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

by Rick Gualtieri

  I saw the opening up ahead and the wall beyond that signaled the long climb up. There was no way I could leave this one to chance. Reaching around behind me, I grabbed hold of the canteen and unslung it from my shoulder. Ripping the cap off, I raised it to my lips just as the floor began to rumble.

  I glanced back as the sound of the explosion reached me - nearly blowing out my overly sensitive eardrums. Green and red flames raced down the tunnel in my direction, their image distorted by the shock wave they rode.

  I gulped down a swallow and put everything I had into my legs...only to stumble as the ground rippled in front of me. The ages-old layers of grime and shit began to give way.

  It was all I could do to keep my footing. Just a little bit more...

  A sinkhole opened before me, the quivering mass of floor collapsing in on itself, perhaps into an even deeper abyss below us.

  My hair caught ablaze as the fire overtook me and then I jumped, using every bit of stolen strength at my disposal.

  I slammed into the wall, the canteen knocked out of my grip as I desperately sank my claws into the rock and began to climb with everything I had.

  And that’s when the full brunt of the explosion overtook me.

  Onward and Upward

  Had Sally not shared her brainstorm about mixing up blood cocktails, I have little doubt I would have been a goner. As it was, my body armor was still far more heat resistant than the rest of me.

  As the shockwave slammed into me, pretty much crushing me against the wall like a bug, my skin blistered and burned. Within seconds, I turned into a human pyre.

  But still I climbed, managing to stifle a cry if only because I didn’t want to open my mouth and experience the wonderful sensation of my tongue melting.

  All the while, I kept sinking my claws nearly knuckle deep in the wall as the entire thing shook as if God himself had come down from heaven and decided, “Enough of this shit.”

  I was surprised there wasn’t more sound, but then again, I really couldn’t hear much of anything at all. In short, I was in bad shape. I just had to hope the Jahabich were worse off. Miranda had done as she’d promised and then some. If there was any justice in this crazy universe, she’d received her reward for her effort and been reunited with her husband in whatever afterlife awaited mages.

  Now, all I needed to do was make sure I didn’t join them.

  Finally, the shockwave passed. The air remained superheated and I couldn’t see shit with all the dust, but almost immediately, I began to feel less crispy. The healing power of half a dozen vampires was working its magic inside of me - knitting things back together at a pace I wouldn’t see naturally for several hundred more years, assuming I was lucky enough to make it that far. Fuck it; the way things were going, I considered every new week as cause to celebrate.

  Yeah, a party sounded nice right at that moment - one with strippers, good food, and lots to drink - preferably all of it ice cold.

  I held that last image in my head as I continued to climb, my skin alternating between peeling off and growing back again. I just hoped my healing kept at it. Now would be a really fucking lousy time for it to up and burn out, like that time Magneto ripped Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton out - not one of my favorite comic arcs, as each subsequent issue seemed to be about him either getting his ass kicked or whining about it.

  At last, the heat began to subside. Little by little, my epidermis grew back and stayed that way. The rumbling continued, and I realized I could now hear the sound of rock caving in on itself from far below. Jesus Christ, how many fucking explosives had Sally set down there? Only one thing was certain - she sure as shit wanted to make sure those monsters stayed buried this time.

  Sadly, I had a feeling that wasn’t to be. Unless the entire cave network had crumbled, multiple exits led away from that place with the cave painting. There likewise might have been more egresses in the cavern with the orange pool of glowing death. It would have taken a tremendous amount of luck to have brought the entirety of their home down upon their heads. I felt pretty good about making it out, but didn’t dare fool myself into believing the gods of fate smiled upon me in anything even approaching that capacity.

  Oh well, their main path to the Vegas sewers was hopefully shut. If they managed to surface again, they’d have to find another coven to haunt.

  Hah, the Vegas sewers. I had a moment to consider that and hope we hadn’t collapsed the entire city with our antics. How embarrassing would that be?

  I lifted my claws to grasp the next handhold and instead found I’d somehow reached the top.

  Thank goodness too. The battle between my healing prowess and the fires of destruction had really taken everything out of me. I practically had to drag myself up over the edge.

  I bent over for a moment, my hands on my knees - catching my breath in between trying to cough out any gunk in my lungs. The hard part was seemingly over. Now all I had to do was hope the others were still alive, find them in this rat maze of tunnels, and somehow not get lost down here for all of eternity.

  Yeah, sounded easy as pie.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Holy crap, my head was spinning. Had the explosion taken that much out of me? I mean, normally, when my body healed, it was a done deal, but it seemed that down here, whenever the vampire blood began to wear off...

  Oh, crap. Was that the cause? I’d been so psyched at the success of Sally’s little experiment I hadn’t stopped to consider any side effects. What if it was poisoning me somehow? What if I...

  Oof! I tripped and fell over something. The smoke from the explosion had started to thin out, but it was still hard as hell to see anything. Vampire eyes might be awesome for night vision, but they were about as useful as a bag of dicks for seeing through dust and debris.

  I felt along the floor and found what I’d fallen over. It was covered in hot ash, but it didn’t take me long to determine the humanoid shape. Oh no.

