The Last Coven (The Tome of Bill Book 8)

by Rick Gualtieri

  Her outburst gave me an idea, and not just on how to keep her from breaking all my stuff. “Wait, what about extreme emotions? Those worked with you, Sally.”

  Her left eye twitched ever so slightly. Needless to say, reminding her of her time as Alex’s slave was probably gonna be a sore spot for a while to come. “It worked partially,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Doesn’t matter. It was enough to snap you out of it at least part way. Think about it.” I turned to address the whole room. “Even if it doesn’t work the same, it might at least tell us if she’s under Calibra’s control or not.”

  “Extreme emotion?” Gan asked curiously.

  “Yeah. Anger, pain, massively spiteful shit. Stuff like that.”

  “While I will admit to looking forward to the end of this interrogation, I must confess I am feeling none of those things, my darling. Your presence calms me and even if you were not here, unlike your whore, I am in full control of my emotions.”

  Yeah, right. So sayeth the evil munchkin who once ordered a man to commit suicide because he fired one extra arrow.

  “We could try pain,” Christy offered.

  “I think we are both aware that my tolerance exceeds anyone’s in this room by a fair margin.” From the tone of Gan’s challenge, I had little doubt she was reminding Christy of their first (nearly disastrous) meeting.

  “Everyone has a limit,” Christy replied frostily. “I think you’ll find my sisters and me more than adept at testing those limits.”

  Veronica and Kelly looked somewhat uncomfortable with the offer. Meg, well, she just shrugged as if to say she’d try anything once.

  That set off a round of bickering between Gan and Christy, pretty much centering on who could dish it out and who could take it.

  “Blast her good, babe!” Tom added, doing his best to make the situation even worse.

  “I think we should let her try,” Sally casually remarked to me.

  Sheila said something from behind us, but the energy barrier muffled it and I was too distracted to pay attention.

  “Not you too,” I replied absently. As much as it amazed me to be the voice of reason, I didn’t want us to get caught up in some crazed torture porn – no matter how amusing it might be – not with Ed in need of saving. Still, if she was compromised, then we were in even deeper shit than we thought. Hell, if that were the case, what was to stop Calibra from sending James here next? With them as day-walkers, we would be fucked worse than a greased pig at a hillbilly hoedown.

  “Listen everyone,” I said, raising my voice almost to a shout. “Even if she is Calibra’s thrall, there’s no way to...”

  My voice trailed off as the outer barrier of magic flashed in intensity and winked out of existence.

  I spun to find that Sheila had stepped forward.

  Her aura sprang to life around her, a blaze of white fire that cancelled out magic and did even worse things to vampires. “She’s not Calibra’s thrall.”

  “And you know this how?” I asked, confused.

  “It’s simple. Because I am.”

  YOU ONLY HURT THE ONES...

  Before I could so much as open my mouth to ask what the fuck she was talking about, Sheila slammed a shoulder into my mid-section. The blow itself would have barely budged me under different circumstances, but then most people didn’t have an anti-vamp energy field around them. The faith magic added the force of a runaway truck to her attack. Lucky me.

  Tom flew out of my hand with a curse as I sailed backward and slammed into the far wall, denting the plaster good and proper.

  Sheila didn’t give me a moment to breathe. She raced forward, grabbed hold of my collar, and drew me close. Her lips moved, but no sound issued forth. For a second, I thought maybe my ears had been roasted off, but then I realized I could still hear numerous protests of the “What the fuck?!” variety from the others in the room.

  “Huh?” I asked, still dazed.

  “By the glory of Ib, you have to die,” she snarled, this time loud and clear. “Your destiny ends now!” Her fist connected with my jaw. Ouch!

  “I don’t know what she did to you, but you need to...”

  She spun and kicked my legs out from under me. I went down and she jumped on top. Under different circumstances, I’d have been sporting major wood, but the only wood I felt was my head clonking against the floor as she struck me again.

