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

by Rick Gualtieri

  “It’s daylight. Things are gonna be about as normal as possible out there. As long as she stays out of the bad neighborhoods, she should be fine.”

  Ed glanced between us. “Think one of us should go with her?”

  “Bill can’t,” Sheila said, stating the bleedingly obvious. “She’s probably too ticked off at you anyway.”

  “You’re out as well,” Ed pointed out. “You’re the only one keeping the Templar from throwing a mad staking party.”

  We stood in the main hallway and bickered about this for a few when I noticed Christy heading toward the door of the building. Tom came running after her.

  “Hey, babe,” he called obliviously. “Where you going?”

  She turned, her eyes practically skewering him.

  “Where’d you get the skull?” he asked. Her gaze o’death had obviously gone right over his head.

  Christy looked as if she was about to turn away in disgust, but then stopped. She reached out, grabbed him by the shirt, and dragged him so that he was face to face with her. “You and I are going to have a long talk.”

  A look of surprise showed on his face for a moment, and then a blinding ball of light erupted from her, enveloping them both. When it subsided, they were gone.

  “And it looks like we have our volunteer,” Ed said.

  “Somehow, I’m thinking better him than us.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Christy’s vanishing act had the possibly intended consequence of unnerving the Templar who’d witnessed it. The rest of us – minus Sally, who’d stayed with Bernadette to take stock of all the weapons – had to do some damage control to convince them that Satan’s wrath wasn’t descending upon their heads.

  Unfortunately, Christy and Tom were on their own for now. Nobody else in our group could zap themselves away like she could. That it was daytime made it risky for the undead amongst our party. Unfortunately, the address she’d given us had turned out to be upstate, some miles north of the city. It wasn’t far, but the subways definitely didn’t run that way, and it wasn’t exactly within walking distance either.

  There was also the fact that when I went to check on my other friends, I found Mike and Adam – true to their vampire nature – conked out. Lazy fucks.

  The Templar could have made the trip without any issue, but Sheila and I discussed it and came to the conclusion that it was premature to split our party – at least until such time as we were ready to hit Boston with our planned pincer movement.

  As for the Templar, Bernadette got them all lined up a little past noon – crosses, rosaries, and the like at the ready. They were a mixed bag. Some looked worried, others far too eager to see how badly they could burn a vampire.

  My friends joined me as the gauntlet was readied. I had hoped maybe Sally or Dave would volunteer to share some of the fun, but no such luck. He pulled out a notepad and pen while she found a comfortable section of wall to lean against and watch.

  Assholes.

  Kill the faithful, turn the rest.

  Tempting, I considered while approaching the first in line, but probably not the best tactic with regard to keeping our fragile alliance intact. The first Templar before me was a young man, not even my age. He had acne on his face and a wooden cross in his hand.

  “Care to show me what you got, buddy?” I asked flippantly, dreading what was to come next.

  “I am not your friend, beast. This cross belonged to my mother and hers before. I only present it to you so that you might burn at its touch.”

  “So I’m assuming lunch at the BFFs club is out.”

  I held out a finger. Fuck this. If I was gonna get burned, I wasn’t going to be stupid about it. One touch was all they got. If I got zapped, I could hopefully pull back before I had to be doused with an extinguisher.

  I placed my finger against the cross with a wince, hoping Dr. Death didn’t notice my mental cry of “Mommy, don’t let the bad man hurt me.”

  When nothing happened, I glanced down, saw my hand intact, and smirked. “Ain’t so bad.”

  Well, maybe not for me anyway.

  Sister Bernadette was right there behind the Templar, and damn if she didn’t look pissed.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  So it went. Any Templar who turned out to be firing blanks had their name jotted down so as to be properly armed before we left. Until then, Bernadette sent each and every one of the posers off to pray for forgiveness for their lack of true faith.

  Sadly, that amusement only served as a minor distraction, as greater than half – more than I expected – turned out to be the real deal. I had to take a break once all ten of my fingers were singed.

  It also gave me a chance to take note of who to avoid if they got in a mood to play crucifix tag. The upside, though, was that the faithful were a plus for our mission. A bunch of regular humans, trained or not, weren’t going to be as much use to us once shit got real. Forget what the comic books tell you. In a battle between super-powers, folks like Black Widow and Hawkeye would get squished real quick.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good. The Templar were just barely tolerating me and only because Sheila had told them I was pathetically repentant of my sins. More than one had me worried for entirely different reasons. The thing about having vampire hearing is you can’t help but eavesdrop. Back in grade school, that would have been awesome – overhearing who liked who and who thought who smelled. Now, though, it made me privy that some of the Templar weren’t all too keen on stopping the events that had been set in motion.

  Judging by a few conversations, many considered the stupidity I had started in the Woods of Mourning to be the actual Biblical Armageddon. They were convinced this was all part of God’s plan and wondered whether they should let it play out accordingly ... waiting in line for their respective places in the Rapture, while the rest of us dirtbags got to live out Hell on Earth.

