The Mourning Woods (The Tome of Bill Book 3)

by Rick Gualtieri

  “Hmm, I’ll make sure my people have plenty of thralls around, then.”

  “You said that word before – thralls. Do you really have humans enslaved to your will? Is that even possible?”

  James laughed. “Considering your friends, do you really want to know?”

  I thought about it for a second. “No, probably not.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I arrived back at my hut with still a few hours to go until sunrise. I entered, debating how best to utilize the time, and then realized it was empty. That was kind of a relief. Though I had no reason to believe that Ed was indeed boning Sally, that didn’t mean a small part of me wasn’t half expecting to walk in on them doing just that. My roommates and I had a long standing rule against seeing each other’s junk, and I’d hate to break it.

  Pushing aside thoughts of Ed railing Sally like the dirty little bitch my brain insisted she was, I walked over to the cooler. I opened it and found that James was good to his word. It had been filled with pints of blood and a few ice packs to keep them cool. Awesome! Just what the doctor ordered, and I mean a sane one, not my buddy Dave.

  I was reaching in for a drink when I heard a gun blast. I know what a shotgun sounds like, and as far as I’m aware, Ed was the only person in the area with one. That wasn’t good.

  I immediately headed for the door, thinking, What have you done now, Sally?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Thank God for vampiric senses. Between the sound of the shot and knowing what Ed smelled like (and believe me, after several days in the car, I got plenty of good whiffs of them all), I was able to immediately discern the general direction it had come from. I stepped from the hut and noticed several other vampires milling about, minding their own business, and pretty much ignoring the fact that someone had just fired off a twelve-gauge. Goddamn, vamps could be real assholes. Shit happened and they just sat around with their thumbs up their asses. And yet, I’m supposed to be on their side.

  Oh well, there would be plenty of time to kill them all later, mentally at least. For now, I had a friend in need.

  I left the clearing and raced off in the direction that my senses were telling me to go. I really hoped they were right. If not, I’d wind up lost in the Canadian wilderness, which wasn’t exactly a small place. How fucking embarrassing would that be if they had to send out a rescue party for me ... assuming they even came looking. But, enough of those thoughts. I needed to trust my senses and hope they, unlike almost everything else, weren’t purposely trying to screw me over.

  A roar of anger from up ahead caught my attention. A moment later, a familiar ass-like scent came wafting to my nostrils – a Bigfoot. As I got closer, another sound carried to my sensitive vamp ears. It was Ed’s voice.

  “Back the fuck up! The next one won’t be a warning.”

  Uh oh! It was usually pretty hard to rile Ed. To be fair, though, a half ton of giant gorilla about to kick your ass would most likely crack even the most stoic of veneers.

  “Defiler!”

  Oh, what the fuck did he do? Were he and Sally caught screwing on a Sasquatch burial mound? I'd expect stupid shit like that from Tom, but Ed?

  I caught sight of a flashlight beam ahead. Ed’s, no doubt. I got closer and finally saw my roommate. He stood beneath a tree, shotgun raised. A few feet away stood a massive (as if there was any other type) Sasquatch, and it did not look happy.

  Both parties turned toward me as I came running up. I stepped in between them, probably not the smartest of strategies, and asked, “What’s the prob...”

  “T’LUNTA!” the creature snarled and immediately swung a massive backhand at my head.

  Thankfully, numerous ass-kickings at the hands of other vampires had given me at least a few survival instincts. I managed to duck as a dinner-plate sized fist sailed over me.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Ed said, leveling the gun at the beast’s head. His heart was in the right place, but his brain had taken a temporarily siesta. I sincerely doubted he brought enough bullets to deal with the shit-storm of angry apes that would descend upon us if he killed this one.

  “ENOUGH! We’re under truce here, so back the fuck up!” I commanded the Bigfoot in a voice that almost sounded convincing. “As for you,” I turned to my friend, “lower the damn gun before you get us all killed.”

