Regardless, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of Freewills in his stories. I guess when someone performs wholesale slaughter for your side that gives them a free pass from being reviled. The history books are funny that way.
I had to give it to both Sheila and Christy. They both stood defiantly as account after account was read.
Wish I could have been as attentive, but at least I was in good company. Tom was picking his teeth with his fingernails - gross. Ed busied himself looking through the crowd, maybe counting the number of tentacles present or something. Fuck me, even Sally - brainwashed as she was - had zoned out. The bitch had somehow procured a tablet and was busy tapping the screen. Saving her was at the top of my priority list, but if I found out she was busy checking Instagram while we were down here being sentenced to death, I probably would have to deck her in the mouth.
As for me, after a while, I tuned out Colin to the best of my ability and studied the reactions of the Draculas, trying to do so out of the corner of my eye so as to not be immediately stared down by Alex’s self-satisfied grin.
James, seemingly lost in his thoughts, didn’t appear to be paying attention to any one thing. Glancing at his missing arm, I once more found myself wondering what the hell had happened since last we’d seen him. He toed the party line as far as I’d been aware, with the exception of his quirk of being an actual pleasurable person to hang out with. Sure, he’d lost one fight to a superior foe, but had the penalties for such truly been that harsh?
Of the rest, I counted five as unreadable - apparently paying attention to Colin’s greasy voice and taking the entire thing at face value. The remainder of the First were just playing at it, though. The thing about poker faces is even the best players will have a hard time keeping them completely up in the presence of someone they absolutely loathe. A neutral demeanor was best - something that James was usually a master at. Other vamps weren’t like him, though. Arrogance tended to reign supreme as their number one vice. Someone utterly full of their self would bristle at anyone who held power over them.
Theodora was the most naked of them with regards to her feelings - sadly, just a figurative term. Every glance she stole at Alex was an openly hostile one. Those present could probably write it off as being miffed at his shoot down from earlier, but I knew she and her partner in crime were openly against Alex’s plans for one plain and simple reason: self-preservation.
Alexander the Great had nearly conquered the world over two millennia ago. There hadn’t been any bullshit triumvirate or senate either. He’d set out to make himself undisputed ruler, first amongst any - for there would be no equal to him. Time could change some people, but not all. It didn’t take a Ph.D. candidate in Ancient History to surmise Alex stood in that latter camp. If he won the war, it would only be a matter of time before he pulled a Senator Palpatine and abolished the First - or simply killed them off.
Sidelong glances and other such gestures outed others of their number. All in all, I would have bet the majority of the First Coven weren’t entirely on peachy terms with their leader. The problem was, with regards to vampires, a simple majority didn’t mean dick. One vamp of sufficient strength could mow down an army of newbs. As long as Alex had a few allies on the board of directors, and I had no reason to doubt he did - he’d been playing this game and playing it well for a long time - he could potentially hold the others in checkmate. Once they were dealt with, it would only be a matter of removing his allies, something I sure as shit wouldn’t do. Then again, I wasn’t a complete and utter slice of dingleberry pizza.
Yeah, all of it made sense - or at least I thought it did. I couldn’t help but feel a bit like James looked right now. Alex had struck a blow to more than just our friendship when he’d stolen Sally away from me. He’d said we were a formidable pair, and I sensed he wasn’t one to idly hand out compliments to low-ranking rabble. She was my partner, in many ways my better half. Everything I’d just deduced, probably burning off ten million brain cells in the process, she’d have figured out almost instantly.
I loved my roommates like brothers, but I’d succeeded against the odds without them. Christy was terrifyingly awesome, but was a relatively late comer to our Scooby gang. Sheila was...well, she was a lot of things. I would have given anything to spend eternity by her side, in either war or peace. At the same time, I had to admit our few outings together hadn’t ended spectacularly.
Sally was different, though. She was a constant in my universe, by my side for every major victory I’d somehow managed to walk away from. Hell, if she hadn’t returned from Vegas when she had, I had little doubt I’d be lining an ash tray in Vehron’s throne room.
The truth was simplicity itself: even if I somehow managed to get out of this mess, I didn’t really believe I could win without her by my side.
* * *
At last, Colin ended his rambling tale of Iconic disasters. Jeez, talk about sucking up. If even half the shit he’d said was real, the world would have been reduced to a cleansed cinder long ago. As it was, the supernatural realm seemed surprisingly robust despite centuries of Icon-related slaughter. Bunch of negative Nancys, the whole lot of them.
“Most disturbing,” Alex said when he was finished, false gravitas weighing upon his voice. “What say you to this evidence, Shining One?”
Sheila opened her mouth to reply, but then glanced toward me. I got the distinct sense she was going to try disassociating herself from us again, so I gave my head a quick shake. She let out a sigh and mouthed, “All right,” before addressing Alex’s question. “I do not know, nor have I ever met, any of the people you’ve just mentioned. I’m my own person and have no quarrel with anyone who respects the peace.”
“The peace? An interesting choice of words in these dark times.”