  “Stop it!”

  “Jesus Christ, Sheila. What are you doing?”

  Despite the crowd being on my side, it didn’t look like any backup would come. Magic couldn’t penetrate her aura, and Sally would be burnt to a crisp as surely as I was...

  Wait, I actually wasn’t on fire. Sure, I was getting pretty singed, but I should have been a four-alarm blaze by now. Was her power slipping?

  Another hit to my face knocked that revelation out of my immediate concern. Instead, my fangs descended. There came another blow and I was pretty sure my eyes blackened, too. Rage started to suffuse my being with every hit I took.

  This bitch! She’d attacked me. Betrayed us all ... betrayed me. And then what? Once she was finished with me, was her plan to turn on the rest – on Sally, Christy, on Christy’s unborn baby?

  I spat blood, but that was fine. It matched everything else in the room as a red haze began to descend over my vision.

  I had no way of knowing if Sheila had been enslaved by Calibra or if she was acting of her own free will for whatever reason, but with a slight shudder of horror, I realized perhaps I didn’t care.

  All the anger and frustration I’d felt building in me the last couple of days was coming to a head. I couldn’t help myself, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  Another blow struck me and a faint echo of laughter sounded somewhere. It took me only a moment to realize it was coming from inside my head. The thing was, I understood why and actually wanted to join it.

  Sheila raised her fist again.

  But first, there was someone who needed to be taught the last lesson of her life.

  * * *

  Sheila’s punch struck me, but I brushed it off. She was weak. Icons; so much ado about nothing after all. Now it was my turn.

  I reached up and grabbed her by her arms. The two-inch talons that had replaced my fingernails dug into her flesh like a hot knife into butter.

  Her eyes opened wide in surprise and pain, and a moment later, her screams followed.

  “Enough!” a voice commanded.

  Before I could rip Sheila’s arms off and bathe in her blood, Gan appeared above us. Somehow, she’d escaped her magical prison cell. In the back of my mind, I considered that should probably have been a concern for me, but it seemed insignificant, as did she in the moment.

  Gan grabbed Sheila by the collar of her shirt and flung her off me, robbing me of my prize. Sheila’s aura flared up in response and caught both of us in its lethal light, but I barely felt it. My own power was already busy repairing any damage the white fire caused.

  I leapt nimbly to my feet, preparing to close the distance between us and finish this once and for...

  “I said, enough!” Gan spun and lashed out at me with a spinning kick. As luck would have it, her size put her at the perfect height for her foot to smash mercilessly into my balls, instantly taking the fight out of me.

  Down I went to my knees, just barely able to wheeze out a pained “Fuuuuuck!”

  “Goddamn it!” Sally cried. “I didn’t get my camera out in time. Any chance of you doing that again?”

  What?!

  I glanced up, tears streaming down my face, and looked around. The room was in disarray. Gan stood in front of me, her green eyes defiant and the rest of her mostly unharmed despite being bathed in the same faith aura I had been. Christy and two of her sisters were on their feet, a mix of anger and panic in their eyes. Kelly was kneeling down where Sheila had landed.

  The only one who seemed out of place, mainly because she was still seated in hers, was Sally. She was putting an iPhone
back into her pocket and looked to be on the verge of laughter.

  The fuck?

  “My apologies,” Gan said, drawing my attention back to her. “Though you appeared quite intent on your course of action, I am forced to disagree with your assessment that the time for your final battle is now.”

  I realized the anger had drained out of me, pretty much in the same instant my manhood had been reduced to oatmeal. Clarity of thought rushed in to fill the void the rage had left behind. Staggering to my feet, I clapped Gan once on the shoulder, then stepped past her to where Sheila was just now sitting up, blood flowing freely from ten ugly puncture wounds on her arms.

  Almost simultaneously, we shouted at each other, “What the hell were you thinking?!”

  “Jinx,” Sally called out. “You both owe me a drink.”

