. Did she do that thing again?”

  “Yeah. She did that thing ... times about a hundred.”

  “That’s some kaioken level shit right there.”

  “Damned straight.”

  “So where is this Frieza fucking asshole anyway?”

  “No idea.”

  I stepped in further and looked around, reaching out with my senses. Someone’s scent still lingered in the air – probably Falcon’s – but it was just that, lingering, not fresh. I was still catching up on the nuances of having vampire powers again, but if I had to guess I’d say it had probably been a few hours since he’d been here.

  Fuck!

  Although, truthfully, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The reality was, if Falcon had been here, he’d have likely made his presence known the second Glen tripped his first ward.

  But I realized that was okay. It might be petty, but a part of me was glad we’d trashed his defenses. The asshole had been dismissive to both me and Christy, treating her like a second-rate criminal even. Then there’d been that fucking house arrest bracelet he’d slapped on Sally – the one which had shunted her off to god knows where. For all I knew, she was even now being tortured in some Magi dungeon, all because Captain Mustache had deemed her a probable threat.

  What a dick head. Where had he been when the rest of us had risked life and limb – and in Tom’s case more – to save the world? Where had he been when a bunch of mages had gone rogue, allying themselves with Gan so as to unleash some godforsaken monstrosity on the world? Nowhere that mattered apparently. Instead, he’d waltzed into our city like he owned the place, tossed around a few potatoes, and pretty much declared himself Duke of New York.

  Fuck that noise.

  I spun and kicked over a bookshelf, already teetering on edge against the wall.

  “So we’re fucking this place up even more?” Tom asked.

  “Debating it.”

  “Let me know, man, because I could use the practice.”

  I was about to tell him to have fun when a thought hit me. “Hey. How come when I get superpowers, you’re all gung-ho to set me on fire, but when you get them, it’s fun stuff like blowing shit up? Care to explain that?”

  “Twenty bucks?”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Back when you first became a bloodsucker, Ed bet me twenty bucks that you wouldn’t be stupid enough to let us do all that shit to you. He was wrong and I got paid. That is what we in finance call a perfect day.”

  “You assholes made a bet about whether or not I’d let you kill me?”

  “I may be the one with the vag these days, Bill, but you, sir, are eternally the bigger pussy. I mean, fuck all that. You heal like a motherfucker. You don’t even have any scars to show for it, unlike me, I might add.”

  “What scars?”

  “The ones I had ... before I figured out how to get rid of them.”

  I sighed and put my face in my hands, partial hands anyway. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “So, are we going to trash this place or what?”

  “Or what. He’s not here, so there isn’t much point.”

  “Okay, so what now?”

  “No idea. I’m kind of hitting a dead end.” I looked around, unsure of our next move, but then spotted something on the floor that had somehow been spared Sally’s wrath. “But maybe not everyone is.”

  I bent to retrieve the cordless phone handset sticking out from beneath a pile of debris. It was a longshot, but maybe the base was still plugged in.

  I hit the talk button and, amazingly enough, heard a dial tone. Yes! Finally, a bit of luck that wasn’t entirely bad. I held it up to show Tom but noticed him wandering further into the once regal warehouse.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To this asshole’s bedroom.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m gonna leave a used tampon in his pillowcase.”

  “I thought you borrowed a pad from Kara.”

  “Dude, they’re all tampons as far as I’m concerned. So, you in?”

  I shrugged. “It’s both gross and childish.”

  “I know.”

  I considered this for a moment. “Have fun!” Then I dialed Christy’s number.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Thank goodness,” I replied. “It’s me.”

  “Bill? Where the hell have you been?”

  “It’s a long story, trust me on that. Listen, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. It’s Sally I’m worried about. She’s...”

  “She’s right here beside me.”

/>   “Wait. She is?”

  THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

  Christy gave me the Cliff’s Notes version of things. Long story short, she along with Falcon – of course – were both at Sally’s place, where Sally had materialized some hours earlier.

  They’d apparently been trying to get a hold of Tom and me ever since – not helped by us being phoneless, on the move, and with Tom’s now functional powers futzing up their attempts to scry us.

  Mindful of who was there with her, I decided to keep it vague. “My phone died and I totally forgot about Tom’s powers. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. The important thing is you’re both okay. What about...”

  “Kara’s good, too. She’s with Pop. They’re heading to Cape May.”

  “Why?”

  “Um, just a little vacation. Y’know, to get away from it all. I’ll explain when I get there.”

  “Where are you now?”

  I glanced around the trashed, now wardless warehouse. “We’re ... not too far away. I ... borrowed someone’s cell to call you.” I pulled away from the headset a bit. “Oh? What’s that. You need it back? Listen, Christy. I’ve got to go. We’re heading over now. Be there in a bit. Bye.”

  I ended the call, then tossed the handset away, hearing it clatter as it landed in a pile of something that looked like it was once a love seat. I mean, it’s not like I was really messing up the place worse than it already was.

  Tom rejoined me a moment later.

  “Let’s head out, man. Everyone is at Sally’s place. You good?”

  He grinned at me. “The package has been delivered.”

  I allowed myself a petty chuckle and then we stepped out into the night air to collect our friend.

  Glen was back in his gross dog suit, waiting outside the chain link fence for our return.

  “All good out here, buddy?” Somehow, I managed to resist the urge to pat his mangled head.

  “Bark!”

  “Shall I take that as a yes?”

  “Indeed, Freewill. I spotted a few shifty characters lurking in the shadows but made sure to let them know I was standing here in faithful vigil.”