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

by Rick Gualtieri

  “So can you cast Cloudkill?”

  “What about Summon Monster Six?”

  “Do you have a familiar?”

  “Do you prefer wands or rods?”

  “You versus a similar level sorcerer, who wins?”

  “Do you know Feeblemind?”

  She stepped back, a look of confusion on her face. “I have no idea what any of you are talking about.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “I think they already got hit with that Feeblemind spell.”

  That set Tom at least to laughing.

  Christy composed herself and tried to explain that she wasn’t up to speed with anything they were asking about because it didn’t have a basis in real magic. My friends weren’t overly happy with that. Their attention turned toward Tom again as she attempted to explain a little bit about spirits and other shit that, quite frankly, wasn’t all that interesting.

  “You can give them a lesson on the finer points of mage training later. I just brought them up to introduce them and let everyone know...” I muttered the rest.

  “Excuse me?” Christy asked.

  “That they’d be coming with us,” I said with a guilty grin.

  Her eyes narrowed. “All of them?”

  “Yes, all of them.”

  Before any protests could be raised, I changed the subject. “Where are Ed, Sally, and Sheila?”

  “Sheila?” Adam asked.

  Without thinking, I replied, “She’s the Icon ... the paladin I was telling you about.”

  “No no no,” he said. “I meant this wouldn’t happen to be Princess Sheila, would it?”

  Oh fuck! I’d spent the last couple of years telling any sympathetic ear I could find about the goddess I worked with. That circle included my roommates and my gaming buddies.

  Eventually, one of Dave’s adventures had included the king of the realm being assassinated and us being tasked with finding the killer. His daughter, who Dave had introduced as Princess Sheila, presented us with medals of heroism following our investigation. It was his way of mocking my pain.

  Ever since then, we’d been her champions, but – much like in real life – she was always just out of my reach.

  I should have remembered that before bringing these fuckers here. Now I was either gonna have to listen to their shit or kill them, and believe me, that last option was starting to sound preferable.

  Sadly, the few seconds I took to process this were more than enough to admit my guilt. The four shit-eating grins – make that five; Tom was enjoying this too – that met my gaze cemented it.

  Unbidden thoughts filled my head – all of them ending with me surrounded by piles of recently dusted vampire.

  Kill them all.

  I tried my best to ignore what I really hoped was just my internal defense mechanisms reacting. “So are the others around?” I asked Christy through gritted teeth.

  The look on her face reflected bemusement tinged with a wee bit of compassion, albeit not nearly enough for my liking. She kept from smiling as she replied, “Ed’s in his room. Sally and Sheila still aren’t back from Manhattan.”

  “They went there already?”

  “Yeah. They left right after you went to prep the safe house.”

  “And they haven’t gotten back yet?”

  “Relax, Bill,” she said, putting a hand upon my shoulder. “Look how long you were gone. You came back fine. They will too.”

  She probably had a point. Both of them were easily as capable as ... oh fuck it, more capable than me. Downtown Manhattan couldn’t be any more dangerous than Newark these days ... or so I hoped.

  Even so, I was glad I’d gotten some sleep earlier because I had a feeling I wouldn’t be resting easy until both of them were safe and sound. Quite the ask in this day and age.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  There was no point in introducing Ed to people he already knew, but Dave insisted on knocking on his door and bugging him for a blood sample. My roommate raised a skeptical eye and said he’d think about it – probably more to get rid of Dave than anything else.

  Then, before my former DM could push his luck and start asking for toes or other body parts, I suggested they all head back downstairs and settle in for the night.

  My own supply of blood was starting to run low, but I offered to share what I had with them – knowing that once we were on the road, I’d almost certainly have to accept the fact that it was either actively hunting or going mad from hunger.

  No one can eat just one.

  Fuck, that was getting annoying. It also pointed to the fact that my time was running out.

  Once the footsteps of the Defilers – gah, that was stupid – had retreated below, I quickly shut the door and turned to Christy.

  “That blood thingee, is it still on?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I made it so that the ward itself was persistent. Takes a bit of extra work, but it also saves me from having to run up and down the stairs to reset it every time.” Her hands went to her stomach to help emphasize that probably wasn’t a prospect she relished while carrying a bowling ball inside of her.

  “Does it work the other way too?”

  “Other way?”

  “If something that’s not us tries to leave.”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s omnidirectional. Why?”

  I hesitated for a moment. There was something about telling an already twitchy mage that her new housemates had a penchant for murderous mayhem that struck me as dicey. “I’m worried about them. They were off in the wild by themselves with nobody to guide them.”

  “Except that asshole.”

  “Yes, except for Dave,” I acknowledged with a sigh. “I know. He can be a bit ... intense.”

  She cocked an eyebrow.

  “And unlikable too. However, from what he told me, he was doing his best to keep them in check.”

  “He turned them.”

  “I know, but he was also trying to keep them stocked with hospital blood.”

  “Trying?” Ed took a seat on the couch. His tone was one of casual conversation – he’d long grown desensitized to the bloody quirks of the supernatural world – but I had a feeling his question wasn’t going to make Christy particularly happy.