  I glanced back and forth between them, half-tempted to throw a chair at Sally for her infuriating smirk, but not sure which of them deserved it more.

  “You almost tore my arms off,” Sheila said. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Yeah, way to go, asshole,” Kelly spat.

  “What is wrong with me? You’re the one who went batshit psycho.”

  “Like I said I was going to.”

  “What? Have you lost your mind? No you didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Sally said. “Actually, she did. I heard her loud and clear. It pays to have an attention span.”

  “And then I mouthed for you to play along, just in case you didn’t hear me the first time,” Sheila added.

  That gave me pause and I remembered what I’d written off as a wordless snarl. “Um, I’m not really good at reading lips.”

  “No shit,” she snapped before turning to Kelly. “I’m okay. Let me take care of this.” With that, she basically hugged herself and began to glow, the white aura washing over her and closing the wounds I’d made.

  The white light, however, quickly became washed out as another glow began to suffuse the room – a red one. It was coming from Christy. “That is quite enough from all of you. The only thing I want to see moving from anyone in this room are their lips. Is that clear?”

  Tom’s exclamation of “Yeah, kick everyone’s ass! Just like River Tam!” diluted her threat ever so slightly.

  “Not now,” she hissed.

  “It’s okay. I’m calm now.” I raised my hands in a placating manner. “We’re all calm, right?”

  Nods came from around the room, except from Gan, who merely crossed her arms indifferently.

  Christy pointed at Sheila. “Start explaining.”

  “Ib,” Sheila said. “And no, I’m not a thrall of hers in case anyone hasn’t figured that out yet, but we didn’t know if she was or not.” She indicated Gan, who inclined her head slightly.

  Christy didn’t look convinced. “I’m pretty sure we already crossed that bridge.”

  “Yes, we did, but we left out one very important detail.”

  “And what detail was that?”

  “Simple,” Sheila said, rising to her feet slowly. “You all forgot about love.”

  TWAT WAFFLES

  I lamely covered up my gasp of surprise as a cough. Did she just say...?

  “Not following,” Meg replied.

  “She gets it.” Sheila hooked a thumb at Sally, who nodded wordlessly.

  Glad to see they had their female telepathy worked out. Maybe we were in luck and their periods had synced up from living together, too. As for the rest of us, I crossed my arms and waited.

  “All of this talk of compulsions and breaking them with strong emotions. You all immediately went to the negatives – hatred and pain. The thing is, that doesn’t work with everyone.”

  Sally’s jaw tightened in response.

  “What we all forgot,” Sheila continued,” and believe me, it’s really easy to forget these days, is love.”

  “The strongest emotion of them all,” Veronica said, a wistful look on her face that told me she probably had a bookshelf full of romance novels.

  “Exactly,” Sheila replied. “I won’t pretend to know Gansetseg very well, but it’s pretty darn obvious she has strong feelings for a certain someone in this room.”

  “She is talking about you, beloved,” Gan said, stepping to my side. Her longing smile was more than enough to make my skin crawl.

  “Yeah, kinda guessed that.” I took a long step away, probably risking a fireball from Christy, but it was worth it. That’s when realization struck me. I turned toward Sheila. “So if she thought I was in actual danger...”

  “That might snap her out of it,” she finished.

  “Even if it didn’t,” Sally added, a bitter undertone in her voice, “there might have been a partial reaction, a convulsion or something to tell us that there was a compulsion in place.”

  That seemed to mollify Christy, at least enough for her death glow to fade away. A sheen of sweat remained on her face, however, indicating the strain. Pregnant, stressed, and now constantly working on something in our basement, this chick was on her way to a breakdown if she didn’t remember to take five once in a while.

  “Since I was kinda occupied,” I asked, “how did that play out?”

  “Nothing compulsion-related that I could see,” Sally replied. “She broke out and then broke up your fight. So either she’s clean, she didn’t buy it, or she isn’t into you as much as she claims.”

