Bill of the Dead (Book 2): Everyday Horrors

by Gualtieri, Rick

  Oh yeah, that was helpful.

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Maybe it’s a violation of Falcon’s trust. I’ll give you that. But don’t forget this is the guy who shot you down when...”

  “That’s not the point,” she snapped. “Yes, I was hoping he’d give me access, was angry when he didn’t, but I respected his decision. And since then I’ve been thinking about it and realized he made the right choice. The archives have been kept under the strictest lock and key for millennia, and for good reason. The secrets contained within cannot be allowed to get out, even among our own community. Just because things have changed in the last few years, doesn’t mean those values should change. The information within is still dangerous, perhaps now more than ever. And Matthias was right. My reputation in the Magi community isn’t all that spectacular. What kind of precedent would he be setting by handing over the keys to a...?”

  “Miscreant?” Sally offered. “Undesirable maybe?”

  “Thank you,” Christy replied dryly.

  “Anytime.”

  “So ... you’re not happy?”

  “No, Bill. I am not.” She put a hand on my shoulder, fortunately one that wasn’t glowing with killing magic. “Listen, I know you meant well, and I appreciate the sentiment. But this isn’t the vampire nation, or you pulling one over on the First Coven. These are the Magi, my people. Technically speaking, they could see this as an act of war if they found out about it.”

  “If they found out,” I repeated. “Did I mention the VPN you’re using makes a couple dozen double hops? There’s no way they’ll...” I trailed off as I saw the look on her face. “That’s not making it better is it?”

  “Not really. Like I said, I appreciate the sentiment. It’s sweet ... in a way. But this is something you need to stay away from.” She took both my hands in hers, again with no death magic thankfully. “I know we need to find Ed and help Sally. And these new ... creatures simply add more complications to our already full plates, but we’ll figure it out in our own way. Trust me on this, please.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “Then promise me you won’t do this again.”

  Shit! I glanced Sally’s way out of the corner of my eye and caught her smirking. Bitch. But she at least knew it wasn’t always as simple as that. The truth was, this world of supernatural horrors, the one we all seemed to once again be getting sucked into, was not a nice place. Sometimes it required not nice solutions.

  In order to win. Hell, in order to survive, we occasionally needed to do what had to be done. Taking the high road was all well and good in concept, but sometimes there was no way around the fact that you had to gut a motherfucker in order to stop them.

  At the same time, pissing Christy off wasn’t high on my list, especially since I was already walking on eggshells around her. Besides, this was kind of a specific scenario anyway. I could take one for the team – for her.

  “Fine. No more hacking Magi archives.”

  “No more mucking about in Magi affairs period, not unless you run it past me first. This is for your protection, too. Most of my people aren’t as understanding about these things as I am.”

  Damn it. She was going to hold me over a barrel with this, wasn’t she? “Okay. I promise. Mind you, that doesn’t count if they shoot at me first. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said before leaning in to give me a hug, albeit kind of a curt one.

  Regardless, I took the opportunity to stick my tongue out at Sally. Immature of me, yes, but you use what you have.

  “And whatever you do,” Christy added as she pulled away, “don’t let Matthias know. He won’t ... understand.”

  That was probably an understatement.

  I sat back and chuckled. “Yeah. Safe to say he’s probably already going to be ticked off.”

  “Why? What did you do?”

  I grinned sheepishly. “We might have stopped by his place first. I mean, think about it. We had no working cell phone, were running from werewolves, and Sally disappeared right after her stupid bracelet beeped. There wasn’t much I could do about those first two, but I had no intention of letting that third one pass.”

  “I’m flattered to know I made your top three for the evening,” Sally replied from the wet bar.

  “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “What did you do, Bill?” Christy repeated.

  “It wasn’t just me.”

  Speaking of the devils, my sensitive vampire ears picked up the sound of footsteps walking up the stairs. Seemed our two wayward companions were returning, hopefully without freaking out the already skittish vamps downstairs.

  “I don’t care who was there. Just tell me what you did.”

  “Fine. We may have set off some of his wards getting to his front door.”

  “Some...?”

  “More like all.”

  “Do you realize how insane that is? You could’ve been killed!”

  “This isn’t my first rodeo, you know. Not to mention, Tom finally figured out how to use his powers, sorta anyway.”

  “Sorta?”

  “Good enough to fizzle out everything he touched.”

  To be on the safe side, I took a quick sniff of the air – my paranoia already on its highest setting from this day’s happenings. Sure enough, one of the scents headed this way was Tom. The other smelled like dead...

  He has a distinct scent.

  No idea why my subconscious was pointing that out, but whatever. Maybe Dr. Death was hoping for a new nickname: Captain Obvious.

  But that woman did not.

  Wait, what? I ignored Christy as she continued bitching me out, probably at my own risk, as I considered what I was hearing in my head.

  What woman? The only other person I’d run into tonight, other than Kara, had been that blind chick who...

  I thought back to that moment. It was simply meant to be a nice gesture on my part – helping her across the street – nothing more. But something about it had bothered me afterwards and I didn’t know why.

