The Tome of Bill (Book 8): The Last Coven

by Rick Gualtieri

  “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 that, the odds are, at best, even for her, 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.”

  “Why not?” I asked, getting up to fill my plate again.

  “Because compulsion is finite,” Sally said.

  “The whore is correct,” Gan replied, drawing a dirty look despite her pseudo-compliment. “Why do you think Alexander has not simply chosen to directly control the world’s masses? It is because he can’t. Ib took control of those present in the northern prefecture, a feat even Alexander would have been hard pressed to perform single-handedly. I would wager that even if that were not the limit of her powers, then it was close. Were the First to attack her with an army, she could potentially sway a portion of them, but not the entirety.”

  “What if she grabbed hold of the generals?” Sheila asked.

  “A logical assumption, Shining One,” Gan replied. If she harbored any ill will toward Sheila from earlier, it didn’t show. “But the generals, as you might call them, would be protected by the heaviest counter-compulsions. They would also be of superior age to their troops, thus more resistant. No matter the scenario, compulsion alone cannot win the war for Ib. I suspect that is at least partially why she has chosen to remain hidden all these centuries.”

  “And if her troops were completely immune to compulsion, that would pretty much make the entire point moot,” Sally added. “Although I doubt Alexander would be too fond of that himself. Would mean he’d have to do things the old fashioned way – lead the troops and hope they didn’t decide to go the friendly fire route.”

  “Indeed. This new development favors Ib’s strategy, but it is not yet a winning gambit.”

  “So we make it ours,” Sally said. “We rally every vamp that’s sick of this compulsion shit and make them immune once and for all.”

  I sat and reached for the syrup. “It has potential.”

  “Good,” she replied, grabbing the bottle and holding it just out of my reach, “because I’m volunteering to be the first recruit.”

  * * *

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “Let’s not be hasty. We don’t know what...”

  “No, you don’t know what it would do to you. You’re the Freewill, and there’s no telling how that would fuck up your powers ... more than they already are anyway. But for me, the choice is pretty simple.”

  “Yeah, but...”

  “Fuck the buts!” She stopped and looked around at the wide-eyed stares. “Grow up. You know what I mean. We’re talking freedom here, Bill. Do you even understand what that means for most of us?”

  “Um, well...”

  “Trust me, you don’t. The worst you have to deal with is a migraine if someone mind-fucks you. The rest of us, we’re little more than slaves. Marlene, Jeff, Alexander; they're all the same. They give vampires like me an order and we have no fucking choice but to obey. Do you know what it’s like to have your will utterly subsumed? Do you know how it feels to betray people you care about without even blinking, all because someone else had a whim to do so?”

  I had no idea who Marlene was, but it seemed safe to assume she was another vamp Sally knew. Besides, interrupting to ask sounded like a good way to get a punch in the face. I knew Sally was upset about what Alex had done to her, but now that it was coming out, I began to understand how badly I’d underestimated it.

  “For over a quarter of a century I’ve been little more than a slave, and I’m a baby compared to some. Sure, there are plenty who drink the Kool Aid, but there are so many more who don’t have a choice. The whole system, both sides, could be taken down. Alex and Ib could be sent to the Hell they deserve along with any of their sycophants.”

  The pain radiated off her in near palpable waves. She was too tough to cry, but I could see even that was a struggle for her. So many years of building up a wall around herself, she struggled to tear it down even among friends. She needed the mother of all hugs, but, sadly for her, I couldn’t.

  Because she was wrong.

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “What?”

  “This freedom you’re talking about. Sure, in the short term it might be a good thing, but in the long term it’s...”

  “A fucking disaster?” Tom offered.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Now explain why,” he then added. “Because I don’t get it.”

  Ugh, such a doofus.

  “Bill’s right,” Sheila said, all eyes turning toward her. “It would be chaos. An army of super powered beings unleashed against the world without any checks against them. No sun, no masters to order them back into the shadows. Lots of people would die.”

  “Lots of people are dying right now,” Sally responded.

  “That's not all,” I said, hating myself a bit for doing so. “History has proven what happens when you have one group with more influence or power than another.”

  “An underclass,” Kelly said. “Humanity would be relegated to a sub species – second class citizens.”

  “Or slaves,” Sheila added.

  “I can’t believe we’re fucking arguing this,” Sally spat.

  “I am forced to concur with the ... with Sally,” Gan said, showing a rare display of tact. “Albeit, perhaps for different reasons.”

  “I kind of figured it was too good to be true,” Sally replied.

  “Compulsion has always been abused by the First and their delegates. It has led us to where we are today, why so many under The Destroyer’s rule chose to stay there willingly.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. This was the nutcase who’d ordered her men to commit seppuku for the barest of offenses, and she was preaching how much of a crutch compulsion was to the Dracs?