“I meant I have no problem with anyone except those who prey on the innocent.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
“So you deny being a student of the Templar? The same Templar who have hounded us for centuries - ineffectually, of course.” His dig caused a chuckle to ripple throughout the room.
I couldn’t entirely disagree with that. The Templar were warriors of faith, albeit more like crazed Bible thumpers from what I’d seen. This made the true believers among them formidable against the supernatural, but the problem with faith is that it’s apparently pretty darn easy to fool oneself into thinking you have it when, in reality, you ain’t got dick. About half the Templar I’d fought in my bid to rescue Sheila had been the real deal, possessing crosses glowing with the protective magic that true faith imbued. The rest might as well have been fighting with Nerf weapons.
“The Templar were the first who found me after I learned about my powers,” she replied with neither fear nor threat in her voice. Smart, keeping things neutral. “I stayed with them for a time and trained amongst them.”
“Being indoctrinated into their small-minded dogma?”
“They tried. However, I have since come to appreciate that the world is not so black and white.”
“So you allied yourself with the Freewill, the lone vampire to...?”
“And his friend,” Theodora said. “Let us not forget her.”
The barest of shadows passed over Alex’s face. For all of his patience, I had the feeling he was beginning to lose his temper with her. “That shall be stricken from the record,” he replied, gazing icily at her. “We have already discussed this.”
“Are we to strike from history that she was present during the encounter in question - that she helped aid in the destruction of a respected commander and his team?”
“History, as I am sure you are aware, is written by the victors,” he replied with a tone that would have surely terrified lesser vamps. “Your objection is noted.” Before she could say more, he turned back toward Sheila. “The fact remains, child, that you allied yourself with the Freewill and his friends. Against the wishes of the First, he led you on the offensive against Commander Remington and
the Magi Harry Decker.”
“They were holding Bill’s friends hostage.”
“Humans,” he scoffed, looking at me. “Betraying the wishes of the First for an Icon and now humans? What is next, Freewill? Do you care to declare yourself an agent of the Grendel?”
“Fuck no!” I shouted.
Alex smirked ever so slightly at that. Apparently, my insolence amused him to no end - how wonderful. “It was a rhetorical question.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He turned back to Sheila. “You claim this was merely a rescue mission. Yet somehow you, the Freewill, a lone witch, and a few humans decimated an elite strike team and a coven of experienced Magi.”
Sheila glanced toward me, but I was already turning away to scan the crowd for Christy’s accusers. The thing about the battle with Remington was that we’d just barely won, but it hadn’t been alone. Other forces had been present, information that the Draculas were apparently not privy to. I preferred to keep it that way. The fewer who had to suffer for my actions, the better. Considering the way my luck had been going, I fully expected the witch who’d spilled the beans on Christy to do the same regarding that little tidbit.
Or not. Neither the witch, the grand mentor of awesome beardedness, nor any of the other mages from their group were anywhere to be seen. Oh well, maybe they’d said their piece and then hauled ass. That would’ve been a welcome bit of news. It was bad enough two of the women in my life were in danger. I preferred there not be a third, especially since I didn’t want her around making creepy little doe eyes at me. Talk about skin-crawling distractions.
While this was going on, Sheila had replied with some bullshit about Remington not giving us a choice. That was true in of itself, although letting any of them escape hadn’t really been an option either, as everything happening now would have been exposed that much sooner.
Alex smiled grimly at her response. “So you still claim you are an agent of peace, a protector of the weak?”
“I do.”
He lifted his hand and gestured off to one side. A vampire ran up, holding something in his hands. It was a long box, like something one would keep a guitar in. Maybe he was going to entertain us with a kickass solo of “Stairway to Heaven.”
As the guard held it up, Alex unsnapped the locks and opened it. Whatever was inside definitely wasn’t a guitar.
Most musical instruments didn’t glow with a white light.
Sheila’s eyes widened and the white fires of faith erupted around her, causing me to jump back a step as Alex lifted the sword from its protective case.
He hissed as his skin sizzled from merely touching it, but he powered through it, sucking up the obvious pain. Smoke rose from his hand as he held aloft the weapon. “Behold the sword of Jeanne d'Arc, Icon of Orleans. Despite what the human histories might claim to the contrary, this weapon was used to decimate nearly every coven that existed in Northern France during her day.”
“It’s mine now.”
“And you deny having used it against Remington’s forces?”
Sheila was silent.
“No? How about more recently against the coven formerly of Brighton, New York?” With flames now openly escaping between his fingers, Alex turned the sword blade down and drove it into the floor before his chair - sinking it several inches deep before releasing the hilt. “I thought not.”
He stepped around it and addressed the crowd. “I believe we have heard enough, but it is tradition that the First be just and merciful before casting judgment.”
A snort of laughter escaped my closed lips. I couldn’t help myself - probably the hunger shorting out my common sense. Tom found it amusing, but he seemed to be my lone supporter in that. I half expected to be pummeled into silence, but Alex ignored me, as if expecting no better.
