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

by Rick Gualtieri

  Suffice it to say, she didn’t need to tell me twice.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Tom, Ed, and Christy were waiting at the far end of the auditorium floor, directly below where the Draculas had been sitting. Knowing on which end their bread was buttered, both my roommates were frantically working to free Christy from her bonds - for all the good that did. Even rusty old metal was a deterrent for normal folk...but maybe not me.

  I put Sheila down, copping another quick feel in the process - figuring I might never get another chance. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything or vaporize me, for that matter.

  Her cuffs looked fairly new despite their odd coloring. At my current weakened level, I had no shot with them. Christy’s, though, were nice and weathered - apparently mage shackles were a vintage thing. I didn’t have a lot left in me, but hopefully I didn’t need much.

  I pushed my roommates aside and grabbed hold of one of the manacles - putting everything I had left into it. Ugh! I was pretty sure I was about to pop something in my back, but finally the lock gave.

  Bent over and breathing hard, I said, “I hope one is enough because I don’t think I can get the other.”

  “Watch me,” she said with a smile. Darkness enveloped her free hand and she reached down to touch the intact cuff with it. A moment later, it fell to dust.

  “Bill...”

  The warning was unnecessary, though, as right then a guard yelled, “The prisoners are escaping!” Gah! What fucking idiots. Did they not see the bloodbath happening on the other end of the room? What? Did they think we were going to help those fucking rock monstrosities?

  Hmm, actually, that probably was what they thought. Silly me.

  “Her next.” I pointed toward Sheila. I wasn’t too proud to admit that our best bet for survival lay in the hands of our fairer-sexed friends. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of hiding behind them as guards were even now heading our way. “Tom, stay with Christy. Ed, any chance of you bleeding on them?”

  “If they hit me enough times.”

  “Good, go with that.” I might not be an ancient conqueror, but I could improvise with the best of them - sorta.

  Fortunately, at least a few of the guards seemed to have brains in their heads. They stopped short - brandishing their weapons, but more or less just trying to make sure we didn’t escape.

  Sadly, one yahoo was more overzealous than the rest. He charged in, silver stake raised. He was on me in a second, overpowering me with no problem whatsoever. I found myself on my back, both arms struggling to keep him from bringing the weapon down into my chest.

  “Traitor,” he hissed.

  “The fuck? There hasn’t been any verdict yet.”

  “You pled guilty.”

  Okay, he had me there. Sadly, I didn’t appear to have time to discuss how I was coerced into that situation. The tip of the stake inched ever closer to my chest.

  And then he was gone - grabbed by the scruff of his neck and tossed backward like so much refuse. In his place stared down one of the few faces in the room I could honestly say I was glad to see.

  “Dr. Death,” James greeted cordially before addressing the other guards. “The sanctuary of your leaders has been breached. Secure it at all costs.”

  The troops didn’t waste any time questioning his orders. Rather than risk his wrath, they took off to engage the Jahabich. James watched them go, then offered me a hand.

  “Um, thanks.” I took it and let him drag me to my feet since I wasn’t entirely sure I could make it up on my own.

  As he pulled me up, his jacket swung open and I noticed the rather nasty looking knife - more a machete than anything - hanging from a sheath on his belt. He’d apparently upgraded since the fight in Boston. “I think you’re going to need that.”

  “Sadly, such a weapon is not intended for the throats of our enemies.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is a ceremonial athame, meant for other purposes.” As if in answer to what was going to be my next question, his eyes traveled down to his missing arm.

  Oh crap. Was he serious? My eyes opened wide at the implication. “What happened to you? I mean, are you all right?”

  “I would think to ask that of you. Nevertheless, I am afraid our current circumstance does not allow for such pleasantries.” Without further ado, his fangs descended and he tore into the wrist of his intact arm with them, ripping open a vein. He then held the gushing appendage toward me. “Please feel free to indulge yourself.”

  “Whoa, hold on...”

