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

by Rick Gualtieri

  She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. “She’s my mentor and my friend.”

  “I’m not asking you to backstab her. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are on this.”

  After a few moments, she stepped further in and lowered her voice. “What I think is we’re in uncharted waters now. I’ve never heard of anything like this being done before. More importantly, none of the others did either, including Christy, and she studies history and shit like that. I mean, the only thing that even comes close to it...”

  “Let me guess. The White Mother?”

  “In spirit, not really, but if we went by the letter of the law...” She cocked her head to the side and raised her shoulders. “Still, Christy has a point. Him coming with us like this is probably a lot more useful than in someone’s pocketbook. But...”

  “But what?”

  “The transfer seems to be stable, but don’t let him fall off any high cliffs or anything.”

  I nodded, the meaning quite clear, then turned to follow the others down to the basement. It was time to reintroduce Tom to society.

  “Wait.”

  “Huh?” I stopped and turned.

  “What do you think of all of this? He’s your friend after all.”

  “I know and I’m glad to have him back. I mean, fuck, I’m not exactly one to judge, am I? I already died once and he didn’t immediately put out a room for rent sign. Would be kind of hypocritical of me to get on a supernatural high horse about this. Besides, that thing you mentioned about how this sorta resembles the White Mother.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s one big difference here that gives me comfort. Calibra could potentially take over the world with her creations. Christy ... well, she’d be lucky if Tom could intimidate the wait staff at a Denny’s.”

  * * *

  Whatever spell they’d worked seemingly went off without a hitch because Tom met us halfway as we were heading down. Despite the lack of a scent, he was him. It’s hard to explain, but when you know someone for so long, you know the essential them. I had a feeling that’s how parents could tell identical twins apart. There was a sense of “them” to each person that someone intimately familiar would just know. That’s how it was now. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but despite being a construct of tangible energy around a cheap plastic center, he was still my friend.

  “I wonder if I still need to take dumps,” he mused idly.

  Yeah, definitely Tom.

  The beauty of living in an apartment building full of people familiar with the true weirdness of the world was that they tended to take shit like this in stride. So it was that Tom got to experience the annoyance of his miraculous resurrection being accepted with little more than a shrug. Hell, Sally opened the door, saw him, rolled her eyes, and then slammed it shut again.

  Sheila was more cautiously optimistic, though, which mollified Tom’s ego a bit. Unfortunately, we stopped short of throwing him a welcome back party. For starters, this was a temporary fix at best. More importantly, we had to actually start making headway in finding Calibra, stopping her, and bringing him back in a way that didn’t involve a miniature black hole powering his body.

  Speaking of which, the only one of our group still AWOL was Gan. I hadn’t thought much of it when I’d first awoken, being glad she wasn’t trying to straddle me like a jungle gym. But now, with the excitement wearing down, her absence was most certainly noticed.

  The limo that had brought her here was gone, so that probably meant she was doing more than hiding in my closet, waiting to surprise me the second I got undressed. I was torn. On the one hand, a day without Gan was almost certainly bound to be a good one. On the other, now that we had at least the semblance of a plan, I was eager to get a move on.

  With Tom back, in a sense of the word, Christy seemed much more focused on the task ahead. We took some time and discussed our course of action in greater detail. I still had misgivings about the way she’d done things, but if having her head back in the game was a side effect, then it was a welcome one.

  The logistics of pulling off our plan were the main roadblock. First, there was the problem of getting back to the Woods of Mourning. Last time I’d been up there, it had been a fucking slog, one where I’d gotten my ass kicked by a moose. Sadly, it seemed that was to be the order of the day again as the person upon whom this insane plan rested was also the only member of our group who was impossible to teleport.

  Of more immediate concern was getting out of the neighborhood unseen. Prior to his departure, Alex had assured us that he would be in touch should he have some new intelligence to share. I had little doubt agents of the Dracs kept an eye on this place. Running out for coffee wasn’t bound to raise any suspicions. All of us heading out on a road trip, however, was a wee bit different.

  I didn’t imagine they would buy that we were just all stir crazy and looking for a weekend at the beach.

  While I brainstormed this with the witches and Tom, mostly getting nowhere, Christy and Sally took Sheila aside and gave her the Cliffs Notes version of the Humbaba Accord, both of them having far more familiarity with it than I did.

  They were welcome to it. I dug ancient history, don’t get me wrong, but I was more into the fun stuff like three hundred Spartans kicking ass at Thermopylae. The crap they were going over, arguing about bullshit like where the respective heads of nations should sit at a table as outlined in Section eighteen, paragraph twelve, sub-section nine, struck me as the kind of stuff that used to put me to sleep in class.

  They somehow kept at it until long after the sun had come up. By then, my group was rapidly losing steam. Kelly and Meg were out cold, snoring in a chair, and Veronica was downing Red Bulls like they were the fountain of youth. Tom, amazingly enough, appeared fresh as a daisy. I actually had to remind myself that shouldn’t have been surprising. Though he looked human, he wasn’t.

  Finally, Sally stopped talking and cocked her head to the side. “I think the Oompa Loompa queen is back.”