  “They’ve had a few ... incidents,” I admitted.

  “Incidents?” she asked coldly.

  “Mostly involving gang members.”

  “Oh.”

  “And maybe a few delivery guys.”

  “So let me get this straight. You just invited a small coven of vampires to move in on the ground floor, despite knowing they’re not like you. That at any time they could snap.”

  “Sally’s not like Bill either,” Tom pointed out, coming to my rescue.

  “Tom has a point,” Ed replied. “As much as I like her, let’s not kid ourselves. She’s not gonna think twice about snacking on her fellow New Yorkers if she gets thirsty.”

  I was tempted to point out that any and all denizens of the supernatural world could at any time resort to brutal violence – including the Magi. Hell, I’d been on the receiving end of that more times than I preferred. In a sense, weren’t we all – every single one of us – killers in our own right?

  “They just need some guidance,” I said quickly, not wanting to open that can of worms. “They’ll listen to me. I’ve already established myself as the party leader.”

  “Party...”

  “Coven master,” I corrected, “but in a way they’ll understand. Besides, it’s not like everyone else here can’t take care of themselves in a pinch.”

  “Bill’s got a point.”

  “No he doesn’t, and you know it,” Christy snapped at Tom. “You’re vulnerable.”

  “I’m fine, babe. Nobody’s going to touch me.”

  “You are not fine!”

  Okay, that was a bit harsh. “Is there something I’m missing here?”

  “It’s nothing important,” Tom repli
ed.

  I glanced at Ed, and he just held up his hands, indicating he wanted no part of this.

  “Define ‘nothing important,’” I pressed.

  It was Christy who finally answered.

  “It’s his faith. He can’t channel it anymore.”

  Should I Stay or Should I Go?

  “Huh?”

  Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the most eloquent way of questioning her revelation, but it was all I had. From the time I’d become a vampire, Tom had possessed an ability that I’d only seen a handful of other humans master – the ability to infuse an object with the power of faith.

  My roommate wasn’t exactly a holy roller, but faith magic itself was a misnomer. It didn’t require devotion to God. It manifested as a powerful belief in something; anything, really. Technically, one could empower a roll of toilet paper as readily as a crucifix. More important was that it could really fuck up a vampire’s day.

  In my roommate’s case, he was a collector. He maintained a storage unit in Jersey, close to where his parents lived, that was filled with toys, comics, and old trading cards. Pity that Tom was closer to being a crazed hoarder than a discerning connoisseur. Most of the stuff he had was crap, barely worth the effort it would take to burn.

  The few items he did have of value, he displayed proudly in his room – much to my and Ed’s delight, as we’d occasionally fuck with them just to annoy him. However, there had been one toy that had truly set him off. Soon after my turning, he’d managed to find a mint condition Optimus Prime Transformer, which he’d picked up for a pittance at a flea market. Such was his joy, combined with the greed of overestimating its potential worth, that he’d managed to inadvertently tap into the hidden well of white-hot power known to mages and vampires alike as faith.

  What should have just been a pretty cool find instead became a weapon that could be used against the undead with brutal efficiency.

  Sadly for him, it was smashed to bits during my first real test as a vampire – our foray to take down Night Razor. However, soon after, Christy was able to fashion him an amulet of sorts – inscribed with the toy’s likeness. It had served as a conduit for the crazed love he’d felt for his prized possession. He’d worn it ever since, saving my ass in the process more than once.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, adding a bit more intelligence to my grunt of a few moments prior.

  “Tell him,” Christy said.

  “It’s not a big...” Tom began.

  “Tell him.” A beam of yellowish energy coalesced in Christy’s right hand and lanced out at my friend’s backside.

  Tom jumped as if he’d been shot with a BB gun. “Ouch, okay, okay! Goddamn, that stings.” He looked me in the eye as if seeking help, but I couldn’t help but grin. The poor fucker was whipped in more ways than one. “Your sympathy fills my heart with joy.”

  I shrugged and he went on.

  “It started a few months back. Remember when we got jumped by those HBC fuckers?”

  “At the safe house?”

  “Yep.”

  “How could I forget, especially after Ed made that one explode? But, if I recall correctly, you managed to burn the shit out of one of them pretty good too.”

  “I know,” he said. “The thing is, I’m pretty sure that guy wasn’t all that old. He’d have knocked my head off if he was. He should have been toast. I mean, it worked about as well on him as it had with François and that fucker was a shit load stronger.”

  I hadn’t considered that. All I’d noticed at the time was screaming vampire and the smell of sizzling flesh. It had been enough that we’d won. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I thought I was just having an off day.”

  “Go on,” Christy prodded.

  “I’m getting to the point,” he replied defensively. “Then those vamps jumped me about a week back when I was coming home from the coffee shop...”

  He didn’t need to remind me. The memory of our trial was still a raw wound. We’d just barely made it out of that one, and I couldn’t even claim it was in one piece due to Sally. “Yeah, I remember. You weren’t wearing your amulet when they dragged you in. I figured they caught you without it.”