  “Enough.” His tone was calm, but firm. “There are two things obvious to me in this chaos. The first is you are nearly out of your mind from hunger. The second is that we shall require all the help we can get.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I was tempted to argue, but flashes of light in my periphery - more vampires biting the big one - told me I needed to save the arguments for another time. Hoping Sheila wasn’t watching, I grabbed hold of his wrist and brought it to my mouth. Talk about heavenly. Empty calories or not, vampire blood still tasted damn good to me. I dreaded the crash that would happen once it wore off, but for now, it did the trick.

  The second the blood hit my stomach, my head cleared. Better yet, I could feel my body charging up to my normal levels and far beyond. Within seconds, I felt like a million bucks as my body’s healing amped up and fixed any residual injuries I might have had.

  “Are you quite finished? We appear to be on a timetable here if we wish to survive.”

  Oh crap. The problem with blood is that it’s sometimes easy to lose oneself in it. “Sorry, I’m good, thanks.”

  “Excellent.” He stepped back, the wound on his wrist already starting to stitch itself closed. “Be mindful of yourself and your friends. This is dangerous ground.”

  Before I could even voice my thanks, he was gone, leaping into the fray and sending fragments of rock flying wherever his fists landed. His warning was not lost upon me, though. There were so many potential knives that could be stuck in our backs from so many different sides that we would need eyes in the backs of our heads to survive even sixty seconds in this mess.

  “Watch those hands, mister!”

  I turned back to find Sheila, finally unshackled, scrambling up the stadium seating to the next level. Tom was helping give her a boost. I smiled, noting she hadn’t given me the same warning.

  I didn’t need to question her objective. It was painfully obvious. Her sword still stood where Alex had sunk it into the floor.

  Christy covered them, her body glowing an angry red and her eyes scanning for any enemies getting too close. Ed stood behind her, pointing out any spots where it looked like the Jahabich were getting ready to punch through.

  “You got this?” I asked.

  She nodded grimly. Judging by her mood, she was more than ready to dispense with some magical justice upon whoever was stupid enough to challenge her. Okay then, as long as it wasn’t me.

  I looked up to see that Sheila had made it to the next level. Fortunately, the Draculas appeared to have vacated the premises, presumably to join in the fight, so ten thousand years’ worth of angry vamp didn’t immediately dogpile her.

  What happened next, though, was nothing short of amazing. Sheila grabbed the hilt of her sword and heaved. At first, it stuck fast. For all I knew, the underlayment was solid concrete like everything else. Then, slowly, the glow of her power spread across her body and down to the weapon itself. She gave one last heave and it pulled free, her body and the blade both igniting in an explosion of white light as she held it aloft.

  Tom said it best. “By the power of Grayskull, motherfuckers!”

  Indeed. All that was missing was her transformation into that hot mini dress She-Ra used to wear. Oh well, it’s not like my mind couldn’t fill in that blank.

  So spectacular was it that it seemed the fighting paused for the barest of moments for all to watch.

  I opened my m
outh to cheer her on, but as my eyes opened wide, the words wouldn’t come.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you keep that,” Alex said, stepping from the chaos of the crowd and facing her. He’d somehow procured a sword of his own at some point. The distinctive grey mottling of the blade glinted in the harsh fluorescent lighting.

  Oh crap.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The whole point of becoming an Icon was an undying faith in oneself, or so the legends say. The truth was, if Sheila was afraid of Alex, she didn’t show it, leveling her sword in his direction. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to believe in her too, I had tasted Alex’s power. It was immense, unlike almost anything else I could imagine - a real life Marvel superhero, or villain, as was the case. Add to that his experience and the disdain he’d expressed earlier regarding the threat Sheila represented, and I knew what I had to do.

  Tensing my legs, I leapt - clearing the next level easily. I took a moment, but no more than that, to savor how awesome being an elder vampire must be. Sheila, thankfully, glanced over her shoulder rather than swinging wildly and cleaving me in two. She nodded, then turned back to face Alex, assuming a battle stance.