  At the time, I’d dismissed it as nothing more than me already being on edge. But now, the annoying voice in my head that suddenly seemed to be full of all sorts of useless information was finally chiming in.

  More importantly, Dr. Death was right.

  I remembered taking a breath as we crossed the street, idly analyzing all the scents which had filled my nose, and not realizing she hadn’t given off any.

  My eyes opened wide as I heard her voice in my memory.

  “Is this your way of asking me out?”

  That wasn’t the first time someone had said that to me this week, and I’m not talking about Christy either.

  Shit!

  “...Yes, I admit perhaps he went a little overboard on his protections,” Christy continued, seemingly mid-rant, “but you have to understand his position here. The media has already outed him and he’s a known figure among the Magi. Whoever’s been hunting down those vampires could very well have him in their sights. Taking down his wards might seem a bit of childish revenge, but there could be real world consequences...”

  “I agree,” I interrupted. “In fact, I think we should get over there now.”

  “I’m glad you realize what you did was wrong. But it’s getting late and...”

  “Char,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Isn’t that the name of that boogeyman you were telling us about?” Sally asked. “The one who kicked your...”

  “Boogeywoman,” I corrected. “And no, she didn’t kick my ass ... entirely. But she did dust the shit out of a big ugly motherfucker of a vamp like it was nothing.”

  “What about her?” Christy asked.

  “You’re not going to like this, but I think she was hanging around outside earlier.”

  “No dice, man,” Tom said, stepping through the doorway with Glen hot on his heels.

  “Sorry, Freewill,” Glen added. “But it would seem nobody was home.”

  “What do you mean, nobody
was home? Where the fuck did they go?”

  Tom shrugged. “Do I look like vampire friend-finder to you?”

  “Who cares about that,” Christy cried, dragging me back to the real issue at hand. “This person? You saw her outside and didn’t say anything?”

  “I didn’t realize it was her. It’s just now that it hit me. Her scent, or lack thereof, and something she said about a date.”

  “You asked another chick out?” Tom asked accusingly. “Not cool, dude.”

  “No. It was just something she said.”

  “Who?”

  “That blind woman we met. I think she’s Char. You know, the vampire slayer I told you about.”

  Tom slapped a hand down onto one of Sally’s end tables. “I knew that bitch was faking.”

  “Shit!” I cried as yet another piece of the puzzle fell into place. “And she knew about this building, too.”

  “She knew about my home? How?”

  “Not your home,” I told Sally, “at least not at the time. You were still a hunk of rock. But I tried to recruit her for the coven. Told her she could come here if she needed a place to stay – that we wouldn’t judge her.”

  Tom sighed. “Good job on the Amnesty International speech, dude.”

  “Not helping!”

  “So, who was she here for, Matthias or the coven?” Christy asked, looking both none too pleased and also sweating profusely for some reason. What was up with her?

  “I don’t know. I mean, she knew what we were doing. That we were trying to recruit vamps who didn’t want to be monsters.”

  “Vamps who are apparently no longer in the building, I might add,” Sally said. “Do you think she got in and...?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, turning to Tom. “Any sign of forced entry or piles of dust?”

  He shrugged. “None that I noticed. But we just knocked on a few doors. That’s it. I didn’t realize I needed to play CSI with this shit.”

  “Fuck!”

  “All right then, who do we go after?” Sally asked, trying to be the voice of practicality amidst the chaos. “And before you say anything dumb, Bill, yes I mean we. Wait here.” She walked into her bedroom, returning a moment later with the hand cannon she’d been wielding back at Pop’s. “I hope Ed’s father doesn’t mind that I kept this, because I’m not giving it back.”

  “Probably the least of his worries,” Tom remarked.

  “True.”

  “The best idea is to split up,” Christy said, turning toward me. “You track the...”

  “No,” I interrupted. “Tracking the vamps is a snipe hunt. We don’t know whether they walked out the front door or the sewers. If they went down, it’s going to be nearly impossible to find them on short notice. And if they went the other way, I don’t think we’ll be able to find them before she does. But we know where Falcon’s going. If he’s her target, then maybe we can get there in time to make a difference.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I actually wasn’t, not even remotely. Shit, the fact that she was calling him Matthias again almost made me want to buy ringside seats to watch the smarmy fucker get disemboweled. No! That was the monster inside of me talking. Hungry or not, I needed to be a man about this.

  “I’m certain,” I replied. “I screwed things up for the guy, I admit that. So now it’s time for me to try and make it right again.”

  Hopefully without having to add, “or die trying,” to any of that, because I felt bad, but maybe not that bad.

  PLAYING IN TRAFFIC

  Annoyingly, mobilizing for action meant a good deal of bickering about how exactly to mobilize.

  On the upside, it was at least kind of comforting to know that some things were probably never going to change for us.

  First thing we did was have Christy try to call Falcon – getting no answer, of course, because why would things ever be that easy?

  That done, the quickest and likely smartest route was for us to let Christy apparate us to the docks or at least the surrounding neighborhood. Reappearing inside Falcon’s glamour could be tricky, especially if we missed any of his wards. I didn’t think we had but wasn’t willing to bet my life on it.

