“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, her 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.
I distantly heard the engine of a car approaching outside. More of our merry little bunch was arriving, but I wanted to see what was going on before turning around and playing welcome wagon to a bunch of red-robed douches.
“So you admit that he spoke true?” a female voice from the living room asked, drawing my attention in that direction.
The three of us stepped to the doorway of what was once a fairly large family room – complete with a sixty-inch flat-screen TV on the wall. Damn – Farmer Brown, or whoever this place belonged to, certainly wasn’t taking the whole Little House on the Prairie vibe to heart.
Whatever the room had been, though, was of no consequence. All the furniture had been pushed off to the side. The center was what mattered, and that was a bit of a doozy.
Four women sat in a circle outside of a pentagram that had been painted into the floor, along with other symbols I wouldn’t even try to identify. Three were unfamiliar, but the last one was Christy. Although the black circles under her eyes appeared to be gone, she looked no less stressed. I immediately understood why.
In the middle of the pentagram, and seemingly the source for the weird light show, sat Decker’s skull.
No wonder the Templar had all chosen to remain outside.
* * *
I took a step forward, but Tom caught my arm. I glanced at him, and the look on his face said it all – are you outta your fucking mind?
Yeah, he probably had a point there.
Ed pushed forward to get a look, but that was as far as the three of us went. Whatever was going on in there had the look of a closed meeting.
“I say that the events recounted by the Grand Mentor of the Plains happened,” Christy replied to the challenge, which had obviously been directed her way. “However, as we are all aware, there are many points of view in life. His was but one of them – one which I do not agree with.”
“Holy crap!” one of them, a petite auburn-haired girl, cried out. “So you really killed them?”
“Please keep this hearing formal, Sister Veronica,” Christy admonished, the authority in her voice unmistakable. Yeah, witch culture was kinda weird if you asked me.
“Sorry.”
Christy’s demeanor softened for a moment, and she offered a small smile toward the other woman before addressing a raven-haired witch of average height and build. “As you were saying, Sister Meg?”
Meg, or so I presumed, had a book open in front of her. It was a large tome with a feeling of age about it – probably not a loaner from the local library.
“It’s not the Necronomicon, in case you were wondering,” Tom whispered in my ear. “I already asked.”
At least none of us would hopefully end the evening being anally violated by possessed trees. Although a chainsaw hand sure could come in handy.
“The charges the Grand Mentor laid down were quite serious,” the black-haired witch said.
“I am aware.”
“Please tell us your account of events, and then we shall seek to corroborate via remote commune.”
“That will be difficult.”
“How so?”
“I have been informed that the Grand Mentor, as well as my former sister, are both deceased.”
Whatever was going on was obviously some kind of formality in Magi circles. Nevertheless, I could have sworn I heard a bit of scorn thrown in there at the Mentor’s expense. Oh well, the guy had been a dick.
“What?” Veronica asked, her tone shocked. At least one of these witches was fairly green.
“Yes,” Christy replied, her tone once more neutral. “The Grand Mentor met his fate at the hands of the vampire who led the effort to hunt down my former coven.”
“But why?” the third witch asked. She had short brown hair, wore glasses, and a Lord of the Rings t-shirt. Finally, someone with some fashion sense.
Christy sighed and tried to explain Gansetseg’s twisted sense of honor.
“Holy shit,” the nerd witch exclaimed.
“Sister Kelly!” Meg warned.
“Sorry.”
“So,”
Meg continued, “you were allied with this vampire while your former coven hunted for the Icon?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Christy replied, breaking formality for a moment. “My apologies. I say that this vampire is no friend of mine or our kind. I did not learn until later her part in things. By then, it was too late for most of my brethren.”
“Most?”
“To the best of my knowledge, there were three other survivors.”
“And you aided them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they were holding my fiancé hostage.”
Ed and I glanced over at Tom. “Not a fucking word,” he hissed.
I smirked in his direction and then turned back to the proceedings at hand, barely registering the sound of more car doors slamming outside. This was far more interesting anyway.
