I could have sworn Firebird’s eyes momentarily flashed at my mention of that, but it was only in my periphery - her other parts being far more interesting.
“It was Sally’s suggestion,” Starlight replied. “She thought it sounded more intimidating.”
“Well, every little bit helps,” Firebird snidely commented.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Betty?”
“Betty?” I asked. Who the hell was...
Firebird stood, her fur obviously ruffled. She pointed one painted fingernail at Starlight. “You don’t get to call me that.”
To my surprise, Star didn’t back down. “I can call you whatever I so please. I’m in charge here.”
“Only on paper. That whore may have handed control over to you, but if you think you’re my superior in any way, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Well, this was interesting. I turned toward Ed and mouthed, “Chick fight.”
His look indicated he’d been thinking the same thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted some answers. Even so, I’d be hard pressed to turn down a good floor show. I mean, we had all day to shoot the shit. If these two wanted to have a knock-down, clothes-tearing brawl in the meantime, then who was I to step in?
Alas, Monkhbat didn’t feel the same. Firebird took one step toward Starlight and he rose to his feet, the menace clear in his eyes. She immediately backed off. I’d never seen her get into a scrap before, and I doubted she wanted to start with a Mongolian assassin.
Oh well, so much for that. “Okay, I’m gonna assume the whore in question is Sally. So is it safe to guess that your new position isn’t a result of some challenge?”
“Of course not, Bill,” Starlight replied, her tone somewhat wounded. “I would never challenge Sally.”
“Like a good little lapdog,” Firebird spat.
“Like you would?” Star fired back. “I seem to recall her clawing the eyes out of your skull before she left.”
Firebird’s fangs descended in response, but after a moment, she regained control. “It’s late and I’m tired. I’m going to the back for a quick shower and then heading to bed.” She turned toward me and inclined her head respectfully. “It is a pleasure to have you back, oh honored Freewill.”
I was definitely digging the tone of her voice and found myself sorely tempted to ask if she needed any company. Hell, as coven master, I could just insis...oh wait. I wasn’t coven master anymore, was I?
Oh well. I watched her slink out of the room before turning to Starlight and forcing myself to focus again. “So how did this all come about?”
“After you disappeared, Sally had Boston declare her the acting master in your stead. I think James backed her up on that one, so it all happened pretty quickly. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she left on what I thought was just a trip - you know, something to clear her head. A few days later, she called to tell me she was staying. Turns out she’d somehow taken control of another coven...”
“She did? Where?”
“Pandora Coven in Las Vegas. I hear they run...”
“Wait? Pandora? That wouldn’t be Pandora’s Box, the strip club, would it?”
“You know about it?”
Hell, yeah, I knew about it. Last time I’d been out there, enjoying a free trip with my parents while they lost a ton of money at the Luxor, one of the casino guards had told me about it - said it was a wild place. Unfortunately, it was also pretty exclusive. I couldn’t get in the goddamned door. Albeit, now that I knew it was a vampire den, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Who the fuck knew what might have happened...well, aside from several naked strippers grinding their crotches in my face...
“So, you’re telling me that Sally left to manage a strip club full of vampires?”
“More or less.”
I had to sit down, unsure whether to laugh or be pissed off. After all we’d been through, she’d just up and ditched Village Coven - right at the start of fucking Armageddon, too. On the other hand, there was something amusing about her reverting to type. I briefly wondered if she wasn’t both the manager and star attraction. After this shit with Dave was cleared up, maybe I owed it to myself to pay a visit there...with a pocket full of singles, of course.
“The other coven was too far away for her to run both, so she had to give up control of this one. I was as surprised as anyone when she named me as the new master.” She lowered her voice to a bare whisper. “Especially since Firebird is older. According to the usual rules...”
“Sally must have had her reasons.” The truth was she probably didn’t have many other choices. Of our former coven, only Starlight, Firebird, and Sally’s hairdresser Alfonso remained. Star at least had the advantage of knowing all the administrative aspects of how things were run. Speaking of the others, though... “Where’s Alfonso?”
“Sally flew him out to be with her.”
“Of course.”
“But she left Monkhbat here with me. He’s been a godsend. None of the others want to mess with him.”
She threw him a look of gratitude, to which he simply replied, “I humbly serve.”
What the fuck was he doing here anyway? That was definitely my next order of business. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to be a little respectful first, though. “I’m sorry about your master.”
He raised a brow quizzically. Maybe he didn’t understand what I was saying.
I made it a point to speak slower. “I am sorry about what happened to Gansetseg.”
When I still didn’t get any sense of comprehension out of him, I turned to Starlight. “Can you please tell him that I’m sorry that Gan got killed?”
“Oh, Gan isn’t dead.”
My eyeballs practically shot out of my skull at that revelation. “She isn’t?!”
“No. She’s the one who left Monkhbat behind to help us rebuild.”
Oh shit. Whatever guilt I’d felt over Gan’s death was immediately replaced with that basest of emotions...raw fucking fear. “You mean she’s fine?”
“Yes.”
“Is she here?”
