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

by Rick Gualtieri

  As long as they didn’t run into anything overly nasty, they’d be fine. Besides, I had been considering a field trip of my own. Now that Christy had laid out her timeline, it seemed a good idea to do so before she started mucking with my head.

  “I’m going to scout out the Brooklyn safe house,” I said.

  “Safe house?” Sheila and Christy both asked.

  “Yeah, it’s over in the naval yards. Village Coven jointly owns it with the Howard Beach Coven. It’s neutral ground between us.”

  Not too long ago, Sally would have known that was bullshit, but Tom and Ed were both kind enough to scoff in her place.

  “Fine, supposedly neutral ground,” I corrected. “Doesn’t always work out that way. Anyway, it’s a place where we can fall back during times of emergency. Being that Village Coven is gone and so is most of the HBC ... hopefully ... I...”

  “That’s where you want to do it. That’s where you want Christy to try to coax your powers out, right?” Sheila asked.

  I nodded, choosing to ignore the “do it” line. New Bill was cooler than that, mostly. “Yeah. The place is reinforced, there’s room to maneuver if something goes wrong, and unlike my living room, I don’t care if it gets trashed in the process.”

  I left out that it also gave me an excuse to leave our apartment building unquestioned, giving me ample time to scout an entirely different location.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  First, though, Christy had a whole ton of stuff she wanted me to set up for her. Space needed to be cleared, symbols drawn on the floor, and incense burned. I didn’t really mind that last part. Abandoned warehouses tended to smell funky at the best of times. Ones that had been the scene of past slaughters were usually even more ripe – all the worse for those of us with superhuman senses.

  Unsurprisingly, Tom and Ed both volunteered to come along. Christy, however, nixed Tom’s departure. She wanted him close by to work with her on some enchantments – something about the faith-channeling amulet he owned. It was pretty much a watered-down version of what Sheila could do naturally ... albeit still pretty damned effective against vampires.

  I managed to talk Ed down from joining me. Despite being explosively resistant to vampire bites as of late, he was still no match for them in a fight. He offered to bring his shotgun as a precaution, but I declined. We’d need that firepower later, but it seemed an unnecessary risk for now. Besides, as a vampire, I was a lot faster than him. I could traverse the streets quickly and avoid any trouble. Or at least I hoped that would be the case.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  During the day, Brooklyn seemed almost normal – at least, the parts I could see from our windows. Hell, we even got mail sporadically – mostly flyers for home security systems interspersed with bills. Jesus Christ, even in the middle of the apocalypse the fucking phone companies still didn’t stop haunting people. So sorry your husband got eaten by a cave troll, but you still owe us two hundred dollars in data overage charges.

  Anyway, my roommates’ brief forays out had confirmed how routine life appeared to be out there. Heck, many of the businesses on 86th street were still open, even if the bars on their windows were now thicker than before.

  Once darkness came, though, odd shrieks could be heard in the night ... even odder than the usual New York fare. Sometimes, bizarre arcs of energy flashed in the sky. I hadn’t taken too many strolls since our return – I may have some semblance of superpowers, but I’m not fucking insane – but I had little doubt that dark alleyways, tunnels, and other such nooks held strange alien things mortal man was not meant to behold. Bottom line: if one felt the need to go jogging past sundown, it might have been best to notify one’s next of kin first as a precautionary measure.

  Of course, it’s possible some of that was just my imagination running wild. I managed to make it to the Brooklyn safe house with no real issues to report. The streets were mostly dark – courtesy of the fluctuating power grid – as well as pretty empty. That was a small blessing – it allowed me to utilize the unnatural speed afforded to me as one of the undead.

  Sure, every so often I could have sworn I heard something. Once or twice, I even looked up to the rooftops, certain something was about to descend upon me, but I chalked it up to basic paranoia. Besides, I had only adopted my newfound lease on life in the past twenty-four hours. One doesn’t shake off a lifetime of acting like a victim all in one fell swoop, y’know.