  For all my Freewill powers, I found myself instead wishing for eyes in the back of my head around this bunch.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Finally, the sun began to set. By then, I’d started getting real twitchy. We were well past the deadline that James had given me. I had to wonder if my apartment was still standing or had been reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. I hoped for the former – I still had a lot of stuff there. Regardless, I had a feeling we didn’t have long before the same threat was levied against this place.

  There was also the possibility of some HBC stragglers returning from whatever the fuck they did when they weren’t busy being pissed at me. That wouldn’t end well for them, but it was another distraction we didn’t need.

  We needed to get moving and catch up with Christy, wherever it was that she’d apparated to in a huff. I just had to hope that bridge wasn’t burnt. Hopefully, Tom had taken the brunt of it for us.

  I gathered Sally and Bernadette to discuss the issue of our conveyance. The distance wasn’t one a vampire couldn’t handle, but last I checked, the majority of our group was human, with an Icon and Ed thrown in for good measure.

  “I need your talents for this one,” I said to Sally.

  “Oh?” She furrowed her brows. “Sorry to say, but I was hoping we could just be friends.”

  “Not those talents. Save that shit for the stripper pole. We need wheels, lots of them. Think you can do that?”

  “Your kind keeps a fleet of cars in reserve?” Bernadette asked.

  “Not quite.”

  Sally turned to her. “Bill wants me to go on a hot-wiring party.”

  Bernadette made a sour face. It didn’t do much to make her look less unpleasant. “Thou shalt not steal,” she whispered in an acid tone.

  “It’s a necessary evil,” I pointed out.

  “One no doubt meant to drag us off the righteous path. Don’t think I am unable to see the serpents in the garden for what they are.”

  “Just as I’m sure you’re unable to miss any pies in the oven.”

  She cocked her he
ad to the side, looking like a particularly stupid bulldog as my sarcasm sailed right over her head.

  I sighed and decided on the direct approach. “Unless you plan to walk to Boston, this is pretty much our best shot.”

  “I could grab us a few buses,” Sally offered.

  “No. That would get us there, but it would also put us in a jam if we got stopped.”

  “I don’t foresee cops being a particularly big obstacle.”

  “Ixnay on the urdermay,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “The Night Spawn is correct,” Bernadette said, although it was painfully obvious from her tone that she’d rather take selfies of her face buried in the Pope’s crotch than agree with me on anything. “Stolen buses could be too easily noticed. Also, if the news which has reached our ears is correct, the roads north may not be passable by larger vehicles.” She turned toward me. “It still doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with being an accomplice to this.”

  “Relax. As long as most folks have kept up their GEICO payments, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Besides, if push comes to shove, what would you rather admit to in confession: that you stole a car or let mankind be overthrown by the forces of darkness?”

  “It shan’t happen with the Blessed One by our side.”

  “Yeah, well, God helps those who help themselves. So we’ll make sure Sheila has the chance by getting ourselves to a spot where we can make a difference.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sally took Ed and maybe a half dozen Templar with her. Everyone who went had a license and enough experience behind the wheel so as to give us a good chance of getting there alive. Their mission was to procure SUVs or other vehicles large enough for multiple passengers and tough enough for going off road if need be.

  Adam offered to go fetch his car, but it was too small for our needs. Also, having driven in it recently, I was also aware it kinda smelled.

  The plan was simple. As each stolen vehicle pulled up in front of the safe house, a pre-designated group would load up and drive off ... thus hopefully not attracting too much suspicion by having a full convoy parked outside.

  We also kept it nice and segregated: Templar would go with other Templar, and the rest of us would try to stick together. The only X-factor there was that both Ed and Sally were driving, but Sheila had the solution to that. Me and the Defilers would go with whichever of them showed up first. She’d go with the other. This also allowed us to allay Bernadette’s paranoia by staggering the order in which we left, as she didn’t trust my group to go first or last.

  As luck would have it, Ed was the first of my friends to arrive – driving a beat up Ford Explorer. Maybe it was for the best. My feelings for Sally had potential to cloud my judgment for her. Despite James’s warnings, I couldn’t quite bring myself to see anything but the Sally I knew and was fond of. If there was something out of sorts with her, Sheila would probably spot it far sooner.

  Of course, that also opened up the possibility of them both talking about me during the drive up ... something potentially awesome and terrifying at the same time.

  Regardless, there wasn’t anything I could do about it ... short of maybe constantly calling and annoying the shit out of them.

  In the end, though, I decided against anything so petty. Besides, my battery was just about dead.

  We pulled away from the safe house and began our journey north. As we reached the city limits, I looked back upon its familiar façade and took in as much as I could. I tried to fool myself that it was only a matter of time before I’d see it again, but the truth was, I couldn’t quite convince myself of that.

  The Sisterhood of the Traveling Skull

  The drive up was slow, but mostly uneventful. There were a lot of broken down cars along the side of the road, with “along the side” being the operative phrase. Things hadn’t quite devolved into total chaos yet.

  Our caravan was spaced far enough apart so all we could see of each other were taillights in the distance. That was good for keeping things from looking too weird for anyone who happened to be observing us. However, as the buildings gave way to trees, I couldn’t help but wonder whether that could also prove to be to our detriment should we come across anything unfriendly.