  The problem with that idea – as it tended to be – was Tom. Friggy powers or not, he was still the Icon, and Icons tended to play havoc with magical teleportation.

  Christy suggested scouting ahead, but I ixnayed that. Bottom line was Char was dangerous, more dangerous than a freshly turned vamp should be. Christy herself was scary as fuck when she wanted to be, but it wasn’t wise to pop in blind against an opponent who ... err ... pretended to be blind. Well, either way, I didn’t like it, not when Falcon’s place was relatively close by as it was.

  “Fine,” Christy said at last, looking strangely winded. “But I’ll still have to meet you there. And no, I’m not asking.”

  “What do you mean? And seriously what’s up with you tonight? One moment you go all power nap, the next you look like you just ran the Boston marathon.”

  Christy, however, ignored me in favor of Glen. “I hate to ask this, but can you babysit again for a bit tonight?”

  “After we confront this wicked charred vampire?” Glen bubbled hopefully.

  “No. Right now.”

  Suddenly a thought hit me and I stepped between them. “Wait a second. Who’s watching Tina?”

  “I am,” Christy replied, “but I can’t keep doing that and help out at the same time.”

  “Whoa, back up a second. What does that even mean?”

  Seeing that I wasn’t backing off easily, she apparently decided that explaining was the quickest way we were getting anything done.

  “When Sally called, I wasn’t about to leave her high and dry, but it’s not like I have a lot of sitter options for Tina these days ... and, no offense, but I couldn’t risk bringing her with me.”

  “Trust me,” Sally replied, “None taken. The last thing I want is to put her in danger ... or level the building.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Wait. That’s what Falcon was talking about earlier, right, when he was blathering about incantations?”

  “Yes. To a non-Magi it probably looks like I’m resting my eyes, but someone trained in the art wouldn’t be fooled for a second.”

  “Fooled by what?” Tom asked.

  “That I was splitting my consciousness between here and home.”

  “Holy shit! You can do that?”

  She nodded, sweating even more copiously now. “Yes, but not easily and not for long. There’s a ... glamour of me back home, mimicking my moves and voice here. Guess I got too loud at some point and woke her up. Either way, I’m not exactly winning any mother of the year awards right now.”

  “Are you kidding?” Tom replied. “That’s fucking wild!”

  She shrugged, but then offered him a tired grin. “Maybe, but it’s also exhausting. So, please let me do what I need to do, so I can join you all at the pier.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “No offense, but you look beat. Why don’t you sit this one out? I mean, usually I’m happy to take whatever help I can get, but we’re talking about one vampire here. I think we’ve got enough firepower between the rest of us to stop her and save Bird Brain’s butt.”

  She shook her head. “If it was anyone else, I might agree. But I think it’s best if I ... remain our liaison to Matthias. No offense, Bill, but...”

  “You suck at this shit,” Tom finished for her.

  Sadly, she didn’t disagree.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Christy zapped out of there with Glen a few moments later, the plan being for her to drop him off at her apartment then meet us outside the docks.

  Glen wasn’t too pleased being relegated to the position of guard dog but, in all honesty, there didn’t seem to be a lot he could bring to the table for this mission – other than looking gross.

  With any luck, we could talk this Char person down. When I’d first met her, I didn’t get the impression she was a total psycho. Maybe a b
it, mind you, but not in a spirit of vengeance sort of way. I mean, sometimes all you needed to do was convince someone to switch to decaf.

  If not, well, we were going in hot. I don’t care how quiet she was or how little scent she gave off, she was still nothing more than a lone vampire. As for us, we had the Freewill, the Icon, a witch, and whatever the fuck Sally was. And that wasn’t even counting Falcon. Not saying this was going to be easy, but the truth of the matter was we were bringing multiple tanks to a knife fight.

  Good thing, too, because this Freewill was just about out of gas.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The walk back to Falcon’s pier was near maddening. Even so, it was better than taking the train. Ignoring that it was out regardless, on account of Sally sporting a gun big enough to kill the moon, being stuck in an underground tin can with walking bags of sweet, sweet blood was too much of a risk for me in my current state.

  The people we passed on the street were tempting enough as it was. Pretty sure I was copiously drooling by the time we got close to Falcon’s place.

  Forget saving this wizard. He’d be lucky if I didn’t fucking eat him.

  “So what’s the plan?” Tom asked, distracting me from thoughts of noshing on some smarmy British cuisine.

  “Um, we stop this Char chick.”

  “Good job, Rommel,” Sally opined. “If that isn’t a hell of a strategy, I don’t know what is.”

  “Do you have anything fucking better?”

  I didn’t really mean to snap at her. If anything, I was hoping she actually did have a better plan. Back during our Village Coven days, original not neo, Sally had always been the resourceful one, thinking several steps ahead. I was more the make shit up on the fly guy, something that didn’t always serve me well.

  At least both my hands were mostly functional by now. That was something. Too bad the extra energy required to heal hadn’t done the rest of me any good.

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a total dick, but it’s been a long night. What I meant is, do you have any insight I might’ve missed, so we can make this an easy in and out job?”