  After another moment, I heard the pitter patter of little feet climbing the stairs from the ground floor. Either Gan had returned, or we were about to be accosted to buy Girl Scout cookies.

  The door to my apartment opened and the little princess strolled in like she owned the place. She glanced around, noticed Tom, then proceeded to ignore him and walk toward me.

  “Nice of you to join us,” I said.

  “I am happy to see you too, my love.”

  Ugh! I so needed to make her understand when I was being sarcastic. “Yeah yeah, whatever. Listen, we’ve been discussing this plan all night, going over the details, et cetera, and I still think it’s a long shot.”

  “Indeed it is. In fact, I would argue that, were our destinies not bound for greater things, the chances of us suffering horribly at the hands of our enemies would be a near certainty.”

  “I can see why your people follow you. You have quite the way with pep talks.”

  If Gan understood I was making fun of her, she didn’t show it. Instead, she walked to the middle of the room. “Gather your belongings, for it is time to depart.”

  “We were just discussing that,” Veronica said sleepily.

  “Yeah,” I added. “There’s the problem of Alex. If prior campaigns are any indication, he has this place covered. So, if we’re going to make a run for it, we need to figure out a way...”

  “He does not,” Gan stated flatly.

  “Huh?”

  All eyes in the room, those who were still awake anyway, stopped and turned toward us.

  “That is why I left,” she continued. “I wished to make contact with those loyal to me to discuss our forthcoming plans.”

  “What’s this have to do with Alex’s people taking the night off?”

  “Those plans, if I may be allowed to continue, my darling, included sending my assassins to silence any whose eyes might be turned our way.”

  “Of course they did,” Sally commented.

  “Surpri
singly, they found none.”

  “Maybe they missed them,” Christy said.

  “Yeah,” Meg added. “I mean, we’re dealing with Alexander the Great here. He’s not exactly a novice.”

  Gan sighed painfully, as if she was dealing with a group of children ... like her, but far stupider. “We are not dealing with Lord Alexander, witch. To think he would take it upon himself to personally conduct surveillance is the height of both arrogance and foolishness. As for the agents of the First, I am well versed in their tactics and protocols.”

  “Oh, like what?”

  “Like the fact that his people did not raid this place during my absence.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked.

  “Indeed. I was fully expecting it, hence why I stationed warriors in the adjacent buildings, ready to ambush them.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Get back to this raid part.”

  “Protocol dictates that this entire building be under constant surveillance, both physical and electronic.”

  “You mean this place is bugged?”

  “From top to bottom, I can assure you.”

  “Hold on,” Sally said. “So if you knew this, then how come you didn’t warn us not to flap our lips about plans and shit?”

  “Flap your lips?” Gan asked slowly. “Quite the interesting term of expression. But to answer your question, whore, I would tell you to look toward the witch.”

  “My sisters and I have wards up all over,” Christy explained. “They’re meant to discourage outside spying in a variety of ways.”

  “Indeed, rendering electronic means unreliable at best. However, the First would still have many eyes upon this place. Surely they would have noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Such as you coming and going during daylight hours?” I asked.

  “I was counting on it.”

  “Why?” Sheila asked. “I thought you were helping us.”

  “Indeed I am. Agents of the First operate under a great deal of autonomy during times of war such as this. Their orders would be to observe or follow, but also to gather intelligence.”

  “Which they’d then report to their superiors,” Sheila surmised.

  “In theory, yes. In practice, it is somewhat different. The First are intolerant of failure, but they also frown quite heavily on inaccurate information. My presence would raise their suspicions, but they would be hesitant to report in for further instruction before they knew more. It would make them look weak. Hence, why I fully expected this place to be infiltrated by now.”

  “But it hasn’t been,” I said.

  Christy crossed her arms defiantly. “My wards would have warned us.”

  “And what of it?” Gan asked. “You are under a state of truce with Alexander. His people would have acted under such pretense. Had you reacted against them with force, the fault would be on your heads. But this discussion is entirely pointless now. It did not occur, nor have my men found any trace that they were ever here to begin with.”

  “Maybe protocol changed,” Sally said.

  “Even if it did, my people are trained to adapt. I can assure you, they have scoured all buildings within a three-block radius of this one.”

  I turned to my roommate and commented, “As if the neighbors probably didn’t already hate us.”

  “What about the sewers?”

  Sally’s question received a pained sigh in return from Gan as if it were so obvious to not even be worth a response.

  “So what does that mean?” Sheila asked.

  At that, Gan’s shell of arrogance actually began to crack a bit. She was silent for a moment, and when she finally did answer, something entirely alien was in her voice – indecision. “I do not know.”

  NORTHERN EXPOSURE

  Gan explained that she was essentially in the dark. She had to be extra careful with regard to her normal contacts both within Boston and other seats of power so as to not tip off anyone that she was back. Even with her precautions, though, she should have still had enough clout to have eyes and ears just about everywhere, but for some reason, the flow of information had become little more than a trickle.

  Something was up within the vampire hierarchy, but she didn’t know what and was hesitant to push further and potentially reveal herself.

  That was odd. Hell, it made me half-tempted to call Boston and outright ask Colin how things were going.

