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

by Rick Gualtieri

  “She’s been making shit progress with magic to figure out what makes Ed tick. As if that would have fucking worked. I suggested that maybe it might make sense to add a little science to the mix.”

  Sally growled from over my shoulder, “You suggested?”

  “Hey, is that Sally?”

  “Never mind her. Well, actually, yeah, what she said.”

  “Oh, that? I was just thinking out loud after she made him put the bite on some unlucky asshole. Guess she overheard.”

  “We can kill him, right?” Sally asked.

  “No.”

  Dave was an asshole, but he was still a friend, a compelled one at that. Douchebag or not, I knew him well enough to know he was in this game for himself and himself only. He wasn’t the type to help anyone else take over the world out of the goodness of his own heart.

  “SNAP OUT OF IT!!”

  The compulsion rang throughout the cavern, causing the place to shake slightly from the power of it. Whoa. I’d forgotten how strong I actually was for a moment there.

  “Holy shit!” Sally cried from behind me. “Was that you?”

  I ignored her and focused on Dave. Though my command caused him to pause for a moment, he simply replied, “No can do, buddy. The glorious Ib commands it.”

  I should’ve guessed. Calibra was the most powerful vampire ever. Badass as I was, it still wasn’t enough to undo her orders ... especially given Dave’s proclivity toward following them.

  Unfortunately for me, the compulsion did have one unintended side-effect. All of the Jahabich in the immediate vicinity turned their pumpkin-sized heads in my direction.

  Oh boy.

  So far, they seemed to be aware of me knocking and hadn’t made a move to open the door and clobber me, but it was only a matter of time.

  “Um...” I sputtered, trying to figure out my next move. Strong as I was, there were a lot of enemies in here. There was also the question of how long my hulked-out boost would last. I’d achieved it by giving in to the anger, feeding upon the rage buried deep inside of me. But right now, I was far more weirded out than pissed.

  That was the sad truth of the matter. I wasn’t normally an angry guy. I didn’t like being ticked off. It might be easier now, with Dr. Death tethered up and contributing, but it just wasn’t me. “So, Dave, what’s going on with the giant glowing ball of death over there?”

  “Oh that? The glorious Ib is torturing a witch who pissed her off – that one who was fucking with your head last week. Remember when I drew Ed’s blood and was gonna use it to blow you to...?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Oddly enough, his tone was putting me back in the right frame of mind. I swear, if I didn’t know he was compelled, I’d have knocked his fucking head off.

  “Anyway, it’s pretty fucking brutal. She basically created a magical feedback loop.”

  “Not following.”

  “Of course not, because you’re a dumbass.” That was all him, no compulsion needed to make him a dickhead. “The glorious Ib is channeling all of this chick’s magic through her unborn baby ... pretty much turning it into a living time bomb.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Put me down.”

  “Huh?”

  Sally repeated, “Put me down. I can handle this twit. You help Christy.”

  “Are you...?”

  “NOW, dickless!”

  Without further hesitation, I lowered her to the floor. She seemed wobbly, her spinal cord no doubt still iffy after being twisted into a pretzel, but she held her ground.

  “Much better, thanks,” she said before looking me up and down. “Huh! You actually don’t clean up too badly.”

  “Thanks. I don’t work out.”

  “What a surprise. Now, if you’ll excuse me...” She turned to Dave.

  “Hey there. You know, we have an opening at the table on Sundays if you’re ever interested in...”

  His words were abruptly cut short by a fist to the face. With Calibra’s compulsion strong in his mind, Sally couldn’t compel him to take a nap, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t dissuade him the old-fashioned way.

  “I’d get moving if I were you,” she said to me over her shoulder as the Jahabich dropped the table upon which Gan still lay.

  It wasn’t just them either. Not all of the Jahabich responded. Some of them still kept playing wall, but enough disengaged to give me cause for worry. We needed backup, but thankfully, some might’ve been at hand.

