The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 (Goddamned Freaky Monsters, Half A Prayer, The Wicked Dead, The Last Coven)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Seeing all I needed, I ducked back in. There was just enough sunlight streaming through the clouds to make my day unpleasant otherwise. Also, I didn’t want anyone to see me staring at the scene below. I had little doubt that whatever landed would soon be easily vacuumed up, but there were still lots of lights flashing from whatever had blown up earlier. I didn’t fancy any confrontations that might end with my ass being hauled downtown for questioning.

  I had more important things to attend to.

  My hope was that Hercules’s hold on my friends would end with his death, but the whole compulsion thing was still a bit fuzzy to me. I couldn’t take that chance.

  With any luck, Ed had reached the lobby and bolted for the exit. Starlight and the others couldn’t follow him there. Even if their orders bade them to do so, the pain of imminent immolation would definitely snap them back to reality. Compulsion was a powerful tool, but strong enough emotions could break its hold.

  It was probably also not a grand idea to stay where I was. There had been a lot of commotion, as well as really fucking loud gunfire. Surely one of the other tenants had noticed. It was time to vacate the premises.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I stepped to the stairwell door just as the elevator dinged open at my floor.

  What the hell? There was no way he was still alive. Even if there was, why would he be taking the elevator back up? It was probably Starlight and the others returning now that Muscle-Boy’s hold over them was gone.

  Still, a little paranoia had served me well in the past. I assumed a defensive stance as the doors opened.

  A guy about my age, maybe six inches shorter, stood inside. He was in a bit better shape than me - well, okay, a lot better shape. He wore jeans, a jacket, and sported a Phoenix Suns shirt underneath. The irony of showing up to a vampire-owned floor wearing something like that was not lost upon me.

  He took a casual step out of the elevator, put his phone back in his pocket, and stopped in his tracks as the scene before him sank in. On any other day, the office looked just like what it was called. Today, it looked like - well, like an ancient vampire had just waged a one-man war in it.

  His eyes focused on me and widened. Go figure. I probably looked about as good as I felt. Oh yeah, and I was also still holding Sally’s hand cannon. Such a scene might seem just a wee bit suspicious to an outsider.

  “Um...I think I got the wrong floor,” he muttered as he backpedaled. The doors began to close and his hand immediately went for the pocket where he’d just deposited his phone.

  Oh, crap. Like I really needed this shit right now.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  If I’d been smart, I would have just made for the stairs and gotten the fuck out of the building, period.

  Instead, I panicked and pointed the gun at him. “Hold the door.”

  I’d been on the wrong end of the Desert Eagle’s barrel and knew it wasn’t exactly the least intimidating thing on the planet - even empty as it was.

  He hesitated for a bare second - almost giving me reason to put on a burst of speed to reach him in time - but then moved his hand to the button. Apparently, he didn’t want to test whether the doors were bulletproof or not.

  I stepped in, moved ever so slightly behind him, and placed the oversized gun in my jacket pocket - as much as I could, anyway. It was only then that thoughts of what a stupid fucking plan this was began to register.

  “So...” I’d never taken a hostage before, at least not by myself, so I wasn’t quite sure where to take this next. It’s always so much easier in the movies. “How’s it going?”

  “Listen, man, it’s cool. I didn’t see anything. I was just popping by to meet a buddy and grab a bite to eat...”

  “Offhand, I’m thinking you got the wrong place.”

  “No shit.” He paused, as if suddenly remembering I was holding a gun with enough power to blow a bowling ball-sized hole in him. “Sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  Oh. Yeah, I guess we couldn’t just stand there like two putzes holding the doors open for the rest of the day. Someone in maintenance was bound to notice that. I was pretty sure the building staff received the occasional bonus to look the other way with regards to weirdness on our floors, but this was the middle of the day - all good vamps should be sleeping.

  Ultimately, only one destination made sense. “Hit the button for the basement. If anyone gets in between here and there, play it real natural.” I let the implied “or else” hang in the air between us, hoping my words sounded sufficiently threatening. It was all bullshit, of course. I had no idea what to do with this clown, but killing him definitely wasn’t on the agenda. Maybe I could lose him in the sewers, let him find his own way out.

  “You know, you don’t have to do this,” he said as the doors finally slid shut. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

  Gah! Talk about cliché. Did that shit ever work with anyone? I mean, who would be stupid enough to...

  The elevator stopped between floors and the emergency buzzer rang. A few seconds later, the lights flickered, but remained on.

  “What the fuck?”

  “It wasn’t me, I swear.”

  Oh, great. I was stuck with a whiner.

  I waited for a few moments, hoping the jam was temporary. The buzzing eventually ceased - a good thing for my sensitive ears - but the elevator remained where it was.

  Out of curiosity, I tried pushing the buttons for the other floors - nothing.

  “You should give up, man. I bet the cops stopped this thing.”

  I found that unlikely, considering this building didn’t even have a security guard at the front desk, one of the few left in Manhattan that didn’t - courtesy of the coven pulling a few strings.

  “They’re probably watching us right now via video camera, like in Devil.”