“No. She flew back to her home, but she left him to be her eyes and ears.”
That didn’t quite ease the sensation of my skin crawling. I turned to Monkhbat and forced a friendly smile. “I don’t suppose you could keep my return a secret?”
His response was to match my expression. “The princess will be pleased.”
“Need any help reserving the reception hall?” Ed asked.
“Bite me, asshole.”
“I think she’ll be doing that soon enough.”
I faced him, ready to say several rude things about his lineage, when a sharp intake of breath interrupted my train of thought.
It hadn’t come from anyone partaking in the conversation. That meant only one thing.
I looked down to see a pair of black eyes staring up at me. Newly grown fangs protruded from the mouth below them.
Dave was awake.
I’m Walking on Sunshine
Dave looked around for a moment, confusion evident on his face, then he hissed at us all. There was no doubt he’d woken up hungry. I worried for a moment that he might do something stupid, but then his expression changed as sparks flew from his skewered hand.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Being stabbed sucks. Trust me, I know. Being stabbed with silver sucks infinitely more when you’re a vampire. Something about it reacts badly with our blood, explosively so. It also tends to retard our healing. Thus, I felt safe bending down to wrench it from his hand. The wound would be hard for him to ignore for some time.
I turned to Starlight, ready to bark out an order, but then remembered I was no longer in charge. Oddly enough, it felt pretty damned liberating to be relieved of command. “Star, do you think maybe I could get a towel and a few pints of blood?” My stomach rumbled, reminding me that my sampling of John had been the first real sustenance I’d gotten since
returning to the states. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I got too hungry, but it was potentially a bad idea to try and find out. “Maybe a few extra for me as well?”
Rather than tell me to go fuck myself as most vamps - Sally included - would probably do, she gave a quick nod and walked toward the back.
“A few Band-Aids while you’re at it,” Ed yelled after her.
“Goddamn, this hurts.”
I turned back to where Dave sat, cradling his hand. The blood from the wound had stained his shirt, but at least it wasn’t combusting anymore.
“Doctors make the worst patients,” I quipped, handing the dagger back to its owner.
Dave’s eyes had returned to normal and recognition flashed in them at the sight of me. “What the hell is going on, Bill? I feel...”
“Sorta off?”
“That’s an understatement. Why am I here? And why is my hand bleeding like a stuck pig?”
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. What you can do is get me something to clean this wound out with and then start explaining.”
“Yeah, about that...”
“What?”
I opened my mouth, not sure where to start.
“I can feel a horrible death heading Kelvin’s way, Bill.”
Ed chuckled - the dick - but I gritted my teeth and ignored him. “Let’s just say you really don’t have to worry about infection anymore.”
“Why?”
“What do you remember before waking up here?”
“A lot of fucked-up dreams about being picked up and dropped.”
“Um...before that.”
“Oh, I’d been taking tissue samples from that head you gave me. I was just about to saw it open to get to the brain when the damn thing opened its eyes.”
“You were sawing its skull open?” Ed asked.
“Sure, why not?” He turned to my roommate and sniffed the air. “Hey, are you wearing aftershave? Smells...oddly appetizing.”
Uh oh. “Let’s focus here.” I snapped my fingers in front of Dave’s eyes. “About the head...”
“Yeah, surprised the shit out of me. But it was awesome, too. Survival post-decapitation. I mean, I knew you guys had some serious recuperative abilities, but that shit was beyond anything I ever expected.”
“Us guys.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Go on.”
“Anyway, I wasn’t sure how extensive it was - he looked in pretty rough shape. So I dumped out my fish tank...”
“You have fish?”
“Not anymore. Anyway, I did the best I could with the materials on hand. I immersed it in a solution of plasma and saline. The reaction was almost instantaneous.”
“Reaction?”
“Spontaneous regeneration. The damn thing soaked up that solution like a sponge. I stepped out to use the can and came back to find an extra fifteen inches of spinal cord growing out of its neck, and it didn’t stop there.”
“I can imagine.”
“That’s when I called you. I was going out of my mind with the possibilities...”
“And then what happened?” Even though I asked the question, I’d pretty much already filled in the blanks. What happened had beaten the shit out of me, my roommate, and his car. What happened had chased us for a mile and ran us down. What happened had put my formerly living friend into his current state.
“I figured I’d refill the tank and hit the hay after sealing things up for the night. When I got my stuff together and looked up, though, I saw it had partially regrown an arm and then...”
Dave trailed off, and reached up to his throat with his uninjured hand. It didn’t take a PhD in psychoanalysis to see he was piecing together the rest. He pressed two fingers to his carotid artery to check for a pulse, kept them there for several seconds, then sighed. “Did I at least have a nice funeral?”
“I didn’t get a chance to send flowers.”
“We were too busy getting our asses kicked,” Ed added.
Dave smiled and once more gave my roommate the once over. Where the hell was Star with that blood?
“Is it safe to assume since I’m here that you eventually won?”
“Sorta,” I muttered, finding something interesting on the far wall to stare at.
“What happens now?”
“You stay here.”