  Even so, I was kind of proud of myself. My immediate instinct was to pour every bit of speed into my legs and run from the invisible boogeymen. Instead, I forced myself to maintain pace – continually asking myself what Chuck Norris, Duke Nukem, and Mr. T would do in this situation. Would they run? Well, okay, they – or at least their memes – would probably level the block just to be safe. I decided to opt for a slightly less aggressive stance and just kept on my merry way.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Pardon the undead pun, but the safe house was quiet as a tomb. Of everything that had freaked me out on the journey over, that was perhaps the most unsettling. Perhaps, I considered, it had to do with the fact that every single time I’d visited this place, something had tried to smash my face in.

  The anticipation put me on edge, followed by the certainty that an ambush lurked around every corner – despite my nose telling me otherwise. But no. It was empty. Judging by the distressed state of the rooms I passed, it hadn’t seen much, if any, occupation since the last time I’d visited.

  Both James and Calibra – current prefect of the Northeast – had been present that day and it had still almost turned into a total clusterfuck. Four angry and afraid – but mostly angry – members of the HBC had been waiting for us. Following a brief scuffle, Calibra had stayed behind to take stock of their situation. I spared a brief thought, wondering what she’d told them and what had become of them afterwards. Whatever the case, they weren’t here now and hadn’t been in some time. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t return, but it seemed safe enough for the time being.

  I unshouldered the supplies I’d brought along and then pulled out a detailed printout of instructions from Christy. Screwing this up wasn’t a particularly smart option, so I’d had her work with Ed to Photoshop everything in as much detail as they could. A fucked-up “Klaatu, Barada, Nikto” was pretty damn funny in a movie, but I had a feeling it would be slightly less amusing in real life.

  Before getting to work, I sucked down a blood pack I’d snatched from our rapidly dwindling supply – trying to steel myself for what might need to happen once we ran out. I had to force myself to face that reality despite every fiber of my being trying to distract me with more pleasant thoughts, like Sally and Sheila confessing that it was perfectly cool to share me, followed by a sweaty honey-soaked threesome. I let that play out in my head for several minutes longer than I should have.

  Yeah, like I said, distractions were my Kryptonite.

  The Mean Streets

  To say the safe house wasn’t the tidiest place I’d ever seen was an understatement. For the most part, Village Coven’s other properties had been kept in good order. Hell, the last place Sally had set up before everything went to shit was pretty goddamned swank. However, given two rival covens jointly maintained this building, it meant neither gave much of a shit about it. After all, why clean when a bunch of assholes you don’t like are just gonna pop in and mess it up again?

  Alas, it was also the perfect place for Christy to perform whatever skull-fuckery she needed to do with me. I found a room deep within the structure, with thick concrete walls and only one exit, likewise reinforced, that would serve us nicely. Sadly, it was also a fucking mess. Had I been human, it would have taken me half a day just to clear it out, even after bribing my friends with beer to help. For a vampire, though, it was the work of maybe an hour. – helped by the fact that I wasn’t overly concerned about breaking anything.

  Another hour found the place prepped and smelling a bit nicer thanks to the burning incense and an
economy-sized can of Lysol I’d brought along. I’d breathed in far more than my share of rancid odors in the past. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tolerate it in situations under my control. Needless to say, I’d developed a newfound respect for the concept of lemony fresh.

  By the time I finished, the night was still young and I had plenty of time to head to my next stop – one I hadn’t bothered to list on my official itinerary. There was a good chance it was all for naught, but if my friends asked, I could always say it had taken me longer than expected to prep for Christy ... or maybe that I got jumped by rabid hobos along the way.

  It was probably dumb to go it alone, but the last time I’d made this trip, it hadn’t worked out so well for everyone else. I didn’t care to tempt fate before we headed north to our near-certain deaths. What I had in mind probably wouldn’t bear fruit anyway. Who was to say Dave was even there?