  Unfortunately, she’d misjudged my motivation. I hadn’t joined her to fight Alex. James was powerful, but that would have been little more than suicide on my part. Instead, I racked my mind, trying to remember what Sally and Grulg had said.

  Alex stood there confidently. He waved Sheila forward with his free hand - his own sword at the ready.

  White fire gleaming from her eyes, she opened her mouth to elicit a battle cry.

  “I offer a truce as per the Humbaba Accord!”

  Both combatants stopped in their tracks to turn toward my direction.

  “Excuse me?” Alex asked.

  “As per the Humbaba Accord,” I repeated, having no real clue whether what I was saying made any sort of fucking sense. I mean, it’s not like I’d read the damn thing. “Warring parties can enact a temporary truce, can they not?”

  “Are you suggesting...”

  “Yes. Right now, we have a bigger problem than all of this bullshit.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes, but I held my ground, not wanting to puss out while the girl of my dreams was watching. The things I sometimes endured a beating for.

  “I’ve fought these things before. They’re tough, act with one mind, and will turn any of us they capture into their slaves. They need to be stopped. When this is over, we’ll surrender happily.”

  “We will?” Sheila asked.

  “Well, okay, we can discuss that part. For now, though, what do you say, Alexander of the First?”

  He took a long moment to consider it, glancing off into the battle beyond. The Jahabich continued to pour into the room, replenishing any of their numbers we managed to take down. Considering the force on display, I had to assume that once we’d escaped their clutches down below, they’d just said fuck it and dumped all remaining prisoners into the goo.

  “Well played, Freewill. Your truce is granted,” he said at last. “I swear on my honor.”

  Sheila once more glanced back at me, as if to ask if his honor was worth the toilet paper it was written on. I held my tongue for a second to avoid jeopardizing our situation and simply replied, “Thank you.”

  “Keep in mind,” he warned, “should you try to escape, or any of our people fall by her blade, then it shall immediately be dissolved.”

  “Those are your terms?”

  “They are.”

  Good enough for me, and probably the best I was going to get. “So be it.”

  With that, the three of us turned our attention to the fight at hand: the Freewill, the Icon, and the greatest military mind the world had ever seen.

  Go figure. There’s never someone around with a fucking camera when you need it.

  The War of the Three Factions

  Things didn’t look particularly promising. The room had been full of beings of considerable power, beings that should have been able to decimate the ranks of the Jahabich like bugs. The problem? They didn’t appear to want to stick around for the fun.

  I jumped into the mix, using James’s stolen power to good effect. I’d just grabbed a pair of Jahabich by the arms and swung them hard enough into each other to embed their broken forms together when I spotted Druaga. The ugly fucker was standing off in a corner, looking bored. One of the rock monsters approached and he casually swatted it, sending its head and the orange goo inside flying. Then, just like that, he was gone - the air around him imploding in a pop of noise.

  All around the room, others were doing the same. Those four-winged imps vanished in little balls of fire. A pair of ugly blobs of multi-eyed pus seemed to melt into the floor. Something that looked like the Grim Reaper’s hairier cousin turned translucent and walked to the door, passing through everything in its path.

  Sadly, that left the rest of us in a bad way. Most of those elves I’d seen earlier got pounded into elven paste before anyone could reach them. A human arm, still holding an M16, went flying past me at one point. Vampires were turning to dust left and right. In short, it wasn’t looking all too promising.

  I ducked a swing from one of the attackers and dove for the floor as a red-hot beam of force cauterized it in place. Rolling to my feet as gracefully as I could, I made my way over to where Christy stood. “How are you doing?”

  “I’ll live.” Sweat stood out on her face from the strain, but she appeared to be holding her own. “Find the others so we can get out of here.”

  “Um, there’s a little problem with that.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve been saving enough in reserve to get us all to safety.”