  I stepped in and took off the head of the first Jahabich with a backhand. Goddamn, this was awesome! I felt like a comic character who’d just gotten a massive upgrade. I grabbed the next and flung it over Sally’s head, into a group that was heading our way, doing a decent job of slowing them down.

  The other two were likewise dispatched without much worry. I marveled at how my skin flayed as I punched through their stupid faces, only to heal before they could even begin to bleed. Just call me Logan!

  “Get Gan back on her feet.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Sally replied, slapping Gan across the face with an audible crack. “Get your ass moving. We’ll be fine.”

  I took off with everything I had, which was a lot more than I was expecting. I moved so fast that I slammed into a pack of Jahabich before I could ready myself. A bit weird, but the results were definitely promising. Though they weighed a quarter ton apiece, a good half dozen of them went flying from the collision.

  It was pretty goddamned impressive, if I did say so myself, but it really wasn’t the most efficient way to reach the far end. Thankfully, I could do better.

  As the next group disengaged from their spot as living wall panels, I tensed my legs and then leapt.

  And once again underestimated the power at my disposal. I slammed into the rocky ceiling headfirst – pretty much the exact same thing I’d done during my first five minutes as a vampire. Heh, guess those who failed to learn from history really did relive it. Thankfully, I was made of sterner stuff this time around.

  I came down, along with several hundred pounds of rock that I’d dislodged in the impact. A couple Jahabich were caught in the mini cave-in, so bonus points for that. I was unhurt but made a note anyway to be more careful. There was a whole palace above us and, tough as I was, I didn’t care to test if I could handle it all dropping on my head.

  My next leap was a bit more cautious, aiming for length instead of height. I flew about thirty feet, my tattered shoes just barely clearing the tops of the heads of the Jahabich. I landed, spun, and decked the one closest to me, putting out its lights for good.

  “Hey!”

  What the...?

  “Over here! I can help you!”

  Kelly’s voice rang out from off to my left, seemingly in another makeshift Jahabich room. Though I needed to help Christy, it might be a hell of a lot easier with some firepower.

  Calibra might have had the keys to this cell, but in my current state, the walls weren’t much of an obstacle. I was a one-man wrecking crew.

  There! She was chained to the actual wall of the cavern. Her eyes widened as she saw me approach. “Please tell me you’re friendly.”

  “You could say that. It’s me, Bill.”

  “Really?”

  I can’t say I wasn’t flattered by the way her eyes drank in my musclebound form. Still, it was a poor time for flirting, especially once I took a breath. She must’ve seen my nose wrinkle because she said, “Sorry, the bathroom facilities here kinda blow.”

  “Offhand, I’d say this whole place does.” I took out a few more Jahabich, then stepped in and snapped her chains. I’d been expecting those magic-sapping manacles I’d seen vamps use before, but these were pretty run of the mill. “Why didn’t you just blast your way out?”

  “Long story. I’ll have to tell you some day,” she said dismissively. “Veronica should be on the other side. Get me to her and we’ll bring the pain.”

  “But why...?”
/>   “Do you want to stand here debating or do you want me to fucking help?”

  Point taken. I let her climb onto my back, arms around my neck, then took off for the opposite end of the cavern.

  This time, I took extra care about the ceiling, being mindful of my cargo. No point in reducing a potential ally into goo.

  “Nice pecs,” she said as she held on. “Whatever happened, I dig it.”

  I let a smile creep onto my face as we landed and sent the first Jahabich in the immediate area flying via a whirlwind of fists.

  “I definitely dig it,” she said, dusting some rock chips off herself. “V!”

  We spied Veronica, similarly trussed up where Kelly had indicated she’d be. She looked out of it – semi-conscious and with not nearly as much fight left in her as Kelly had. I took care of more of the Jahabich while Kelly ran over to her coven sister and melted her chains away.

  “It’s okay, V. I’m here.”

  Veronica offered her a weak smile but remained slumped against the wall.