  Gan turned to me, almost as if reading my mind – a concept I found ever so slightly creepifying. “My father taught me to use compulsion as a tool, a weapon if need be. However, it was to be used sparingly for control. My people are raised to know what it is to be loyal.”

  “Loyal?” Why didn’t it surprise me that Gan, of all people, didn’t quite see that supernatural compulsion and good old-fashioned brainwashing were the same fucking thing? Her method might be slightly less icky in the long run, but it still involved a lifetime of people
being put in their place by those who thought themselves their betters. I was about to point this out, but Sally was quicker on the draw.

  “Good. Never thought I’d be saying this, but we’re in agreement on this one.” She glanced my way. “We can discuss boring shit like ethics later. For now, we have two devils, neither of which is really the lesser of evils. They need to be dealt with and I want to be the first recruit in this new army.”

  Gan nodded. “Yes, we are in agreement. Alas, while this is a fascinating discussion, it is all elementary at best. The answer is no.”

  Sally stood up, grabbed the table she was sitting at with Sheila and Kelly, and flipped it over. As loud as the resulting crash was, though, her voice was louder. “What?!”

  Holy crap. I’d never guessed Gan to side with the logic that humans shouldn’t be enslaved, especially since she had designs to enslave them. Before I could say anything, however, she held up a placating hand.

  “It is not because I am unwilling,” she said slowly. “It is because I cannot. Whatever the process was that changed me, it has rendered me a mule, infertile. In short, I can no longer turn anyone into one of us.”

  TWO MULES FOR SISTER SHEILA

  “Wait, you can’t turn anyone? How do you know?”

  “Is it not obvious, my love? All that we are discussing now, I realized it prior to coming here.”

  “You tried it, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. Many times, against both cattle and our kind.”

  “What happened?”

  “The humans bled out. The vampires healed as they normally would. Alas, I am slightly embarrassed to admit that the effect of ingesting our blood has not changed for whatever it is I have become.”

  The thought of Gan locked in a bathroom, puking her guts out, was enough to give me cheerful pause for a moment.

  That gave Sally a chance to jump back in and she wasn’t happy. “Why the fuck did you let me get my hopes up, then? Why didn’t you fucking say so earlier?”

  “It was neither my intention nor concern to affect anyone’s expectations. As for your latter question, I believe you were the ones interrogating me. So why did you not think to ask?”

  I stepped between them before Sally could do something she might regret, almost losing my footing in a puddle of syrup in the process. Ugh, that was gonna be a pain to mop up later. “But Ed...”

  “Is capable of spreading this new strain, yes. In doing so, however, he renders a host such as myself incapable of siring.”

  “What about that thrall he turned?” Kelly asked.

  “I do not know. His lifespan was tragically cut short before he was given the chance to procreate.” Gan’s eyes glittered, telling me she was once again attempting a joke. Thankfully, this one wasn’t nearly so close to being disastrous as her last. Who knows? Maybe she was learning.

  “That’s a potential X-factor,” Meg said.

  “Yep,” I replied. “But we can’t worry about what we don’t know. Think about it, though. Maybe this is a good thing for us.” Hope started to form in the pit of my stomach. Premature, definitely, but from what I was hearing, maybe we weren’t as late to the saving Ed party as I’d first thought. “Whatever Ed is, he’s important to Ib and, honestly, I think I know why.”

  “Sunlight,” Sally replied as if it were obvious.

  “Yeah. An army of day-walkers changes the game, but the process isn’t quite perfect. The whole compulsion thing, and now this. Calibra might be willing to create some more day-walking minions to go forth and wreak havoc, but until she can figure out a way past the limitations, she isn't going to sign up for the treatment herself. It would make no sense. Sure, she could take in a day at the beach, but she’d be incapable of controlling other vamps as well as making sparkly new day vamps.”

  “Day vamps,” Tom said. “We should call them Damps. No, wait. Sunlight vamps, or sumps.”

  I ignored him. “If she did that, it would be one big step forward, but at least two steps back. What would that leave her as?”

  Christy turned to me and looked as if she was about to say something, but then glanced sidelong at Sheila and stopped herself.

  It took me a moment, focused as I was on the new information we had, but then I remembered. Fuck! Everyone in the room was up to speed, except for Sheila. We’d purposely kept her in the dark about the fact that Calibra was not only the first vampire, but was also known in the mage community as Kala the White ... pretty much the real life equivalent of Merlin.

