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

by Rick Gualtieri

  That was enough for me. It was a shitload better than sitting around feeling sorry for myself. “You may want to record this, because I doubt I’ll ever say it again, but Tom, you are a fucking genius.”

  “This is all well and good,” Ed pointed out. “But what are we going to do with it?”

  “It’s simple. This Vehron guy is tough, but he can’t defend from all directions at once. So what say we stack the odds in her favor?”

  “She hits him high, we hit him low? Could work, although it’s still dangerous.”

  “Near suicidal,” I agreed.

  “Count me in. Heck, maybe I can make some water balloons out of my blood to peg this fucker with.”

  “Gross, but possibly effective,” I replied. “That’s one. Tom, it’s your brainstorm.”

  “Fuck yeah, I’m there. I can probably get Christy’s sisters to help, too, but...” A familiar look of worry settled upon his face as his own words began to sink in. Sheila was also foretold to destroy the Magi - of which Christy was a member.

  “I know. Believe me when I say, I will do everything possible to make sure Decker’s prophecy is total bullshit. I think Sheila will, too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because...” I paused as I dredged up the memory. It was one of the few moments we’d had alone while Remington’s vamps hunted us. “She didn’t want to hurt anyone. In fact, she made me promise I would stop her if it ever came to that.”

  “Stop her?”

  I drew my finger across my throat to get the point across - keeping to myself that I wasn’t sure whether I could follow through with it.

  Tom was quiet for a moment, probably thinking things through. “That’ll have to be good enough. Besides, I don’t think I’ll get the same assurances from Chuck.”

  “Doubt it. How about you, Sally? Are you willing to throw in with a covenless loser?”

  “Nope,” she replied.

  “No?”

  “That’s what I said. I might, however, be willing to help my second in command. That is, if you think you could handle being my silent partner for a change. Pandora could use some fresh blood.”

  “Do I get free lap dances?”

  “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  Shit. “Well, do you think they’d be willing to at least help us, then?”

  “Oh, they’ll help, or they’ll die trying.” She flashed her fangs at me, making me wonder what kind of hell she’d put her people through without me there to temper her. Oh well, that was an issue for another day.

  “Deal...coven master Sally.” Ugh, no way was I going to live that one down. “Now, what else do we have in our corner?”

  “Maybe James, but probably not the Draculas. They’re going to be gung ho to kill this Vehron guy, but not at the cost of working with the Icon. They might also be just a little peeved to learn we lied about all that crap from months ago.”

  “Maybe not. I met a few of the other Draculas, and they weren’t too big on Alex either...” I paused as I said his name. The final piece of the puzzle teetered on the edge of falling into place.

  “What is it, Bill?”

  “I didn’t exactly tell James the truth about where I’d found that guy’s head.”

  “You mean it wasn’t in some vampire prison?”

  “Yes and no. It wasn’t an official holding cell or anything like that. I found him in Alex’s private quarters - his bedroom, to be exact.”

  “His bedroom?”

  I held up a hand toward Tom. “Stop, don’t even go there. He was in a locked closet...kind of a trophy case.”

  “Weird.”

  “That’s not the weird part. There were others, a lot of them.” I paused as I tried to digest what my subconscious was trying to tell me. “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?”

  Was it even possible? “I got this strange feeling looking at them all. At the time, I figured it was nothing more than being weirded out by a bunch of decapitated craniums staring back at me, but now I’m thinking...”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if they were all like me?”

  “Doofuses?”

  Sally’s comment caused my roommates to chuckle, breaking the tension a bit, but I could tell she knew what I was getting at.

  “Freewills,” I said. “They all disappeared hundreds of years ago - just like that. Nobody seems to know why, and if anyone is asking, I haven’t heard about it. But I might have a sneaking suspicion where at least some of them went.”

  “Alex?”

  “Yep.”

  “How...why would he do that?” Ed asked.

  “Who the fuck knows?”

  “Power, probably,” Sally said. “Remember what he told us up North, how he’d played the game, eliminated those who stood in his way? Well, who would be the biggest threat to even an ancient vampire like him?”

  The answer was painfully obvious. “Someone he couldn’t control.”

  “More like an army of super-powered someones.”

  “And one of them is loose now.”

  “Yes, and now we know where he came from. More importantly, Bill, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Ed said. “And you’re kind of high profile.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, Tom or I talk and we might as well have mouthfuls of shit. We’re humans...nothing to them. Sally...” He trailed off, probably not wanting to get slapped.

  “I get the picture,” she replied. “But our people know you, Bill. They’ll listen to you, whether or not they should.”

  “Oh, crap,” I said, sitting down. “I’ve just become a liability.”

  “Just become?” Tom was no doubt hoping for a chuckle, but he got silence instead.

  All I’d wanted to do was come home and live what little of my life I could until the world tore itself apart around us. Instead, I found myself making enemies out of two of the most powerful creatures on the planet. They were going to try destroying each other, and I was smack dab in the middle.

  How the hell did I find myself in these situations?