  It wasn’t a vampire; that much was easy to figure out. There was an actual body beneath the dirt and grime. Had it been a vamp, there’d have been nothing but floor under it, but I definitely felt at least an arm and a torso. Dusting it off further, I could feel that it was pretty badly burnt up - no doubt from the explosion. From the size and shape - and by that I mean boobs - I could tell it was female. One of the humans we’d saved, maybe?

  But why was she so close to ground zero? Did that mean Sally hadn’t gotten them away in time? Fuck!

  I began feeling along the floor, panic rising in me. What if it had all been for nothing? What if we’d escaped only for our desperate gambit to consume everyone but me? “No!”

  Aside from whatever had been caused by Miranda’s explosive exit from this mortal coil, there wasn’t any breeze to clear things out. Fortunately, though, that meant stuff started to settle quickly in the still air.

  Sadly, it still wasn’t enough yet to give me more than a few inches of visibility. It also didn’t help that I was so dizzy at this point I probably couldn’t even stand back up if I tried. I started feeling blindly along the floor for anyone else. Unfortunately, it rapidly became an exercise in futility as I’d check one section and then realize I was doing so again in the same spot just a second later.

  Thinking was becoming a chore and I couldn’t be entirely certain I wasn’t going to puke.

  Darkness began to play at the edges of my vision, and it had nothing to do with the debris in the air. Despite a ton of adrenaline coursing through me, all I really wanted to do was take a nice long nap.

  And that’s when a hand reached out of the darkness and dragged me to my feet.

  Oh shit! Had Mark or some of those other freaks gotten out? If so, there was no way I could...

  I reached out to shove my attacker away and felt rough fabric, but beneath it lay firm yet supple mounds of flesh.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Bill?”

  “Sally?”

  “Yeah, now get your hands of
f of my ti...”

  I pressed my lips against hers in the dusty confines of the cave, cutting off her protest. I grabbed hold and held her tight as I did so - all caution thrown to the wind in my joy at finding her alive. At first, she stiffened in surprise, but then I could have sworn she relaxed a bit and began to return it.

  Unfortunately, that last part could have just been wishful thinking, as I picked that exact moment to pass out.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Ow, I think you dislodged a tooth.”

  “Stop whining. It was for your own good.”

  “You didn’t need to hit me.”

  “Yes, I did. Are you going to tell me you were just about to run like you’d been told to?”

  “Well...”

  “Exactly. You seem to share that stupid trait with Bill. You both pick the absolute worst times to be chivalrous. Must be something in your shithole apartment’s water.”

  “You don’t find that cute?”

  “I find it annoying.”

  “Come on, not the slightest bit...”

  “Uhhh,” I groaned as I tried, and failed, to open my eyes. The voices had started filtering into my subconscious right around the time I became aware of various sensations - a wetness against my back, coupled with the sense of movement.

  As the moan escaped my lips, the movement stopped and there came the wonderful feeling of a dull impact on the back of my head. “Ouch.”

  “Oops,” a female voice replied. “You finally awake?”

  “I think so. Not sure I want to be, though.” I pried my eyes open and winced as my head throbbed from the effort. It had been a while, well over a year - basically ever since I’d been turned into a vampire - but I distinctly remembered how it felt to be hung over. This wasn’t all that different. However, it didn’t help that someone was shining a flashlight in my eyes.

  “Get that fucking thing out of my face.”

  “Sorry,” a familiar male voice responded.

  I took a look around, but didn’t see much of anything at first. Panic set in until I reached up and realized my glasses were just coated in thick dust from the explosion. They were filthy but intact. Thank goodness I had splurged for titanium frames with shatterproof lenses.

  Using my fingers to wipe the worst of the gunk away, I was finally able to see further than the tip of my nose again, making out the forms standing above me - Sally, Ed, and...and that was it. Nothing else came into view save the dark walls of the sewer tunnel.

  I reached up a hand and Ed grabbed hold. Bracing myself for the unpleasant feeling of being vertical again, I let him drag me to my feet. Then I immediately stepped to the wall for a little added support. “What happened?”

  “You fainted,” Sally replied with a smirk.

  “I’m pretty sure I passed out.”

  “Same thing.”

  I looked around the tunnel we were standing in and saw marks on the floor leading off into one direction. I put two and two together, then reached around to confirm my backside was coated in muck. “You dragged me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Couldn’t have made a litter or something?”

  “Look around, Ranger Rick. Do you see a forest here? What was I supposed to do, make one out of rocks?”

  “You could have carried me.”

  “Could have, but didn’t.”

  Bitch!

  “You okay?” Ed asked, concern in his voice.

  “Not sure.” I moved away from the wall, still woozy but gaining some semblance of equilibrium back. “What was in that blood, Sally?”

  “Nothing but blood.”

  Seeing Ed’s confused look, I explained Sally’s plan to him and how it had worked out better than I’d hoped - leading us to him and then saving our asses big time. The only downside seemed to be what I felt now, which was worrisome. I’d already suffered from one power burning out - in a sense of the phrase. What if this was a chain reaction? Maybe soon, I’d find myself crawling on my knees, a slave to some other vampire’s compulsion. Wow, wouldn’t that suck big hairy Sasquatch balls? I voiced my concern of such.

