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

by Rick Gualtieri

  One reared up behind James, but its element of surprise was short-lived. He’d fought these creatures before and had survived an attack that had claimed even his sire.

  Its club-like arms were still descending when he spun. A blade appeared in his hand from seemingly nowhere. In less time than it took to blink, he’d buried the knife hilt-deep in the creature’s unarmored stomach.

  Calibra was nearly as fast, leaping upon the Sasquatch’s back before the rest of us could even raise our weapons. I was now glad James had interceded earlier. Seeing her move, I wasn’t entirely convinced Sally could have fired before this chick would have disarmed her and finished off both of us.

  With a sharp crack, she broke the beast’s neck, nearly twisting its head around one hundred and eighty degrees. The battle was over before it had even begun.

  Or so I thought.

  It had just been a diversion - a desperate gambit that drew our attention long enough for our enemies to figuratively fuck us in the ass. Gee, and they didn’t even treat us to dinner first.

  A roar of rage turned all of our eyes skyward. Two of Muff’s buddies - hopefully not named Twat and Pubes - leapt from the trees, their target the chopper.

  One of the pair underestimated the descent rate of the helicopter and went high. This brought him into direct contact with the spinning blades. The Sasquatch exploded into a shower of blood and guts that rained down upon us like we were standing in Hell’s shower stall.

  Sadly, the helicopter’s rotor didn’t fare much better in the exchange. With a shriek of rent metal, what had been a controlled descent now became an imminent crash landing. The second Sasquatch hung halfway in the cabin, clawing at the pilot, as the aircraft spun wildly out of control.

  I’m not exactly what one might call a trained soldier, but even I know not to stand there gawking like a dipshit when a ton of whirling metallic death is headed my way. Thankfully, I had vampire reflexes at my disposal.

  Ed had taken the brunt of the Sasquatch shower and was suitably distracted by what must have been twenty pounds of entrails landing smack dab on his head. Fortunately, he had an awesome friend like me by his side to save his ass.

  Make that friends, as Sally apparently had the same idea. We both grabbed hold of him and dove for safety - fortunately, not in separate directions. That would have been pretty fucking awkward. I trusted James and Calibra were both doing the same. Tough as they were, a shank of twisted metal through the heart would fuck up any vamp’s day.

  We sought cover behind the trunks of the trees. Whatever magic had caused their unnatural growth had thankfully been thorough. Although they couldn’t have been more than a few days old, they had all the thickness and strength of trees that had stood tall for a hundred years. The Feet might have worse hygiene than a cracked out hobo with a case of cheap wine, but they didn’t fuck around when it came to whatever plant magic they employed.

  The ground shook as the chopper slammed into it, accompanied by the sound of metal folding in on itself and the tortured engine blowing out.

  After a few seconds, when I was fairly sure no flying chunks of helicopter blade would decapitate me, I dared a peek. The chopper was pretty much trashed - definitely not in any condition to fly us back to Boston anytime soon. Even so, a flash of light from inside the cockpit told me it was in better shape than the pilot.

  The Sasquatch tore loose from the wreckage, bleeding freely from several wounds, but otherwise very much alive. It held up the now empty helmet of our former pilot and screeched triumphantly.

  For about one second anyway.

  James’s knife buried itself hilt deep into the creature’s neck with barely a sound of its passage. The Sasquatch’s right eye then exploded in a spray of blood a scant moment before the roar of a gunshot reached my ears.

  Without further ado, the ugly fucker - arms still raised in victory - fell backward to land with a meaty thud, one more body to add to the pile.

  I shared a quick glance with Ed, who merely inclined his head and shrugged. It was close to embarrassing how quickly the older vamps could take down creatures that were capable of breaking me in half like the wishbone of a Thanksgiving turkey.

  James stepped out of the tree line, followed by Calibra, and retrieved his knife. He wiped the blood off on his pants leg before returning the blade to its sheath. Damn. Not only was he a badass, but he looked cool doing it too.