  A hand on my shoulder pulled me from my funk. Sally looked down at me, smiling softly - displaying no sign of her customary snark. Her face said it all - she understood. More than that, though. We were in deep shit, but she was there for me in spite of it all.

  Ed joined her, his look echoing that sentiment.

  A moment later, Tom did likewise.

  They didn’t say anything, but maybe they didn’t need to.

  Goddamn, I could be such a freaking idiot.

  I now realized that whatever happened, however big the odds stacked against me, they’d be there by my side. They weren’t alone, either. I had allies - friends, people I loved. I’d been a fool to discount them and run off in my grief. The truth was I didn’t deserve them, but they were there for me regardless of how imperfect I might be.

  In the face of everything I’d seen, it was impossibly awesome to have friends like them.

  I knew then, from the bottom of my unbeating heart, that I wouldn’t let them down.

  We had a world to save, and by God, we were gonna do our damnedest to save it - even if the odds made winning the Powerball look like a sure thing in comparison. It was both insane and near impossible, but we were going to try.

  Looking at them standing there, I couldn’t help but smile too.

  “Are we gonna start singing Kumbaya now?” Tom asked after a moment.

  “Fuck you, asshole,” I replied cracking up. The others soon joined in.

  The world was going to Hell around us, but we dared to laugh despite that.

  THE END

  HALF A PRAYER

  The Tome of Bill

  Part 6

  Part 1

  When a Stranger Comes Knocking

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Excuse me?” the thin man asked, his brows furrowed behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

&nbs
p; I sighed, disgusted at myself. I hadn’t meant to immediately come across as an asshole. That was never a sound tactic for being welcomed with open arms at a stranger’s doorway. Unfortunately, he’d surprised me. I’d been expecting a very different welcome.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure how things w* ould have gone down otherwise. Best case would have been arms around my neck and luscious lips pressed against my own. Worst case would have found me immediately vaporized. What I hadn’t been expecting, though, was that the person who would answer the door wouldn’t be the blonde woman I was secretly - or not, depending on who you asked - in love with.

  Turns out, I was batting zero.

  “I think you have the wrong address,” Horn-rims said as he began closing the door.

  “Wait! I’m looking for Sheila.” Saying her name aloud was odd, almost wrong - as if I were a child caught saying a curse word. Although it was cool outside, pinpricks of sweat broke out on my brow. Name-dropping had the desired effect, though. Recognition flashed in the man’s eyes and the door’s progress paused.

  I realized that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I’d stalked...err, followed...Sheila on Facebook for almost the entire duration we were coworkers at Hopskotchgames.com - long enough to know she didn’t have a brother. This fucker wasn’t old enough to be her dad. Thus, I held on to the thin hope that he was a visiting cousin or maybe some neighbor that had dropped by to borrow a cup of sugar and was just about to leave.

  Yeah, I was grasping at straws.

  The man looked at me expectantly. Blurting out nothing but a first name probably wasn’t going to get me invited to dinner.

  “Sheila O’Connell. I’m a friend of hers.”

  His beady green eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses and he frowned. “I’m sorry, but nobody by that name lives here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”

  Duh! I guess it would make sense that she’d at least be using a different last name. Remington had figured out her identity and tried to use her family as a bargaining chip against her. It hadn’t turned out so well for him and his team, but she had no way of knowing whether the information had been shared amongst her potential enemies. Also, it was quite possible she didn’t trust me not to spill my guts about her.

  “She might be using an alias.” Even as the words left my mouth, I realized how utterly fucking stupid they sounded. I might as well have told this guy I was looking for Carlos the Jackal.

  An unpleasant grimace creased his mouth and he sniffed the air. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Um...” Oh crap. That sure as hell wasn’t going to help things.

  I’d circled the surrounding neighborhood several times over the past hour, working up the nerve to approach the house. When that hadn’t panned out, I’d stopped at a strip mall a few blocks away and popped into a local chain restaurant - one that had a bar. A couple of shots of liquid courage were just what the doctor ordered.

  In retrospect, it probably wasn’t my smartest move. A tequila-soaked stranger standing on the front stoop well after dark was bad enough these days. Hell, that didn’t even count the sword I was holding - wrapped in a towel, sure, but probably obvious to anyone with half a brain.

  “Listen, pal, I don’t know who you are, but you need to back up and leave quietly. We don’t want any trouble here, but I won’t hesitate to call the cops.”

  I couldn’t blame this guy for wanting to slam the door in my face and then dial 911 as fast as he could. Wait a second...we?

  “Hold that thought,” I replied, reaching into my pocket.

  His body tensed up and his eyes widened as his civilized brain tried to make sense of the fight or flight impulses racing through it. I’d been in his position not so long ago. Had I actually been packing a gun, his hesitation would have cost him.

  It was going to cost him anyway, but in a slightly different manner.