  Sally raised an eyebrow, seemingly thinking this through. To my surprise, though, Ed just laughed.

  “Did I miss the punchline?”

  “Only every time you look in a mirror.”

  “Eat me.”

  “Seriously,” he said, his voice even, “it seems pretty obvious to me - you crashed.”

  “Crashed?”

  “Yeah, remember that time about two years back when you finally swore to God you were gonna ask Sheila out?”

  “Um...”

  “We were all sitting around doing shots, but you were sucking down Red Bulls, too.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I replied sheepishly.

  “So what happened?” Sally asked, her grin widening.

  “The usual,” Ed replied. “We were at it all night. Bill must’ve downed at least a six-pack. Come the next day, I had to cover for him in three meetings - wouldn’t have been able to wake him up if he was on fire.”

  “And what about her?”

  “Do you need to ask?”

  Assholes, both of them. “You know, considering your boyfriend back there wanted to pass you around like a blow-up doll to all his stone-dicked buddies, you may wish to refrain from commenting on the love lives of others.”

  “Boyfriend?” Ed asked.

  “Yeah. Sally used to date one of those rock monsters.”

  He turned to her, the obvious question on his face, but she just held up a hand. “Drop it.”

  “But...”

  “Or I’ll drop you again.”

  And that was pretty much the end of that conversation.

  The Enemy of My Enemy is Still a Dickhead

  It took me a few minutes to regain my equilibrium, and even then, I was still shaky. What Ed had said made sense now that I took some time to think it over. The truth was, every time in the past that I’d ever powered up on vamp blood, it had been a singular event. I’d bite some asshole vampire, go all Super Saiyan, then power down a short while later - hopefully after winning whatever fight I’d been in.

  This was the first time I’d ever held a constant vampire buzz, if you will, for so long of a stretch. The truth was, I’d been so psyched at the discovery, I never bothered to consider whether there might be any consequences. Now I realized it had been a stupid, desperate gambit - relying on something that was entirely untested.

  Thankfully, we’d gotten lucky, although now I was paying the price. My stomach rumbled, partially answering the question of why I felt like crap. Oddly enough, I was hungry; starving, actually.

  “This makes no sense,” I said after voicing those thoughts to my two friends in the dark tunnel. “I’ve been sucking down blood for...”

  “Vampire blood,” Sally corrected.

  “I know that.”

  “Yeah, but what if that’s the cause?”

  “Not following you.”

  “It’s simple,” she said. “We know vamp blood is different than human blood, right? Otherwise it wouldn’t be toxic to other vamps.”

  “True, except for me.”

  “Yeah, but what if that difference is also partially detrimental to you?”

  “Now you’ve lost me too,” Ed said.

  “It’s okay. I’ll explain slowly since you’re both men.” She walked over to the wall where I was leaning and took a spot next to me. “What if you don’t actually get a lot of nutrition out of vampire blood?”

  “Kind of like with normal food?” I asked, curious to see where she was going with this.

  “More or less.”

  “But what about that time you saved me up in Canada? I was bleeding out like a pig, but you managed to get me back on my feet.”

  “I’m thinking that was more the extra kick to your healing, and also, with the amount you lost, anything was better than nothing. Maybe you get something out of it, just n
ot enough to really sustain you in the long run.”

  “Empty calories, but with a wicked rush,” Ed surmised. “Kind of like downing a bucketful of espressos?”

  “I think I get where you’re going with this,” I said. “You have, say, a soda in the middle of the day and it’s not going to matter since you’re probably not too far away from your last meal, or the next one, for that matter.”

  “Which kind of fits how it’s worked for you in the past.”

  “Yeah, but if you go on a bender - trying to survive on nothing but that...”

  “You’re gonna feel like an absolute piece of shit when it’s over and done with because you forgot to take your Flintstone Chewables.”

  I considered this. I remembered the first time I’d sucked down another vamp’s blood. It had been against some goons from the Howard Beach Coven of Queens. The next morning, I’d felt similar, if not so intensely bad, to how I felt now until drinking my morning cup of blood. I’d nearly forgotten because it hadn’t happened since then, but perhaps that had just been my body acclimating to it.

  Shit, if I ever got my ass back east, I’d need to find Dave. After kicking his ass for running off, I wouldn’t mind him running some tests to confirm all this. Maybe next time I’d need to mix my vintages - put a little human blood into the pitcher to fortify it as part of this nutritious breakfast. That way, I might not end up feeling like shit.

  Speaking of feeling like a piece of crap, though... “How are you still upright?” I asked Sally.

  “Huh?”

  “Back there, between the beating and having your fingers chopped off...” I noticed they had grown back and looked the same as before - minus the nail polish she’d been wearing before that Jahabich had decided to go all Pac-Man on her hand. “...I saw the look in your eyes. You would have gladly chewed Miranda’s head off if given half a...”

  Oh crap.

  “There were three people who escaped with us.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ed said. “I almost forgot about them after I got decked.”