  When Kelly next turned to face me, an angry red glow had begun to suffuse her body. “And now comes the pain.” She winked at me, then let loose, sending a wall of magical flame into a quintet of our foes.

  Another combatant added to the mix, the rocky assholes were forced to split their forces between us. It was the break I needed and just in time, too.

  Another cry of pain came from the floating sphere o’doom.

  “Shit!” Kelly said. “Go; I’ve got this.”

  “On it!”

  “You need to redirect all that power elsewhere,” she shouted after me as I once again took off.

  Redirect it? How the fuck was I supposed to do that?

  Oh well, hopefully I’d think of something. That, or I’d be melted into a pile of sludge.

  Either way, something interesting was about to happen.

  Crotch Fruit

  The Jahabich surrounding the massive ball of negative energy – best way I could think to describe it – kept their distance. Whatever it was, they didn’t seem all too eager to be in close proximity to it.

  Mind you, that didn’t mean they were kind enough to step out of the way and let me through. No, that required some persuasion on my part. I took on about a dozen, doing my best to use them as weapons against their buddies when I could. Go figure – the Jahabich made for good clubs against other Jahabich.

  By the time I’d cleared a path, I was starting to feel a bit winded. Worry for Christy outweighed any anger I felt. That, and I’d been expending a lot of energy with no snack breaks in sight.

  The sphere itself was pitch black, almost a void. There was no reflection of light or anything else from its surface. It just gave an impression of nothingness.

  Mind you, the cries coming from within were definitely something.

  Trusting in my accelerated healing, I reached out and touched the surface. Amazingly enough, I wasn’t immediately incinerated. There was an odd tingling in my hand, a rather unpleasant one, but that was about it.

  The cries coming from inside suddenly raised in pitch to a shriek, so I quickly pulled my hand back.

  Odd. It was pale ... well, okay, even paler than my normally pasty skin. Just to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light, I held both of them up side by side. Sure enough, it was almost like my right hand had gotten a reverse suntan. Weird as fuck.

  Oh, the hell with this. I remembered past dungeon crawls with my former gaming group. There were two ways to go about things: the safe way, checking for traps every five feet while taking two hours of real time to travel down one hallway. Then there was the method I employed once the hour got late and I grew tired of rolling my D20 every thirty seconds – just do whatever the fuck you’re going to do.

  This was one of those latter times.

  Bracing myself for the fortitude save of a lifetime, I took a deep breath and leapt into the nothingness.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Though the sphere was of the advanced darkness sort on the outside, inside was different. Multicolored lights seemed to flow around me, distorted as if we were moving really fast. It was kinda like being at warp speed in Star Trek – minus the explosive decompression.

  Wait, I was wrong. The light wasn’t flowing around me. It was all going in the same direction, toward the center of the sphere and the person floating there – Christy! Her arms were held out to either side in kind of a magical crucifixion, a mockery of Calibra’s favorite pose. Her eyes were open but unfocused, and a grimace of pain twisted her face.

  All at once, I began to tingle all over, sort of like licking a nine-volt battery with my entire body. Whatever was happening to me wasn’t a particularly wonderful feeling, but it was seemingly far worse for Christy. Her cries rose to an ear-piercing pitch, causing me to cover my ears with my hands as I floated in the weirdness.

  At last they stopped and Christy’s head flopped forward. She was still breathing, thankfully. Whatever that was, it had knocked her out, perhaps mercifully.

  I tried to swim toward her, but it was tough going. The closest I’d ever come to experiencing weightlessness was on a roller coaster, so I mostly ended up flailing about.

  That feeling of tiredness doubled. My tank must’ve finally hit empty. Fatigue began to set in and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to take a nap. I blinked several times and then did a double take. Maybe it was the exhaustion, but it seemed as if light was escaping from my body, the same multi-colored hues as I’d seen floating around in here. They were flowing from me toward Christy, swirling around her until they were drawn into her midsection.

  What the fuck?