  Of course, cool or not, he was equally as fucked as the rest of us.

  We joined him in the clearing and wordlessly began to search through the wreckage for anything salvageable. We looked for weapons and ammo mostly, although Sally made it a point to retrieve her duffle bag, too.

  “Really?” I asked. “Thinking we might run into a floating rave out here in the woods?”

  “If so, then things wouldn’t be any different than they are in New York. I’d get in and you wouldn’t.”

  I shot her a glare. “We should probably get out of here before the rest of those things find us.”

  “I agree we should get moving,” James said, “but for different reasons.”

  “Oh?”

  “Is it not obvious, Freewill?” Calibra gestured at the corpses lying about. “The rest are all around us.”

  “There could be others,” I sheepishly pointed out.

  “Not in the immediate area,” James replied. “The few who attacked us were merely the remnants of their force.”

  “This is odd.” Sally bent over and examined one of the Sasquatch bodies. After a few moments, she moved on and did the same to another. “No bullet holes on these - just lots of broken bones. I’m thinking this wasn’t done by humans.”

  “The Norfolk Coven, then?” Ed asked. “Maybe they were able to fight back.”

  Calibra exchanged a glance with James, who gave her the barest of nods.

  “Unlikely, human,” she replied. “The master of Norfolk was a vampire named Sarah Porter. She was only one hundred and thirteen years old. The majority of her brood were far weaker - not a true warrior among them. I very much doubt they could have routed such an attack so utterly.”

  “Maybe the townsfolk helped them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The people,” I replied, remembering the briefing Alex had given to Sally and me before sending us up to the Woods of Mourning. “Way back during the first war with the Feet, vamps and humans fought alongside each other, right? Well, who’s to say history didn’t repeat itself? Maybe together they...”

  “Do you smell any humans in the vicinity?” James asked.

  That was a good question. The only thing I’d really smelled since arriving here had been the ass-like stink of Bigfoot fur. I took a deep breath through my nostrils, trying to filter past their lingering stench. I was fairly sure my nose hairs would catch fire long before that happened. After a few fruitless seconds of trying, I shook my head.

  Sally raised an eyebrow and sighed derisively. A couple of moments later, though, a look of confusion came across her face. “Bill’s right. There aren’t any people here. Hell, I can’t even smell their bodies. How many...”

  “Nearly twelve thousand.”

  “Where’d they all go?” I asked. “That first fucker said he ate them, but that...”

  “An empty boast meant to unnerve you, in all likelihood. The Alma may be omnivorous, but they are not known for eating people. Besides which, it would take an army of them to devour a town of this size.”

  “So where...”

  “Is it not obvious, Freewill?” Calibra asked again. That was twice. Once more and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to restrain myself from taking a swing at her. She was getting really fucking annoying.

  “Pretend I’m a moron.”

  “Very well. They never left. They are all still here, standing around us.”

  The Long Walk Home

  I blinked stupidly for a few seconds. “So, what? Are they ghosts?”

  “No fucking way
,” Sally gasped.

  “Holy shit. They can actually do that?” Ed asked.

  “Do what?” It was exasperating, always being the last person to get the freaking memo.

  “The trees, Bill,” he replied. “They didn’t grow them. Somehow, they turned the people into them.”

  I opened my eyes wide. That was shit straight out of a bad horror movie. “They can do that?”

  “Thankfully, not en masse,” Calibra replied

  “Twelve thousand people isn’t en masse?”

  “Not comparatively. Be thankful. Otherwise, our original war with them may well have ended quite differently.”

  “It’s powerful magic,” James explained as casually as if he were discussing last night’s baseball game. “Requires a lot of effort and they must destroy as much as they create - something the Alma are often loathe to do. I wouldn’t doubt that somewhere amongst this carnage is the body of one of their shamans. Likewise, if we were still capable of flight, I would expect to find a similarly sized patch of forest no more than a few miles away - dried up and devoid of all life.”