  I used the old vacuum cleaner salesman cliché and slid one foot over the threshold so he couldn’t immediately slam the door in my face. It was your basic wooden model - nothing overly reinforced - and it wouldn’t stop me if it came down to it, but I really didn’t want to have to force the issue. If Sheila was indeed inside, the last thing I wanted was to come crashing in like a bull in a china shop. That could spook her, a scenario that could end very badly for me.

  What I had in mind, instead, was slightly more subtle, or so I hoped.

  I pulled the glass vial from my pocket and held it up.

  The look of tension eased from his face ever so slightly, only to be replaced with one of confusion. “Is that blood?”

  “You betcha.” I uncorked the stopper. “Bottoms up!”

  And with that, I downed the contents and waited for it to work its magic on me.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It had only been three days since we’d returned from our epic ass-kicking up in Boston. Following the string of revelations that had followed, we’d all taken a day to get our respective thoughts back in order.

  Though chaos began to reign in many places as the world edged ever closer to Armageddon, other areas hadn’t quite caught the hint yet. Hell, sitting inside my apartment in Brooklyn, one could have almost been fooled into thinking things were pretty much normal. That is, if a vampire conversing over a couple of cups of blood-infused coffee with his human roommates was normal.

  As it turned out, one of the seemingly monumental tasks before us was a bit less daunting than we had originally assumed. Upon learning that Sheila, the last Icon of Faith - a girl who was capable of melting my heart in more ways than one - was alive, I immediately formulated a plan to track her down.

  Using my not-so-insignificant programming skills, I began to code up an algorithm that would search online newsfeeds for any mention of a blonde warrior glowing with a brilliant white light. Assuming the power grid didn’t falter and she was keeping busy with saving people and other stereotypical Icon activities, I figured it wouldn’t be long before we’d triangulate her position and make contact.

  Even that was unnecessary, though.

  I had just finished writing up a subroutine to filter out any fetish websites from the results when Ed finally spilled the beans: the dickhead had a phone number for her.

  “The fuck, dude?” I had so eloquently responded.

  “I’m only supposed to use it in an emergency.”

  “And the end of the world isn’t an emergency?”

  “A company emergency,” he clarified. Ed ran Iconic Efficiencies, Sheila’s company, in her stead. “Besides...”

  “Let me guess. She didn’t want you to tell me that either.”

  His silence was all the answer I needed. Fuck!

  “If it helps, it’s not a direct number; just a voicemail service. The point was for me to leave her a message and she’d call back.”

  Despite being royally pissed off, I had to grudgingly admire that. She was taking precautions - probably more than I would have. Well, okay; it was definitely more than I had. Upon escaping from Switzerland, the nerve center of the vampire world, I’d done little more than make a beeline straight for home.

  Ed wasn’t comfortable calling Sheila and outright asking where she was, and I was forced to agree it was probably a poor idea. If she truly was that squirrelly about the forces of darkness hunting her down, she’d uproot and run the second she smelled any deception - or so I assumed. A small part of me insisted that she was no more likely to go all black ops than I was, but the fantasy of her living out some Jason Bourne-style escape was too hot to resist.

  Thankfully, my roommate was a lazy fuck at heart. All of his call logs were still on his cell phone. The concept of cleaning them out had seemingly never crossed his mind. A little online snooping confirmed that her calls had all come from payphones - jeez, I didn’t even realize those still existed - from the area in and around Rochester.

  That made sense. Sheila’s family was originally from upstate New York. It wouldn’
t be too much of a stretch that she’d want to be close enough to them in case anything happened.

  Sally had taken care of the rest, calling in a few favors with a coven up that way. She told them to keep an eye out for an escaped thrall that coincidentally happened to match Sheila’s description.

  I wasn’t too happy with getting other vampires involved, but her logic was hard to argue with. They knew the place and had the numbers to canvas a wide area.

  “What if they find her and get too close?” I asked.

  “She’s the Icon.” Quite frankly, that was really all the answer I needed.

  Suffice it to say, it was only a couple more days before we had an address.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

  I raised an eyebrow at the question, a smirk forming on my lips.

  Sally gritted her teeth. “Before you continue along whatever sick train of thought you’re following, let me make it very clear that the only one who would be screaming is you...and not in a good way.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied, feigning innocence. “But to answer your question, I probably need to do this on my own.”

  “I’m not disagreeing. I just think it’s stupid. You can barely say your own name around this girl, and yet, somehow, you think you’re gonna convince her to not only trust you again, but to join us on a suicide mission to kill this Vehron fucker?”

  I winced at the thought of the other Freewill, the one I’d accidentally set free, the one who was infinitely more badass than me, the one who’d killed a good friend of ours and badly beaten another.

  Pouring salt in that otherwise unpleasant wound, Sally had continued. “Keep in mind it’s also getting dicey heading north. Covens are dropping off the grid left and right. I have a feeling our friend has been recruiting.”

  “What about this Brighton Coven?” I asked, referring to the vamps who’d sniffed Sheila out. “Think they’re still trustworthy?”

  “Of course not. They’re vampires.”

  “I mean, do you think he’s gotten to them yet?”