  By Christy’s reckoning, discovering that the vamps and Magi shared a common great-great grandma, one responsible for all sorts of nasty little acts throughout history, might be the catalyst that finally turned Sheila against them.

  I didn’t buy it, but arguing with a powerful witch who was both hormonal and grieving had seemed a one-way ticket to Hurtsville to me, a place I vacationed at far more than I really wanted to.

  The problem was twofold. One, we all felt this was the endgame. Two, I’d seen enough B-movies to know that the best way to walk right into your bad ending was to do everything you could to avoid it. Keeping Sheila in the dark could just as easily backfire against us as anything else.

  I tried to convey as much with my eyes, which I’m sure amounted to making me look like a fucking moron. A wordless battle of wills ensued between us. A subtle plea from me, an even more subtle shake of the head from her.

  “You do realize, beloved, that your silent conversation with the witch is painfully obvious.”

  Fucking A!

  Christy’s eyes narrowed. Despite not saying anything, I’d pretty much spilled the beans that something needed to be said. There’s a reason my mom stopped telling me what she’d gotten my dad for his birthday by the time I was five.

  Oh, fuck it all. I was right in this case. Tom might have had his balls in her pocketbook, at least when he still had them, but it was time I extracted mine and screwed them back on. “We can’t have any more secrets.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tom replied. “I’m sure everyone here already knows you’re gay.”

  Gan turned to me. “I am glad to know my presence lightens your heart so.”

  Goddamn, I was surrounded by fucking morons.

  “That’s enough,” Christy said quietly to her fiancé turned action figure. “You’re probably right, Bill. I just...” Her hands went to her stomach.

  “I know, but I promise you nobody here wants that to happen.”

  Christy’s eyes met mine and in them I saw hope, but then – for just one moment – they hardened and I remembered what she’d said before we’d left to confront Vehron.

  “I would kill every vampire, every Icon, every single decent person on this planet if it meant saving my baby.”

  She’d meant it, too. I just had to make sure it didn’t come down to that.

  “You want to do the honors?” she finally asked with a sigh.

  “It’s yours to tell,” I said.

  She nodded knowingly and turned to Sheila, who wore an expectant look upon her face. “Calibra ... Ib isn’t just the first vampire. It’s not nearly that simple.”

  “She’s also Kala the White,” Sheila replied without missing a beat. “Your law giver, if I recall correctly.”

  Holy shit! She’d figured it out? Someone remind me never to play a game of Clue with her. Judging by the wide eyes in the room, there were more than a few of our number surprised by this. Mind you, Gan did not appear to be one of them, little fucking know-it-all.

  Christy appeared completely taken aback by this, but she quickly composed herself and replied, “She’s more than just our law giver. She’s the progenitor of the entire Magi way of belief. She’s considered the first to have truly mastered the subtleties of magic. Everything we respect about life, nature, the balance of power...”

  “Is all bullshit,” Meg added bitterly, “since this bitch is apparently a total fucking psycho.”

  Christy glared at her for a moment but then nodded. “Unfortunately,
that’s true as well. Our entire existence is built upon a lie. The number one tenet all covened Magi are instilled with is that there are some lines that are not to be crossed. The circle of life is sacred.” She turned and glanced sadly at Tom.

  “Should I be singing Hakuna Matata?” he replied, blissfully clueless as always.

  “No, dear,” she replied with a small smile before turning back to Sheila. “Kala the White, for all of her sins as Ib, is also the creator of the Jahabich. She is the one who brought them forth. She found a way to capture the souls of her defeated enemies and enslave them in stone.”

  “Using The Source?” Sheila asked, one eyebrow raising.

  “Okay, now this is getting spooky,” I said.

  “When?” Sally simply asked.

  I turned to her. “When what?”

  “Back in Boston,” Sheila replied. “When you were all down in the ruins digging through the rubble.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “She was eavesdropping, genius,” Sally said with an eye-roll.

  Oh. Well, that kind of explained it. I’d gotten so used to doing it with my enhanced hearing, I sometimes forgot all you had to do was sneak close enough and keep quiet.

  For a moment, Christy looked as if she was teetering on outrage, but then – quite suddenly – she started to laugh. I glanced at Sally, who shrugged. Even Christy’s sisters seemed to be wondering if their leader had gone off the deep end.

  “You okay there?” I finally asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, getting herself under control. “I just needed an outlet and these days, it’s either laugh or cry.”

  “Glad it was the former.”

  “Me too.” She turned to Sheila. “It’s just that I was all set to scream out ‘how dare you?’ when I realized the utter ridiculousness of it. Not only was I keeping secrets from you, someone who I should trust, but I can’t even say I’ve never tried to scry on anyone here.” She then looked at me. “And with your hearing...”