  “Devil?”

  “Yeah, that M. Night Shamalyan movie where a bunch of people...”

  “You actually watched that?”

  “Not all of it,” he replied meekly.

  I told my prisoner to pipe the fuck down. If the dude was going to yammer on about movies, at least they could be good ones.

  I pushed the service button in the hope that someone in maintenance would pick up. There might not be a guard in the lobby, but there were staff on hand, especially since shit tended to break a lot wherever vampires were concerned.

  Several minutes passed with no response. What the hell?

  All at once, sounds from outside our little metal prison began to reach our ears. I turned to listen, trying to take it all in. However, one didn’t need vampire senses to realize that alarms were going off throughout the building.

  Something was going on out there, and I had no idea what...

  “Fuck this shit!” The guy I’d been escorting slammed into me with his shoulder, sending me off balance. He was a little dude, but had some muscle behind him. Had I been human, he might have very well kicked my ass. That wasn’t his objective, though.

  He stepped back and I found myself looking down the barrel of Sally’s favorite noisemaker.

  “Don’t move.”

  “It’s not loaded.”

  “Bullshit. Now stay back; I’m warning you.”

  “Warn me all the fuck you want.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t make me kill you.”

  “You’re a little late for that.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  I took a step forward and raised my hand slowly toward the gun. He immediately squeezed the trigger, resulting in a dry click. That surprised me. I figured I would call his bluff. Now I was happy I hadn’t been lying about being out of bullets. That would have otherwise been a bit awkward...in an excruciating sort of way.

  “It’s empty,” he said in disbelief.

  “That’s what I told you, genius.”

  “Fucking asshole,” he spat as he t
ossed it at me.

  “Sorry.”

  “I almost shit myself.”

  “Let’s be glad you didn’t,” I said, sitting down in a corner. “Because I’ve seen enough for one day.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  For probably the hundredth time, I contemplated checking if there really was a top hatch on the elevator car or if that was only an urban legend. Even if there was, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had no idea what floor we were stuck at. The display above the doors showed some error message. Trying to shimmy my ass up the cables and prying open random doors sounded like a good way to freak out even more people if I picked the wrong floor.

  Instead, I planted myself and waited for someone to come and get us out - hoping that would be sooner rather than later. Despite the alarms, I didn’t smell any smoke. That was good. Becoming a cooked turkey as this box slowly turned into an oven wasn’t my idea of fun. Chances were, it was just some electrical glitch that was causing all of this crap.

  My unwilling companion eventually settled down too, and I gave him some bullshit story about chasing off a would-be burglar when he’d shown up - including how I freaked out and took him hostage by mistake. Thankfully, he was from out of town and seemed to buy it. He didn’t bother asking any of the obvious questions, like why we’d been headed down to the basement. Gotta love tourists.

  Fortunately, neither of us had a problem with claustrophobia, saving me the trouble of having to punch him out. So, we did what most people would do in a situation like that - we sat down and bullshitted as we waited for rescue.

  Jason Cohen, as he introduced himself, was in town from Arizona visiting some college pals. He’d been looking for a friend working at Vekter Corp and had read the directory in the lobby wrong. Poor schmuck. Two floors lower and he’d probably be enjoying a nice lunch as opposed to being stuck in a six by eight box with a guy who looked like he’d just been punched through a wall.

  He seemed nice enough, but I still gave him a fake name. Let’s be realistic: I’d still pointed a gun at him, and wasn’t quite up to snuff with compelling a human to forget. Starlight or Firebird might’ve been able to pull it off, but I had no idea where they were or in what shape they were in after the compulsion took hold. I could only hope that they’d all snapped out of their trances before they could hurt anyone, specifically Ed.

  The conversation finally turned toward something I had an actual interest in: the weird shit going on in the world recently. Apparently, there were people missing in his town via mysterious circumstances. Jason began to tell me of the crazies who were spreading the word that ape men did it - oh boy - when more noises began to reach my enhanced hearing.

  They weren’t good ones.

  The first sounded like something heavy crumbling. The elevator gave the slightest shake, but my companion seemed not to notice as he changed topics to rave about his fantasy football team.

  “Hold on,” I said, putting up a hand to silence him.

  “What is it?”

  “I think I heard something.”

  “You think they’re coming to get us out?”

  “Uh, sure,” I lied, hoping he’d shut up so I could listen to what was really going on beyond our little slice of heaven.

  “Awesome.” He stood and began to pound on the door. Not quite the reaction I’d been going for. “Hey! Let’s go, assholes! I gotta take a piss.”

  Real classy. Unfortunately, he was also talking over everything else. I was only catching bits and pieces whenever he stopped to take a breath. More crashes, closer. Wait...was that a scream? Shit! I couldn’t hear myself think with this fucking rube rambling on. “Do you mind shutting the fu...”

  The squeal of metal tearing drowned out the rest. The entire car lurched and nearly knocked us off our feet. What the fuck?

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked. “I thought only California had earthquakes.”

  Before I could correct him that New York had its fair share of minor tremors too, there came another sound just beyond our walls - a snarl of rage.