  That caught Gan’s attention and her eyes flashed ... err, yellow, actually. Hmm, that was new. Still, she had the emotional stability of a stepped-on rattlesnake, so I quickly moved in front of her. “She was just testing you again, right?” I glanced over my shoulder at Sally, who just shrugged. “Yeah, a test. And, look, you passed. So let’s get back to what we were discussing. How’s that sound?”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use some coffee while we talk,” Kelly said.

  “Works for me. A bite to eat wouldn’t hurt either,” Meg replied. “Right, Christy?”

  Meg’s eyes locked with mine for a split second and in them I saw a clear hint of worry. I didn’t doubt she sensed the same strain in Christy that I had.

  “Yeah,” I quickly added. “We can finish the rest of this over some breakfast.”

  “If that is what you wish, then I agree, my love,” Gan said. “Perhaps you can make some of those twat waffles you told me about. I would so love to try them.”

  * * *

  After the chuckling had finally subsided and copious apologies were shared around the room, Sheila and Meg worked on whipping up some food for us in my kitchen nook. It was quite awesome of them since I was tits on a bull when it came to doing anything more complex than boiling water. Between me and my roommates, it was a near wonder we hadn’t starved to death.

  Christy volunteered to help, but the other two witches steered her toward a chair. She put up a minor protest, but once seated, it looked like her body had decided she was in for the long haul.

  Finally, we were all set, plates in hand. It was syrup for most of our group, but blood for the three undead among us, albeit I had no idea whether Gan needed it to survive anymore. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop her from pouring a generous helping over her food and chowing down.

  “How’s it taste?” I asked.

  “These twat waffles are different from what I am used to, but I find them quite adequate.”

  “I meant the bl ... oh, never mind.” The quiet snickers from around the room told me that if we had any chance of moving forward with this conversation, it would need to be on a different topic.

  Fortunately, Christy was on the ball. “What Bill probably means to ask is whether you can lead us back to the cave they brought you out of.”

  “Of course,” Gan replied. “It would do us little good, though. Ib’s forces are well aware of it. I have little doubt it would be heavily guarded, assuming she did not have the Jahabich collapse it once it became obvious what had occurred. No, there were many other entrances to their lair, some more trafficked than others. We
would do far better to find one that is less traveled. Albeit, there is little chance that any exist that would grant us passage without running into at least marginal resistance.”

  “Some is better than all,” I offered. “Besides, we’re the beggars here. We can’t be choosy. If she turns all of the vamps she kidnapped, it’s gonna be bad.”

  “For her,” Gan replied.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your habit of feigned ignorance when it is obvious you heard what I said is quite adorable, my love, but perhaps we can save it for another time.”

  “Who said Bill’s playing?” Sally asked between mouthfuls.

  “Were Ib to turn all of the vampires under her thrall,” Gan continued, “it would prove detrimental to her cause. If I am immune to compulsion, then it is logical to assume others would be as well. Though Vehron had many true followers in his grasp, I have no doubt that an equal number followed him out of little more than fear. Freed and with the Wanderer present to rally them, they could pose a potential threat to Ib.”

  I got up to refill my glass. “That’s good.”

  “An insignificant threat, mind you.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “But a threat nevertheless. Though your friend might be pure, he is not perfect.”

  “I could’ve told you that,” Tom said from his spot propped up on the kitchen counter.

  “What I mean is,” Gan clarified, putting down her fork, “though the Cult of Ib has preached freedom in the past, it would ill serve her at this juncture. In order to topple the First, she must be able to assert a modicum of control. Without it, her odds of success are even at best, and that is being generous.”

  I returned to my seat and sat back down. Damn, should have grabbed myself a few more waffles while I was up. “But with her power...”

  “It still would prove inadequate. The remainder of the First are even now doubling their precautions against her. It might be enough to counter her power of compulsion or it might not. However, even if they fail, that does not greatly help her.”