  Mind you, I somehow resisted the urge.

  Whatever the case, a gift horse had been presented to us and, rather than sit around and debate it, we decided to make use of it.

  We were free and clear to pursue our plan with the Feet. There was no telling how long this window of opportunity would remain open, so we needed to act now.

  Thank goodness, too. I’d felt that anger inside of me recede once we started discussing an actual plan, but it was still there. It was only a matter of time before it reared its ugly head again. If it was all the same to anyone else, I’d prefer it happen while we were surrounded by creatures that deserved a punch in the face.

  Of course, that still left open the logistics of how to get there. I, for one, didn’t relish another weeklong road trip to the frozen north. There was also the problem of where to go. Sure, we’d been there once, but it’s not like I had kept the GPS coordinates handy. There were some waypoints you remembered and some you prayed to forget. Besides, past a certain point, one big cluster of frozen trees looked like the next.

  Thankfully, Gan’s indecision with regard to the Dracs didn’t last long, because when I mentioned these concerns to her, she laughed as if it were one of the stupidest things she’d ever heard.

  “The prior gathering at the Alma stronghold was made with certain concessions in mind, beloved,” she said, a grin upon her face as if she thought my ignorance just the cutest thing. “At the time, these concessions were agreed upon because peace was still an option. However, that time is passed. Though our intentions are to reforge that peace and we will be approaching them under a flag of truce, we are still at war. Thus, a show of strength will be far more appropriate.”

  I considered what we had at our disposal. Icon and Freewill – check. A coven of witches, also not bad. And whatever Gan was, aka a new player at the table. On paper, it was a pretty formidable combination, enough to probably intimidate a small handful of Sasquatches. An army of them, though? Yeah, I had a feeling begging for our lives might be more conducive to our continued survival.

  However, as with a great many things, I assumed wrong.

  * * *

  I had thought Gan was talking about our immediate group when she meant a show of strength. Maybe we’d drive up and proclaim ourselves the crème de la crème of the vampire nation. Much posturing would then ensue.

  I had to admit, her plan of flying us up in a trio of unmarked Blackhawk helicopters was a shitload better than what I had in mind.

  Faster, too.

  Don’t get me wrong. The trip was still well over a day’s journey with multiple refueling stops, but Gan’s people seemed to have it handled. There wasn’t much to do except watch the scenery below as we flew north.

  I, of course, got stuck on a chopper with Gan. There was no escaping that fate. I wasn’t in any position to demand different accommodations. However, I weaseled some company in with us to make sure she didn’t try to book us membership in the mile-high club, especially since our conveyances had been custom retrofitted with luxury amenities, including a divider between the passengers and cockpit.

  It made sense to bring Sheila along on our chopper. As the lynchpin upon which this insane plan hinged, there was no doubt she could glean intelligence from Gan. Sally, though no fan of our diminutive host, was even less a fan of being the third wheel between Tom and Christy. She insisted on joining us, citing an aversion to vomiting for the entire ride up. Christy’s coven took the third chopper.

  If it weren’t for the jet-black paint jobs and twin machin
e guns mounted on either side, our rides could’ve been mistaken for some millionaire’s playthings. Hell, there was even a wet bar stocked with blood in ours. Gan definitely didn’t believe in suffering for the cause.

  Unfortunately, her presence negated any chance of serious conversation. Pity, because I had a feeling that there were a lot of things in need of saying between Sally, Sheila, and me. While we’d been in a holding pattern, it had been easy to pretend that there was more time or that someone needed space. Now that we were on the move, though, the concept of there being a tomorrow in which to do these things became uncertain. Everything did. A plan like this could set us down the path to victory, but it could just as easily go tits up.

  Knowing my luck, I had the feeling that our lives were about to get interesting again.

  * * *

  “I don’t suppose these things come standard with a bathroom?”

  “I think that’s the next model up,” Sheila said to me with a smirk. “The budget didn’t allow it.”

  “It’s your own fucking fault,” Sally added, far less generously. “You should have gone when we stopped to gas up.”

  “I didn’t have to go then.”

  “Well, judging from the scenery below,” she replied, glancing out the window, “your choices are gonna be a snowbank, a rock, or some trees. Sorry to say, but we seem to have left the land of Tim Horton’s behind.”

  “Just so long as it’s not a maple tree,” I groused, drawing a chuckle from her.

  Sheila glanced back and forth between us, obviously not in on the joke.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  I already knew the chances of us running into anything resembling civilization were slim. Our last refueling stop had been the final one ahead of reaching our destination. We’d already donned cold weather gear, although, since it had come courtesy of Gan, we all looked less like backpackers and more like a group of yak herders.

  Oh well, at least this time the fur coat I was wearing didn’t seem to be lined with explosives. I’d take my victories where I could get them.

  Thankfully, we weren’t going in completely cold, minus the weather maybe. Gan, in typical fashion, had nominated some of her people to be cannon fodder in advance. Showing up in the sacred woods of the Sasquatches uninvited was asking for trouble. So, she explained, she had some of her emissaries approach ahead of time under a totem of truce, as she put it. Of the dozen she’d sent in, one had actually returned and radioed back that we were expected.