  Regardless, I had to try. He was my friend and, considering I’d set in motion the events that led to his current condition, also my responsibility.

  He’d gone missing right around the time I’d ended up in Vegas for what turned out to be a short-lived tenure as Sally’s bitch-boy in Pandora Coven. He hadn’t made contact since, which was worrisome on several fronts. Dave was my friend and I didn’t want to see any harm ... correction, any more harm come to him.

  Conversely, he was also an ethically deprived dick when he wanted to be. Hell, I used to joke to my gaming group that if I ever found myself in a hospital under his care, I’d sign a DNR form and then hold my breath until I passed out.

  In life, that had translated into him being an angry god of a dungeon master, happily raining spite down upon his players whenever we pissed him off. In death, well, I knew how tempting blood could be for a vamp.

  This was something I should have done months ago. As a friend, he deserved better. Instead, I’d been all too content to lick my wounds following Sheila’s rejection of me and too caught up in my own rapidly growing interest in Sally.

  Bros before hoes be damned.

  The problem was that Dave had been AWOL now for three months. The trail was pretty cold if he’d decided to skip town. That being said, in my former life as a programmer, we always kept this saying in mind: KISS – keep it simple, stupid. Always try the easy shit first because oftentimes therein lay the solution.

  In this case, that low hanging fruit was called Newark, New Jersey.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Going from one place in Brooklyn to another was a relatively simple matter. Getting from Brooklyn to Jersey was a pain in the ass under even good circumstances. These days, public transportation was iffy at best during the day. The subways and buses ran sporadically – sometimes on, sometimes not, and that was before the sun set every night. I’d likewise been told the ferries were down, a few quite literally at the bottom of the Hudson thanks to a series of unfortunate accidents.

  I didn’t own a car. Running through the subway tunnels at top speed was an option, but a potentially risky one. Considering what had happened in Vegas and then in the bunkers of NORAD, I’d become a little leery of being underground. It was one thing to try and adopt a new persona of bravery, but there was a thin line between heroic and being a fucking idiot.

  Thus, I relied on the one trait of humanity that was simultaneously its failing and savior – greed. Where the public transportation system had failed, intrepid souls had stepped in to fill the void with independent car service. Cabs, both licensed and not, could be found fairly easily – at least in the relatively good neighborhoods.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m normally not a fan of any sort of racial profiling, for humans anyway – most supernatural entities were dicks. However, I won’t lie. For once, I was glad to be a harmless-looking, nerdy white guy.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Roughly two hours later, I stepped out of the cab onto one of Newark’s main drags. The streetlights were still lit, which told me this place probably was hanging on pretty well. The ride hadn’t been too bad either – a little slow, and we’d had to take the long way as the bridges from Staten Island to Jersey were closed off. Fortunately, the roads were otherwise mostly clear. The world might be going to shit, but it was still in its early stages. We hadn’t yet reached a point where the highways were littered with cars full of people who’d decided to just pull over and die right there.

  Don’t ask how much the whole thing cost. Let’s just say I was glad nobody was stopping by these days to ask for a rent check. Thankfully, I had planned the trip in advance and had left home with a pocket full of bills – albeit probably not enough to get me home again. Oh well. I’d cross that proverbial bridge when I came to it.

  My plan of action was simple: try Dave’s apartment and then, if that didn’t pan out, make my way to the hospital where he once worked as a resident. Dave was a smart guy, but a shitty doctor – at least when it came to bedside manner. However, the hospitals were doubtlessly overflowing with patients these days. They were also hopefully home to a generous supply of bagged blood. If so, maybe Dave was still responsible for saving lives and not taking them. It was a long shot, but in these crazy days, hope was the one commodity that was still free.

  I hiked several blocks toward my first destination – noting the rapidly deteriorating state of the neighborhood as I went. No wonder my cabbie hadn’t wanted to go any further.