  “Yeah, I kind of sort of promised Alex we wouldn’t do that.”

  She stopped firing for a moment to turn toward me, the red glow around her never fading. To tell the truth, it sort of unnerved me a bit. “You what?”

  “He was going to kill Sheila. I offered him a truce, but the terms were we couldn’t run.”

  “Could you have made a worse deal?”

  “Well, I also promised that she wouldn’t kill any vamps during the fight.” I grabbed a Jahabich trying to flank her, spun, and threw it into the wall.

  “Anything else I should know?” she growled.

  “You look great. Pregnancy really works for you.”

  Before she could blast me, I took a look around. “There!” I pointed out Tom and Ed.

  The Jahabich were closing in on them. I had no idea if it was because they looked soft and squishy or if they still wanted Ed for their personal trophy case, but it didn’t matter. “Get them out of here,” I said, clearing a path toward my friends. I tossed the creatures left and right, not really caring who they flew into but hoping they slammed into someone I didn’t like.

  “But you said...”

  “Don’t leave the complex. Just get them to another room, preferably someplace with a really sturdy door. Shouldn’t be hard to find in this madhouse.”

  A beam of heat flashed disturbingly close to my head. Were it not for James’s power currently in my blood, I had a feeling I’d be missing an ear or worse. “What about you?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ve pissed off far too many people in this room for them to let these monsters have the fun of killing me.” I only wished that was a joke. Oh well, better reaction than indifference, I say.

  “I don’t know much about...”

  “Concentrate on your cell,” I suggested. “It’s better than nothing.”

  “There’re mystical sigils in it. No sending in or out.”

  “What about right outside the door?”

  She appeared to consider that, then nodded.

  I glanced off to my left toward a bright flash of white light. Sheila was engaging the enemy. I had no doubt she’d fulfill her end of the bargain, but it wasn’t clear yet if Alex was man enough of honor to live up to his. If not, I’d almost certainly live
to regret it.

  We reached my roommates just in time. One of the Jahabich had closed in and was about to cave in Tom’s skull - something that might’ve hindered even his ability to carry on a conversation.

  Before it could connect, I grabbed it from behind - my claws digging into its rocky skin like it was made of putty. I dragged it back, lifted it - enjoying how much lighter these things felt when my muscles were powered up - and brought it down upon my knee, shattering its spine, or whatever bodily structure kept it upright. “Go!”

  Tom and Ed looked confused, but Christy didn’t hesitate. She stepped up, placed a hand on each of their shoulders, and mouthed “Good luck” just as she winked out of existence in a flash of light.

  Their quarry gone, the Jahabich who’d been closing in on Ed all turned their focus on me.

  “Alright, assholes, who wants some?”

  Turns out far too many of them did.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  James’s speed and strength kept me on my feet and my defenses mostly intact. Unfortunately, the problem with a half dozen clubs all swinging at you at once is that some of them are going to get through. Considering the composition of our foe’s bodies, that meant it was going to hurt a lot - which it did.

  That being said, a hundred Saturday afternoon kung-fu movies had taught me that in a fight like this, it’s key to never let your opponent knock you off your feet. You stay upright and maybe you can find a way out or a wall to put your back to. You end up on your ass and you’re fucked, just not in the good way.

  Needless to say, one club to the side of my leg later and I was fucked. I looked up to see a circle of empty orange eyes glaring down. I had just enough time to think how pissed everyone would be at me for getting killed at hands other than their own when a screech of rage rent the air, as if someone had just run over an angry alley cat with a lawnmower.

  I knew that sound. Hell, I heard it in my nightmares more often than not. A small, cowardly part of me wanted to shout, “Well, c’mon, kill me already!” but I was too late.

  A dainty hand reached over the top of one of the monsters, grabbed hold of an eye socket and yanked back, ripping its head in half at the jawline. Faster than the beasts could register one of their own biting the big one, a small foot caught another in the side of the head with a vicious spin kick that sent it and its two closest buddies flying.