  “That doesn’t explain the Norfolk Coven,” Sally pointed out. “Were they also...”

  “No. This type of magic wouldn’t work upon us. Our life force isn’t compatible.”

  I briefly glanced at Ed and gave him the once over. “I’ll let you know if you start to sprout roots.”

  “Bite me, asshole.”

  “I’m sure Tom would be happy to help me fertilize you as often as needed.”

  “If you two are done sucking each other’s balls, maybe we can get back to the topic at hand,” Sally said before turning back toward James. “You think our guy killed these furry fuckers, don’t you?”

  James turned away from us and clasped his hands behind his back. “The remnants of his scent linger in the courthouse. There is also no denying these Alma were killed by something with considerable power.”

  “So what about the coven?”

  “Gone. No ashes. Just gone.” Once more, his voice carried a worried tone. He’d barely blinked when fighting off the Sasquatch. In fact, the entire war effort appeared to barely faze him. Something about this vampire, though, had him on edge. There was little doubt he was hiding something.

  Being that I hadn’t learned my lesson on impudence from earlier, I figured I’d just come right out and ask. “What is it you’re not telling us?”

  I took a deep breath, anticipating Calibra cutting off my air again, but she barely glanced in my direction. When James began to walk away from us, she fell in step with him almost instantly.

  “The only thing I think any of us need to know right now, Dr. Death,” he said from over his shoulder, “is that we must get back to Boston and still have a very long walk ahead of us.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  James wanted to waste no time, but then again, he hadn’t gotten his ass beaten down and then had to expend the energy to heal from it. We convinced him to give us fifteen minutes to get ready. He wasn’t happy about it, but was forced to acknowledge we all weren’t as invincible as he.

  Thankfully, with the town devoid of any other life of the non-plant variety, we didn’t need to be overly careful. Sally and I made a quick circuit of the courthouse sub-basement to look for any bottled blood, while Ed raided a nearby convenience store. The end spoils were very different, but the purpose was the same: making sure we weren’t running on empty before setting off on a twenty-five-mile hike.

  Unfortunately, any caravan is only as quick as its slowest member. We were hampered by two issues: it was still daylight and we had Ed with us. It most certainly didn’t help that he was starting to smell pretty goddamned ripe. Our pit stop hadn’t included time to find any shower facilities, so he was forced to live with the stench. With us in our daylight terrorist gear and him smelling like the inside of a jungle latrine, that pretty much ensured we wouldn’t be hitching a ride once we’d found our way to a main road.

  That wasn’t in the cards anyway. It didn’t take a genius to realize that a missing town wasn’t exactly something that would go unnoticed. We hadn’t gone far when we heard the first helicopter. I looked up through the trees, thinking maybe a rescue mission had been sent for us, but it was pretty clear that it was just a news copter. Soon, others flew by overhead, more media and some police choppers as well.

  It was a fair bet that emerging from the woods onto a main thoroughfare would only put a massive spotlight on us from any rescue vehicles and curious onlookers wondering what the fuck had happened. James voiced as much and made us stick to the woods for several miles longer than was probably necessary, slowing us down even more.

  Hours later, the sun had finally begun its descent in the sky when Calibra stated, “Boston still reports all clear,” before putting her phone back into her pocket.

  “Yeah, I was meaning to ask about that,” I said, catching up to the two elder vamps at our vanguard. “Why haven’t either of you called for a pickup? Wouldn’t this be a shitload faster if they even sent a car for us?”

  James’s reply was a curt, “Keep walking, please.”

  I fell back to where the others were keeping pace - Sally attempting to stay slightly upwind of Ed. She shrugged, just as confused as I was. Ed’s look, however, conveyed an unspoken question I’d been expecting. But due to the overly sensitive ears just a few dozen steps ahead of us, it was better not to say anything. I merely gave my head a single shake. It was premature for that option anyway. Perhaps James had been wrong. Maybe Chuck was smart enough to ask the vamps he’d kidnapped about the situation and realized he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of taking on the Boston facility with anything short of an army.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’d seen what this ass-cheese could do. He was one tough fucker, but he was still just one vamp, out of his own time and the last member of some radical sect that had been burnt to the ground. Conversely, who knew how many towns across the world had been instantly swallowed up like Norfolk? Who had any idea how many freaky-ass monsters were now loose, swimming in rivers like the Hudson or flying high above the buildings? Wasn’t all of that ultimately the bigger threat?