  Oh no.

  It couldn’t be.

  There’s no fucking way he could have...

  “Get away from...”

  My warning came too late.

  My ex-hostage had just enough time to turn toward me questioningly when a muscular arm tore through the doors of the elevator, the claws rending the metal like paper.

  It grasped blindly for a moment, then fell upon the surprised Jason’s head from behind. The clawed fingers slid into his mouth for purchase...ewww.

  The arm retracted, pulling its prize toward the hole it had created.

  “Shit!”

  Before he could be yanked all the way through, I grabbed hold of Jason’s legs and tried to pull him back in - putting everything I had into it.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t take into account the inevitable conclusion when two vampires played tug of war with a human body.

  Let’s just say it wasn’t the best plan I’d ever had.

  Tactical Retreat

  There was a strangled cry, followed by a snap, and then I finally succeeded in pulling most of Jason back in with me. Sadly for him, that didn’t include the part of his head above the jawline.

  There came a sickening crunch of bone from outside, leading me to conclude that the poor schmuck wouldn’t be getting an open casket funeral anytime soon. Then, the hand reached back in - grasping, clawing, and widening the hole.

  Being locked inside a small space with a pissed-off vamp, who I’d just shot full of silver and sent on a hundred-foot freefall to the street below, didn’t sound like the ideal situation for us to talk out our problems. That was confirmed when the brute peered into the hole he’d made. The look on his face was most certainly not a happy one. It became even less so once his eyes locked on mine.

  There was no way I was getting out of this one with a few amusing one-liners.

  “Here’s mud in your eye, fuckface.”

  Okay, so I was wrong. I tightened my grip on Jason’s body and squeezed it as hard and fast as I could. The result was not unlike stomping on a tube of toothpaste. A gout of blood streamed out of it and straight into the ugly fucker’s mug.

  Temporarily blinded, he lunged forward, nearly entering the elevator car and continuing to grasp out before him.

  I backed up - nearly terrified out of my mind - but then realized his rage was, quite possibly, my only chance.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I tossed Jason’s body into his claws. I felt bad about doing so, not to mention a wee bit grossed out, but it wasn’t like the poor guy was going to get killed any worse than he already had.

  The other vamp took hold of the corpse, perhaps thinking it was me. That gave me the opportunity to step up and sink my teeth into the meat of his forearm.

  It was time to show this asshole what being the Freewill was all about.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  As usual, it didn’t take much to get me going. Thank goodness too, because I had a feeling he wasn’t going to stand there and let me continue gnawing on him.

  A mouthful of blood hit my stomach and went off like a supernova. Holy shit, this guy was older than I’d thought. I had never felt anything like it and wasn’t sure I ever wanted to again. There was something not right about it. Vampire blood typically tasted as good as human blood - to me, at least - as vile as that might sound, but the shit running through this guy’s veins had some kind of weird aftertaste. Ewww, skunked blood.

  It didn’t matter, though. I got what I needed - just in time for the rest of the wall to give way under his assault. My foe pulled his arm back, tearing the flesh in the process, as I wasn’t quite accommodating enough to actually let go.

  Speaking of going, it was time to do just that. Unfortunately, I only saw one way out and wasn’t looking forward to it. I’d always hated those freefall rides at the amusement part. Sadly, it was either up or down, and I hadn’t grown wings the last tim
e I checked.

  Putting all of my stolen strength to use, I dropped to one knee and brought both fists down onto the floor of the elevator like a pile driver. The car lurched from the impact. I raised my hands and pounded them down again before that monster could fully force his way in.

  There came the pained groan of metal tearing free from its moorings and then, just as I was about to do it once more, the floor gave way and I began to plummet.

  A clawed hand scraped against my forehead, momentarily snagging my hair, but thankfully, with all the blood flying around, it was like trying to catch a greased pig. I slipped from Ragnar the Viking’s grasp and found myself screaming downward at a breakneck pace.

  Now all I had to do was hope the old saying wasn’t true: falling isn’t bad, but it’s the landings that are a killer.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Amazingly enough, it wasn’t that bad - and by that, I mean it was a lot worse. I landed on my side, shattering my arm, ribcage, and probably a whole lot of other body parts I was fond of. Concrete wasn’t exactly the softest thing in the world to land on from a swan dive.

  I let out a cry of pain, which quickly turned to one of surprise as something thudded down next to me. If he’d followed, I’d be...

  Thankfully, it was just Jason’s mutilated corpse. Damn, they were gonna need a squeegee to pick all of him up.

  Even so, if I didn’t get going, the next thing that landed was probably gonna be a shitload less friendly.

  I gritted my teeth and prepared for the agony of moving, but amazingly, I was able to stand just fine. In the time it had taken to have the shit scared out of me, the worst of the injuries had healed.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - being an ancient vampire rocks, at least in regard to having super powers. I just had to live long enough to make it there.

  Before I took off running, I risked a quick look up. High above, the light shone through the shattered elevator floor. A moment later, it was blotted out as something peered down at me.

  It was most certainly time to make like a tree.