  Despite my fledging can-do attitude and the promise of Dr. Death being in my ring corner, I was pretty freaked out. There were a lot of miles ahead of us, and I couldn’t help but think most would be filled with nasty things.

  Thankfully ... sorta ... Adam and Mike were there to keep us distracted by their talk of grand adventure and the treasure – that I never promised them, by the way – which would no doubt come from it. More than once, they expressed the hope that Carl had been able to come with us, but decided he was probably having fun back in Newark. Ed, Dave, and I wisely kept our mouths shut during those moments.

  Fortunately, there was plenty of other stuff to talk about ... mostly making fun of the Templar, or as Adam put it, “Fucking newb paladins.” Yep, that pretty much summed it up.

  Eventually, we found the place we’d been looking for – it was maybe twenty miles north of the city, off a dark road that looked suspiciously perfect for an ambush. My paranoia proved unfounded, though, as we pulled into a long driveway that led us to an isolated farmhouse surrounded by fields on two sides and trees in the rear. Dim light shone from the windows – candles were my guess.

  “This it?” I asked.

  “According to GPS, it is,” Ed replied. “Look.” He pointed out some other cars parked haphazardly about the front yard, presumably members of our party who’d arrived before us.

  That wasn’t all, though. My night vision was far superior to his. From my place riding shotgun, I made out several red-robed figures skulking in the shadows – no doubt acting as sentries for the arrival of the rest.

  I just had to hope, with Sister Bernadette behind us, that these guys didn’t decide to be proactive in their pledge to cleanse the Earth of evil – of which they certainly grouped me.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I should have hoped for a Templar ambush, because what I got instead was Tom waiting for us on the porch.

  “Thanks for the heads up, Bill,” he called out after we’d parked our SUV. “I really appreciate spending the entire day being bitched out over a fucking skull.”

  “She still angry?” I asked gingerly.

  “Probably, but I think she used me to get it out of her system.”

  “And you wanted to leave him back at the apartment,” Ed said to me with a grin. “See? We all have our part to play.”

  “Had I known mine would’ve been to take one for the team, I’d have taken you up on that,” Tom replied. “Why the fuck did you assholes rat me out?”

  “Simple.” I grabbed a backpack from the trunk and slipped it on. “She could have flat-out vaporized us. You at least get a slow death.”

  “Yeah, well, safe to say it’s gonna be a while before I get any again.”

  “Welcome to the club, buddy.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the club.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It didn’t appear that Sally, Sheila, or the dumpy bitch in charge of the Templar had arrived yet, and I didn’t particularly care to wait outside in the open – especially with that copse of trees out back. I had no idea how deep it was or what it contained.

  Of course, if it was full of Sasquatches, then it stood to reason there would probably be no need for them to stay their hand. I had no doubt the Templar would serve as little more than a distraction for a Bigfoot – like a fly a kid might capture so as to tear its wings off.

  Besides, I figured that I’d earned the right to be a bit jumpy at the prospect of being in or near the woods at night. “So, can we go in or is that a no Bill zone?” I asked Tom.

  “I think you’re safe.” He turned toward the entrance. “She took a nap earlier, which helped, and then she spent the rest of the evening bitching all of us out to her coven.”

  “Wait, h
er coven?”

  “Yep,” Tom replied.

  “Hey, they got anything to eat in there?” Adam asked before I could question my roommate further. “I don’t know about the rest of you fuckers, but I’m getting kind of hungry.”

  Oh crap.

  “There’s a barn off that way,” Tom said casually, pointing to the left of the house. “I was walking around earlier while Christy was asleep. I think there’s a cow or two in there.”

  Adam seemed to consider this for a moment, then shrugged. “Any port in a storm.”

  Mike and Dave decided to join him, and together, they all walked off in that direction.

  “Be careful,” I called after them, more as a warning to not do anything stupid.

  “Sure it’s okay for them to be doing that?” Ed asked Tom.

  “Fuck if I know or care,” he replied. “It’s not my place.”

  “If anyone asks, we play dumb,” I said.

  “Works for me. Hey, Bill?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think a vampire cow is possible?”

  “Hopefully, we’ll be far away from this place before we have to find out.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Tom led the way in. The house was large and well kept. Definitely made our apartment back in Brooklyn look like a shithole in comparison. Well, okay, the cardboard sleeping bag of a homeless methhead would probably also do that. Anyway, it seemed like a good place to raise kids ... assuming the world wasn’t about to be consumed in fire and blood, of course. Such things tended to trump decisions such as whether to build the kiddies a treehouse or swing set.

  As we approached what I guessed to be the living room, Tom turned and raised a finger to his lips. He needn’t have bothered. I smelled the incense the moment we stepped through the doorway and heard the low chanting coming from inside. The light pouring out of the room ahead also had a decisively odd bent to it – a pulsating glow that seemed to change colors every few seconds. Either magic was afoot or we were in a stoner’s dream den.