Christy summed up the rest of the events that occurred during our battle with Remington’s forces. Interestingly enough, her account was far more accurate than the bullshit Sally had spread – and I’d perpetuated – following that incident. Who knows? Maybe the light pouring out of Decker’s skull was some sort of magical lie detector.
When Christy finished her tale, I expected the session to wrap up – maybe for the three witches in attendance to vote, then hand down some sort of sentence or penance. What that would be, I had no idea.
In the vampire world, there were usually only two punishments: immediate death or having your head chopped off and stuck in a jar for eternity. The Draculas had apparently never heard of the concept of community service. I wondered if Magi society was as harsh. If so, I had no idea why Christy would seemingly volunteer herself for this, and I had to assume she had, as it seemed painfully obvious the others were deferring to her as a person of authority.
Finally, Meg, who seemed to be running this Q&A, said, “Very well. We shall now call upon the other in attendance so that we might hear his account.”
Once more, I glanced at Tom, but he just held up his hands and shook his head.
“Anyone else here?” I asked in a low tone.
“Not that I know. They were waiting for some other chick to arrive, but she never showed.”
“Well, then who?”
“Harry Decker,” Meg continued, “we summon you from beyond the veil. Hear us and be drawn back to your earthly remains to stand in judgment of your daughter.”
What!?
All four witches in the circle joined hands and began to chant. After a few moments, their tempo increased, along with the pulsing lights coming from Decker’s disembodied noggin.
No, they couldn’t...
Could they?
Almost as if in answer, a rush of wind came from out of nowhere and blew past us, knocking pictures off the walls and ruffling the curtains. For a moment, a swirl of air and dust could be seen above Decker’s skull, yet the witches kept at their chanting as if none of this was out of the ordinary.
All at once, their chanting ceased and the mini tornado was sucked into the skull.
“Anyone else find that a bit weird?” Ed asked.
I was about to reply when a flash of sickly purplish light blazed from within the skull’s eye sockets followed by a voice I knew all too well.
Beware, the end is near, Decker’s voice shot out from everywhere, for the Icon has arrived.
Head Games
I see the buffoon of a Freewill is present too.
“Fuck you, dude,” I said from the doorway. All eyes – living ones, anyway – in the living room turned my way. “Don’t listen to this asshole. He’s full of...”
Just then, the front door opened in the hall behind us. I glanced back and saw, sure enough, Sheila stride through the entranceway. Okay, well, point one to Decker.
Before I could say anything further, Decker’s voice again bellowed out. Destroy her! It is too late for me, but you can still save yourselves.
The three witches who’d been questioning Christy immediately clambered to their feet. Christy started to rise too, but she needed a nearby chair as leverage. By the time she was standing, the three other witches were gathering energy around them.
Much to my horror, but not even remotely to my surprise, Sheila joined us at the doorway in that moment. “Sorry I’m late. We ran into some...”
Her voice faded at the freaky sight in the living room – three witches arming for battle, with a talking skull egging them on.
Oh yeah, this was right where I wanted to be – smack dab in between them.
Sheila’s aura sprang to life in response, and I closed my eyes to prepare myself for the oh-so-wonderful feeling of being blasted.
A second passed and that didn’t happen. I dared to open my eyes and found my roommates had both awesomely stepped between me and Sheila – her faith aura washing harmlessly over them for a moment until she reined it in.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Enough of this!” Christy snapped. “I told you guys she was coming.”
Listen not to my misguided pupil, Decker urged. She has been enthralled by this beast’s lackey and knows not what she says.
“He talking about me?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, pretty sure,” I replied.
“He is my betrothed,” Christy said to the witches. “I am of sound mind and have not been enthralled.”
“Except by my penis,” Tom proudly added, perhaps a wee bit louder than intended.
She threw a glare his way that would have melted an iceberg and, for a moment, I was certain she was going to let the other witches blow us to hell.