  As we continued walking, mostly in silence, save for the occasional snarky remark as to Ed’s odor, I realized I had far more questions than answers.

  Previously, things had been pretty black and white. I now realized that, in addition to being an uphill battle, the whole saving the human race concept was perhaps not as cut and dried as I thought it would be.

  Jeez, maybe I should’ve just stayed in my dungeon cell after all.

  The Office Park of Ultimate Doom

  The sun had set by the time we made it to the outskirts of Boston. Ed was wheezing pretty heavily from the extended hike, but otherwise, we were in fine condition.

  We were able to discard our coverings, which went a long way toward making us not look like a pack of roving weirdos. Any weapons that couldn’t be hidden on our persons Sally stuffed into her bag. I’m sure that didn’t exactly render it light, but she continued carrying it with no apparent discomfort. She even rolled her eyes when I tried to be a gentleman and offered to lug it for her. Chivalry is such a dead concept.

  With only a few miles left to go, James led us to a parking lot that didn’t appear to have a lot of foot traffic in it. Hell, come to think of it, I hadn’t seen a lot of traffic period since we’d emerged from the woods. For the suburbs of a major city, it was eerily quiet.

  He singled out a large SUV, a Nissan Armada, and put his hand on the door handle. I saw his muscles tense for a moment, but then he paused and turned toward the rest of us. “Sally, if you would kindly work your magic.”

  “My pleasure,” she replied with a smile.

  A few minutes later, we were cruising along in the stolen vehicle sans any visible damage. Calibra drove with James riding shotgun. The rest of us were in back with the windows rolled down to help dissipate Ed’s reek, a prospect that was on
ly partially successful. I almost felt bad for the poor guy. I’d been on the receiving end of Sasquatch stink before and the only thing that had washed it off had been a prolonged soak in a raging river.

  Oh well. In a few minutes, we’d be locked up safe in the undead nerve center for this section of the country. I didn’t even have to worry about keeping an eye on my roommate. Anyone taking a nip from him would get the mother of all nasty surprises.

  Once there, we could maybe catch some shuteye and then figure out what the hell to do next. At the very least, I could amuse myself by gawking at all the zombies that were employed as clerical help in...

  The car swerved, knocking me into Ed - ugh, nasty - and the brakes squealed as we skidded to a halt. Thank goodness I was used to driving in my roommate’s old shit-bucket. It had taught me to appreciate wearing a seatbelt. “What the fuck?”

  “Zombie,” Sally said, turning around in her seat.

  “How’d you know I was thinking about...”

  “No, stupid. Back there.”

  I craned my neck to look out the back window. There were two figures in the middle of the road, both human in appearance. The only problem was that one was busy chewing on the other - ripping off hunks of flesh and stuffing them greedily into its mouth.

  “I repeat, what the fuck?”

  “Proceed, please.” James said evenly.

  “But, Wanderer, if that is one of...”

  “Proceed.”

  Calibra didn’t need to be told twice.

  Hell, I was tempted to get out and push.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  We finally pulled into the car wash that served as the aboveground façade of the Boston compound. Although we’d only been driving for a short while, it felt like a lot longer than we’d been hiking. I tried to wrap my head around the zombie we’d seen. Aside from when one had bitten Tom’s hand - and let’s face facts, he’d deserved it - I’d never seen the slightest bit of aggression from any of the walking corpses in the employ of the vampire nation. Hell, if anything, I’d considered asking whether we could requisition a few for Village Coven, as they seemed pretty damned efficient.