“I hereby suspend the protocols of rank set forth by this body. Any who wish to speak out, either for or against the Icon, may do so now without fear of reprisal.”
He barely waited a beat before opening his mouth again, smugly sure that whatever his declaration, nobody, especially the vampires in the room, were insane enough to say shit against him.
In that he was wrong, for just then, a small voice spoke out from the back of the auditorium.
“You are a fool, Alexander.”
The Chinese Connection
The voice had a disturbingly familiar youthful cadence to it that belied the underlying confidence it carried forth. I only needed a single sentence to place it, but it was enough to make me wish I’d been executed up front.
I couldn’t have spun faster had I been tazed in the ass. Ed was nearly as quick, his first meeting with the voice’s owner having left quite the impression.
Gan stood on her chair at the far end of the auditorium to compensate for her diminutive size. That must have been how I’d missed her in my scans of the audience. When one was concentrating on all the big bad things in the room, it could be a fatal mistake to overlook the small worse things lurking about.
She wasn’t alone either. Scattered throughout the crowd, vampires wearing traditional Mongolian assassin attire stood as she did. I didn’t know if she was expecting trouble, but she’d come prepared for it anyway - no matter how badly outnumbered her people might be.
I will give her credit, though. Everything else I’d been feeling - hunger, despair, worry for my friends - it all shriveled up and receded deep inside of me, or maybe that was just my nutsack. Oh, crap. No matter which way you spun it, I couldn’t see any way that her presence here wouldn’t make our situation even worse.
“Looks like your fiancé is here, Bill,” Tom said, stepping up alongside me. Oh, how I could have killed him for that remark alone. “Hey, why isn’t she down here with...”
“Shut up,” I hissed, elbowing him in the ribs - probably harder than warranted.
He had a point, though. Gan had been instrumental in our surviving Remington’s team. Hell, she’d even been the one who’d personally dispatched Harry Decker. She likewise had ordered Christy’s former coven to be hunted down and disposed of - succeeding nearly to the last witch.
She’d obviously done a better job of covering her tracks than we had. The only ones who knew of her involvement were us, Sally, and the witch from earlier. Sally was brain-fucked right now, and the witch had conveniently taken an unexpected smoke break. So that left those of us standing around as prisoners, and I sure as shit wasn’t ratting her out. Rationally, that made sense. After all, having a powerful ally on the outside could be helpful. In reality, I just didn’t want her down here, pawing at me like some crazed miniature octopus.
All of this introspection took place within seconds. A good chunk of the crowd seemed to be doing likewise - craning their necks to see who had enough of a death-wish to challenge the First. The funny thing was, they were right to think that. Gan had confided in me her two ultimate ambitions: marrying me and bumping off the Draculas. Considering the first one, I found myself wondering if it was too late to throw myself on the mercy of the court.
“Gansetseg,” Alex began, seemingly unperturbed by her insolence, “Prefect of the Manchurian Steppe and daughter of the Khan, our late lamented brother. You are acknowledged. I believe you were telling the assembled what a fool I was.”
Yeah, this was definitely going to be interesting.
* * *
“Indeed,” Gan replied. “You yourself lowered protocol. If you wish to reinstate it, I shall begin again in a more formal manner.”
“Unnecessary,” Alex countered. “I believe your prefecture recently reported a significant victory in the Altai Mountains over a combined army of the Grendel and the Children of Erlik. Is that not so?”
“So it was. The heads of the alma adorn pikes leading out a full kilometer from my ger-tereg.”
“My compliments, Prefect. I believe the First would be happy to indulge you in whatever you feel you need to add to these proceedings.”
I had no idea what any of that meant, other than re
inforcing that Gan was batshit crazy. Regardless, she apparently had the résumé to back up her words.
“Thank you, Lord Alexander,” she replied in a respectful tone that I was pretty sure wasn’t. “Likewise, my compliments to the glorious First Coven. My father was humbled to be among your number. One day, I hope to honor his memory by ascending to your ranks.”
A loud, derisive sound interrupted from just to the left of where the First sat.
“Did you have something to add, Francois?” I couldn’t help but notice Alex conveniently forgot to add his title to the question.
“Sorry, my lord,” Francois replied with barely concealed contempt. “I was just clearing my throat.”
“Then kindly do so quietly. You do not have the floor.” The tone of Alex’s voice implied he probably wouldn’t ever have it either. “Continue, Gansetseg.”
Gan nodded to him, a neutral smile upon her face. It turned to something a lot less neutral for a moment when she looked down and locked eyes with me. Oh shit. I quickly eyed the guards at our periphery - the ones who’d brought Sheila in. With any luck, I could leap onto their drawn weapons and turn to dust before anyone noticed.
A hand fell on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Relax,” Sheila said softly, repressing her faith power so as to not fry me. “You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.”
I almost had to laugh. Of all of us, she was in the most danger, yet she was offering me some comfort. For just a moment, I looked into her magnificent eyes and it was like the world ceased to exist. Then Gan started talking.
The Tome of Bill (Book 6): Half A Prayer Page 29