Amazingly enough, though, my roommate’s dumbass remark had defused the situation as two of the witches – Veronica and Kelly – immediately powered down and dissolved into giggles.
For a moment, the third didn’t quite seem to know what to do, but then she covered her mouth and joined them.
Tom turned to me and smirked. “Do I know how to work a crowd or what?”
“You do have a way with words, I’ll give you that,” I replied before stepping forward and raising my voice. “Is it safe to assume nobody’s going to be disintegrated, or should I come back later when you’ve all gotten it out of your system?”
“Technically, that was defensive magic,” the one with the glasses, Kelly, said. “You must be Bill. Christy told us all about you.” She held out a hand.
Beware, for the Freewill corrupts all he touches.
“Bite me, asshole,” I said to the skull as I shook her hand. “Oh, and all your marketing campaigns were fucking stupid too.”
“Marketing?” Kelly asked.
“He was a VP at my old job.”
“Oh.”
Yes, and I made a lot more in that short time than Mr. Ryder could ever hope to earn in his entire mediocre lifetime.
“Goddamn, how I wish I had taped Gan ganking your ass for YouTube.”
Laugh while you can, filth, for soon you shall meet your end.
“That another half-assed prophecy?”
No. Just common sense for an idiot such as yourself.
I opened my mouth to give Decker another piece of my mind when I realized everyone in the room was staring. Glancing over at Kelly, I asked, “I’m having an argument with an inanimate object, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much.”
* * *
Sadly for Decker, his craziness proved Christy’s innocence in the eyes of her coven. All one needed to do was listen to his whacked-out noggin for a few minutes to see he’d gone off the deep end and was still swimming out to sea.
Sheila’s presence was another matter entirely. It was one thing to understand someone’s motives in doing something normally deigned undesirable. It was quite another to shake off dogma that pointed to someone being your own personal Antichrist.
I could see what Christy was doing, though. While Decker’s skull continued to rave about death, destruction, and what a dipshit I was for bringing it a
ll to fruition – prick – Christy introduced Sheila around. In doing so, she humanized the boogeyman. It was easy to fear an abstract concept, but a bit harder when you had a name, face, and enough personal interaction to see that someone wasn’t a giant walking cock with a hard-on for killing your ass.
Regardless, the stigma wouldn’t be erased overnight. After all, I’m sure there were people in history who’d briefly met Hitler and thought he was a swell guy, and look how that turned out. Assuming Christy’s new sisters weren’t idiots, and so far, I didn’t get that vibe, they’d be optimistic but still cautious enough to sleep with one fireball readied.
There was one other bright side to all this. Whatever they had done to summon Decker’s specter seemed to have mellowed out Christy’s anger. I wasn’t sure I was back on the guest list for her wedding, but I decided to take a chance and sidled up to her.
“How are you doing?” I asked casually.
“I got some rest. That helped.”
“Good to hear.”
“I’m still pissed at you.”
“Not surprising. I’m trying to put myself in your shoes right now. I can imagine my reaction walking in to a neighbor’s house and seeing Grandpa’s skull up on the mantel.”
“Yeah, it’s something like that.”
“Albeit I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be quite so vocal either.”
“I will admit, seeing ... or hearing him like this is putting things into perspective for me. In my head, I only remembered...”
“The good parts?” I led her over to a corner so we could talk a bit without being overhead. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I tend to remember sitting on Pop’s lap while he told me stories from his days in the service. Oddly enough, most of those memories tend to ignore that half the time I was coughing my lungs out because he was chain smoking and blowing it in my face. If he showed up here right now, I know deep down his first thought before giving me a hug would be to ask if I’d run to the store and grab him a carton of Pall Malls.”
“Still better than trying to incite a race war.”
“Oh, he might’ve done that too. He always did have a major mad-on for the Irish.”
She smiled. Although it was half sad in its acknowledgement, it told me enough to know that we were still friends.
The Wicked Dead (The Tome of Bill Book 7) Page 18