  Christy likewise seemed to be a source of the lights. They trickled from her outstretched hands almost like water, floated aimlessly for a bit, then were seemingly sucked back into her stomach.

  The realization of what was happening dawned on me.

  Holy shit! Dave had been right. Somehow, this sphere was redirecting Christy’s magic – sucking it out of her and then force-feeding it to her unborn child. And now it was seemingly doing the same to me, sending my energy into her.

  Almost as if in answer to this, Christy’s stomach began to glow from within. The light became brighter, causing her skin and clothing to become translucent, and making the tiny silhouette inside visible. I hadn’t been around too many expectant mothers, but I was smart enough to know that wasn’t normal.

  It was like a live ultrasound picture, but from the inside. As I watched, the baby kicked. My ears – now supercharged like the rest of me – easily picked up the little heartbeat inside, fast and frantic, and picking up speed.

  It must’ve been my power. The feedback from Christy was enough to keep her in torment. I had no idea what that energy was doing to the baby, but it couldn’t have been good. Now, though, with me here, the flow had easily doubled.

  Dave had said something about it becoming a bomb. This had to be Calibra’s punishment for Christy standing up to her, defying her. Calibra was all into her White Mother bullshit, so what better revenge than to fuck up an enemy’s motherhood – turn their baby into a living weapon that destroyed them both?

  What a cunt.

  That was an argument for later, though. I had to somehow fix this and it had to be done now. Problem was, how the fuck did I do that?

  Kelly had said I needed to redirect the power. Okay. Not super helpful.

  Sadly, I didn’t see any convenient switches labeled “Reverse” anywhere.

  How did one redirect magical energy anyway? Did I need a spell? A magic wand?

  I mean, if Christy was a computer and I had a length of copper wire and a good heatsink I could have...

  Wait a second. Maybe that was it.

  I let out a heavy sigh in the emptiness. Some days you installed the heatsink, and some days you were the heatsink.

  I doubled my efforts to get to Christy, kicking with my arms and legs until I somehow managed to flop close eno
ugh to grab hold and pull myself in.

  She was still out cold, no doubt from the pain. Sadly, I didn’t think there was time to wake her up and have a rational conversation about what I was about to try.

  My theory was simple. What did you do when anything had too much of something in it? You let it out, whether it was heat from a processor or too much air from a balloon.

  Surely magic worked the same way, right?

  Yeah, well, it was the best I had to go on. She was as good as dead otherwise.

  Putting one arm around her, so she couldn’t float away again, I used my other to undo the bottom buttons of her maternity blouse. Pushing the material to the side, I exposed her stomach, heavy with child.

  “Sorry,” I whispered in the magical void, my voice oddly distorted as if the sound were being sucked away along with the power inside of me.

  My claws extended. The tips were like razors, able to part skin like a hot knife to butter. What I needed more, though, was a bit of finesse, not something I normally cared about when carving a bad guy’s face off. Christy’s stomach glowed again and I got a good look at where her baby was positioned inside, as weird as that might’ve been.

  That was as good as I was going to get.

  I positioned my hand, placed the tips of my claws against her skin, then sank them in as deep as I dared to.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Holy fucking hell!

  It was like cutting into a power cable while standing in salt water. Energy raced through me, causing every muscle in my body to seize up.

  My arm felt like it wanted to vibrate out of its socket and it took everything I had to fight it. I needed to maintain control that I no longer had. My claws had just barely penetrated Christy’s skin. I couldn’t let them sink in any further, not without badly injuring her or the baby.

  I wasn’t sure I had much choice in the matter, though. I seemed to have about as much control over my body as Sally had when Calibra snapped her neck, giving her a good view of her own shapely ass. A searing pain exploded in my mouth as I bit through my own tongue – a sensation best described by words I mercifully could no longer mutter.

  Christy’s stomach ceased glowing and, a moment later, wisps of light began to escape from the wounds my talons had opened. It was working!