  “He was wearing it,” Christy said. “Ever since the world started getting weird, I’ve been making him wear it whenever he goes out.”

  Ed snickered a bit, no doubt because Tom’s balls had clearly relocated to Christy’s purse. He lamely covered it up by pretending he was coughing – probably didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a magic missile.

  “Yeah, I had it on,” Tom continued, looking frustrated. “I don’t know what the fuck went wrong, but it didn’t do shit. I might as well have hit those fuckers with a battery-operated bug racket for all the good it did.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, grasping at straws. “Maybe it was just another off day. You tend to have a lot of those.”

  He gave me a sour look, then pulled the amulet out of his pocket. “Here, see for yourself.”

  I looked down at his outstretched hand. “Um...”

  “Pussy says what?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Fuck you.” I braced myself as I put my hand atop his – waiting for the oh-so-pleasant sensation of my flesh immolating. What happened instead was a jolt, not entirely enjoyable, mind you, but really no more jarring than licking a nine-volt.

  “See?” he said. “It’s pretty much the magical equivalent of a joy buzzer.”

  “So maybe you just need a new one.”

  “That won’t work,” Christy said. “The problem isn’t the magic in the receptacle. That’s working fine.” She must have noticed the look on my face because her tone got a bit defensive. “I know what I’m doing. It’s Tom’s ability to channel faith that’s diminished.”

  He nodded and stepped to her side, putting an arm around her shoulder. “It’s true. Our time together was sweet, but cut short way too soon. Alas, I can barely remember the soft caress of Prime’s jagged plastic edges.”

  Christy elbowed him. “This isn’t a game. Faith magic is nothing to joke about. Do you know how rare it is to find a non-Magi who can utilize it, even sparingly? People just don’t believe in anything these days – I mean, really believe. They’re too jaded and their attention spans are too short. Sure, you hear about families going to church every day, praying before bed, all of that, but it’s a sham for most of them, even if they don’t want to admit it consciously.”

  “Yeah, but you can use it, right? I remember back when I first met you, you and Decker were keeping us tied up in...”

  “It’s different for those of us who are born Magi. We can manipulate the latent energies around us. We can tap into the power that seeps through the cracks in the veil. Faith is just another form of that – leaking into our world from one of the higher planes.”

  “You’re losing me here.”

  “I gotta side with Bill,” Ed added. “What are you talking about?”

  “Magic, the multiverse, all of it!” An angry red glow momentarily appeared around her, causing the rest of us to back up a step. “It’s hard to explain in a hundred words or less, but suffice it to say you are all painfully aware that we’re not alone in this world.”

  It wasn’t a question. We’d all seen the freakiest of the freaky. Hell, I’d gotten up close and personal with a death god, for fuck’s sake.

  “Well, it’s not like those things are coming from down the street. There are cracks in reality everywhere ... spots where the barriers between worlds are so thin that you can sometimes accidentally step through them.”

  “Like the Bermuda Triangle?” Tom asked.

  “Something like that. Ley lines, places of power, vortexes; there are lots of names for them. And not all transgressions are accidental. There are beings who can sense these weak spots and cross over as they please, although it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked, intrigu
ed.

  “Think about it.” She eased herself down into our love seat. For all her power, she was still bound by the physical laws of being a woman almost seven months pregnant. “For whatever reason, these cracks between worlds have been on the decline.”

  “How do you know?” Ed asked.

  “It’s common sense for anyone who’s ever had a history lesson,” she replied as if Ed were an idiot. “Look at our history as a species, even the sanitized stuff. Monsters, wizards, dragons; they appear in ancient texts to the point of being almost blasé about them. That’s because they were. Thousands of years ago, during the time of Kala the White...” She trailed off.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’ve heard that before. Is that the White Mother?”

  “One and the same,” she replied, a touch of defensiveness to her voice.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Tom asked.

  Judging from the confused looks of my two roommates, Christy hadn’t shared the revelations from a few days past, that the White Mother – venerated mentor of the Magi – had actually been a psycho bitch. I know I hadn’t. It was probably stupid at this late stage in the game to be keeping secrets, but I didn’t see any harm in this one.

  We were already aware of the threat the Jahabich represented. Christy was also privy to the cave etchings we’d managed to snag some pictures of. That she was terrified of this knowledge somehow causing Sheila to snap and go on a wizard-hunting spree seemed to be a bit of a stretch for me. However, due to the overall uselessness of knowing a crazy woman, thousands of years dead, was responsible for their creation, I didn’t see the harm in keeping my mouth shut.

  However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t throw her a lifeline when she needed one. “It’s just some ancient history crap. So your point?”

  Her eyes flashed a quick look of gratitude my way. “Anyway, a long time ago, this was all commonplace. Humans, vampires, the forest folk, and many more beings of both light and darkness lived side by side. It wasn’t always in harmony – but there’s no denying there was familiarity. What we consider weird and strange today was mundane once upon a time.”

  “So what happened?”