“I have an apartment, you know. A job...good thing I’m on the night shift.”
“You can’t go back yet.”
“Why? Is this some vampire thing?”
“No, it’s kind of a police thing...as in they’re probably crawling all over the place right now. We may have trashed it a little bit saving you.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Starlight finally returned with a small cooler full of blood packs, as well as a washcloth and a small medical kit. Ed made good use of the kit - taping some gauze to his neck. Surprisingly, it didn’t look all too bad once he’d cleaned it off. Dave wrapped the towel around his still oozing hand, then looked at me questioningly when I popped open the cooler.
“Help yourself.”
“This is kinda weird.”
“Pretend you’re that necromancer you had us hunt down in the mountains of black ice.”
“I’m not sure I want to.”
I bent down and looked him in the eye. “Yes, you do. I’ve seen the way you’ve been eyeing the lone human here. It’s either this or I put a leash on you.”
He tentatively reached for one of the packs, looking at it for a moment. His fangs descended out of pure instinct and all indecision fled his face. He hungrily tore into the plastic, sucking it dry within moments and making a mess out of things. Watching him reminded me of my own first hours as a vamp, except that I’d been forced to cut my new teeth on a sweaty naked guy.
“Pretty good, eh?”
Lust for more shone in his eyes, but he managed to restrain himself. “It was...okay. I think the donor was a little anemic.”
“Show off.”
“Is this really how you do it?”
“Nope.” I grabbed a pack of my own and picked up a pair of scissors from a nearby desk. Neatly snipping it open, I took a sip. “I’m not a fucking slob.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Between the two of us, we polished off the cooler. It felt good to be running on a full tank again. Once that was done, Starlight procured some clean clothes for Dave - no doubt appropriated from a previous victim. I told him to go wait in the back so he could shower off once Firebird was done - warning him against sneaking a peek. No fucking way was he getting more of a show on his first day as a vamp than I had in far too long of a time.
The immediate crisis over, the rest of us took a moment to breathe. Monkhbat took up a post near the door. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist anyway. Hell, he was probably just waiting for the moment when he could send a carrier pigeon, or whatever, to let Gan know I was back.
Ed had meandered over to the window and looked down on the city below while Starlight and I both grabbed a seat.
“Are there any openings left in Village Coven, Star?”
“A few. Before she left, Sally had brought us pretty close to quota. Since then, Firebird has added a few others too.”
“With your blessing?”
Her glare was all the answer I needed. “She’s older than me, so she naturally assumed she’d be next in line. That’s usually the way it works.”
“It didn’t work that way with me.”
“I know, and Sally was pretty adamant about it - more so, even. In fact, she had a few choice words to say about Firebird.”
I shrugged. Sally often had choice words for a lot of people.
“Wonder what’s going on down there.”
“Huh?”
“Down on the street,” Ed said from the window. “I’m seeing a lot of flashing lights.”
“It’s New York. Something is always burning, being rob
bed, or getting shot at.” I turned back to Starlight. “So anyway, do you think you could take Dave in?”
“Don’t you mean we?”
I raised my eyebrows, waiting for her to continue. “Oh, come on, Bill. This is your coven. I don’t care what Boston says. You were never beaten in fair combat and never stepped down. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve just been keeping your seat warm.”
“Kind of like the Stewards of Gondor?”
Starlight looked confused, but Ed chuckled from where he still stood. “Safe to say, I’d take her over Denethor any day of the week.”
“Same here, bro,” I replied.
“But you sure as shit ain’t no Aragorn.”
“Hells, no. I’d have banged Eowyn before heading home to Arwen.”
“Like you’d have a chance with either of them.”
“Okay,” Starlight interrupted, “I have no idea what you two are talking about. Is that a yes or a no?”
I hesitated to reply. Truthfully, I didn’t mind being outside of the management hierarchy. Hell, the only thing being Village Coven master had done for me was get my ass kicked several times over. It might have been easier to swallow had I access to all the benefits as well, but Sally had kept a tight rein on things.
Then again, she wasn’t around, was she? No, she was off taking her cut from the g-strings of Vegas strippers. Grrrr. The very thought steamed me. How the hell did she somehow wind up with all the cool gigs? Oh well, there were far more pressing questions at that moment. “Do I get the Black Amex?”
Starlight looked as if I’d asked an incredibly stupid question. “Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”
“Um...no reason.” I took a moment to spare a thought in Sally’s direction. Bitch! “Well, if you insis...”
The building rumbled slightly and the glass in the windows rattled enough to divert my attention.
“Whoa.”
I turned to Ed. “What is it?”
“There’s a lot of smoke down below - like something blew up.”
“Oh?” I replied, not overly concerned. “Gas main?”
“Maybe. Hard to say from up here.”
“Well, let me know if you see a hundred-foot-tall marshmallow man.” I turned back toward Starlight. She was a much more pleasant form to hold my attention anyway. “Do you think the others will have any problems with it?”
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 (Goddamned Freaky Monsters, Half A Prayer, The Wicked Dead, The Last Coven) Page 16