  Dave’s apartment complex wasn’t exactly in the upper crust section of the city to begin with, but it had previously been safe enough for a group of guys to gather for a weekly D&D game. Now, though, I could easily envision the rest of the group not so politely bowing out of the game. I passed multiple burnt out buildings. Graffiti proclaiming the end of the world shown on others, and that wasn’t even counting the bizarre scratches gouged into the walls of a few. All of it combined into a sense of being watched. If I hadn’t been an unholy creature of the night myself, I’d have said fuck it and found myself a nice, well-lit place to loiter until the sun came up.

  But I was a vampire. More so, I was a Freewill – a special breed of vamp with powers above and beyond the rest of the rabble. Or at least I kept telling myself that as I struggled to maintain my new outlook on life. Let me just mention, it’s one thing to stand in your own bathroom and proclaim you’re gonna face your fate head-on. It’s quite another when you’re walking through what looks to be the set of a fucking John Carpenter movie.

  I thought back to my early days as a vampire – remembering how Sally had told me that appearance was ninety-nine percent of everything in the world of the unliving. If you acted like a victim, you’d be torn a new asshole. If you walked in like you owned the place, your chances of seeing the next sunset were much better.

  Heh, the Sally living downstairs from me wasn’t so different from the one I’d first met, I mused as I turned down the block where Dave’s old apartment lay. I mean, weren’t they in the same boat, essentially getting to know me from scratch?

  No, that wasn’t true. Despite Alex mucking with her brain, she was a different person from those days – a lot less likely to cause a bloodbath just because someone was walking too slow in front of her. Well, maybe not a lot. Either way, she had definitely changed. In some ways, it was hopeful because...

  My stroll down memory lane was cut short as something hit me from behind with the force of a small truck. Before I could open my mouth to cry out, I was airborne – flying across the parking lot leading to Dave’s place. The blow and subsequent landing – allowing me to experience the gentle tug of the scarred asphalt against my face as I skidded to a halt – would have been more than enough to stun most humans or worse. Pity for the asshole who blindsided me, I wasn’t a...

  More like pity I wasn’t allowed to finish that thought. A pair of hands abruptly grabbed me by the back of my jacket and hauled me to my feet. I was spun around and shoved into the wall of the building. Just then, the scent of vampire registered in my nostrils, something I should have noticed earlier rather than
getting caught up in Sally daydreams.

  “You’re more than thirty minutes late,” my attacker growled. “We get a free pizza and your life.”

  Huh? The attack had caught me by surprise, but I was otherwise relatively unhurt. Whoever this asshole was, he was either a newb or didn’t realize who I was. It was going to cost him.

  Make that them.

  I looked up to see two more figures join the first. Though the darkness couldn’t conceal them from my eyes; they all wore masks.

  They rushed forward, and I took a wild swing at the nearest. My fist connected with a solid *clonk* of flesh meeting metal as I realized too late this one was actually wearing a medieval-style helmet – a pretty decent replica, if my bruised hand was any indication.

  Regardless, the blow got the job done. My attacker went down – a big-ass dent in the middle of his faceplate.

  “Motherfucker!” a muffled voice cried from within.

  Something about the cadence caught my attention, and I hesitated for a second, which allowed the others to close the distance and attempt to pin me. The one on the right wore a green knit ski-mask with Cthulhu-esque tentacles hanging off the front. The other stared at me through the rubber face of a Cyberman. All the fight went out of me as I recognized their headgear.

  No wonder the voice of Sir Dipshit had sounded so familiar.

  I was being attacked by my own D&D group. Guess I’d missed more games than I realized.

  Twenty Sides of Terror

  Before I could say a word, the two attackers on either side of me – Adam and Mike, judging by their respective disguises – both swung fists into my stomach, doubling me over.

  Okay, I’d had just about enough of this shit. I was sorely tempted to start swinging back – just enough to teach them who was the big bad wolf in this story, but then I had a better idea. Fuck it; when in undead Rome...