  Despite my tone to him, I wasn’t too worried about Ed shooting me, so I quickly turned back toward the creature. It had already taken one swing at me. No way was I giving it a freebie with my back turned.

  Fortunately, I seemed to have gotten through to it. It took a step back, still angry, but at least it didn’t look like it was about to attack again. Reminding it of the truce had been the right course. Turd had casually sacrificed one of his own troops to test the boundaries of the talks. He no doubt had imparted to his people that breaking the truce and causing an incident would get them thrown to the wolves ... maybe literally.

  “That’s better,” I said raising my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Now what is this about?”

  “Human defile sacred tree,” it growled.

  “Sacred tree?”

  “Ancestors buried beneath sacred tree.”

  I looked up. I’m no arborist. It just looked like another big, dumb fucking tree to me.

  “So, this tree in particular is special?” I asked.

  “No. All such are sacred.”

  Okay, whatever the hell that meant. I turned back to Ed, a quizzical look on my face. “And you defiled it?”

  “What? I had to take a shit.”

  “Defiler!”

  Ignoring the agitated creature behind me, I asked, “Any reason why you chose this tree in particular?”

  Ed’s response was a glare that said his opinion of my intelligence was rapidly dropping. “Not really. I’m not exactly a connoisseur of fine trees to take a dump behind.”

  I sighed and said to the Sasquatch, “We humbly apologize. My friend didn’t know what he was doing. It was an accident.”

  “It is insult!” it snarled. “You come to Woods of Mourning, yet not learn of our ways. You spit upon my people." (Well, maybe spit wasn’t the right word.) He bared his teeth and backed up another step. “Turd will hear of this.” He continued backing away. Within a few steps, he practically melted into the forest. Silence returned. It was pretty fucking freaky, like something out of Predator.

  Then Ed had to go and ruin the mood. “So Turd will hear of my crap?”

  I turned back to him. “Not funny, dude. Well okay, it is kinda funny. But not really.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to cause any trouble. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know. Where’s Sally, by the way?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “I thought she followed you.”

  “For a little while. But like I said, I had to take a dump. It’s not exactly a spectator sport.”

  “I heard the gunfire and thought she was...”

  “Was what?”

  “Well, killing you, I guess.”

  He smiled at that. “But what a way to go.”

  “True enough. Oh, well, we should probably go look for her. Unless, that is, you’d like to take a shit on anyone else’s dead grandfather.”

  “Fuck you, Bill.”

  “Not tonight, I’m tired,” I joked then began to turn back toward where the village was (hopefully). Suddenly a thought struck me. I stopped, looked around to make sure no hairy eyeballs were watching, then plucked a few leaves from the sacred tree.

  “What are you doing?” Ed asked.

  “I’m going to show these to James. Maybe he’ll know why they’re so special.”

  “It’s not. It’s just a maple tree.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  “I had them all over my yard growing up. Trust me, I raked enough of them to know.”

  “Hmm, so what you’re telling me is...”

  “That these guys are a bunch of fucking retards.”

 
; “Fair enough, although I could have probably guessed that already. I mean, c’mon, their leader is named after what you just dropped on their ancestors.”

  Keeping One’s Priorities Straight

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, upon entering our “luxury suite.” “You’ve been here all along?”

  Sally looked up from where she was busy painting her toenails and let out a sniff. “Where else would I be?”

  “We just spent the last hour walking through the woods looking for you.”

  “Oh. Well, I was here. I had some important business to take care of.” She wiggled her toes to emphasize her point.

  “I can see that,” I replied snidely. “In the meantime, Ed and I were busy trying not to die.”

  “I see you were successful. Good for you,” she said, going back to her feet.

  “I assume you didn’t hear...” Ed started.

  “The gunshot? Yep, I heard it. Thought it might be you.”

  “And you didn’t come to help, because...?” I snapped.

  “For starters, I’m not the designated babysitter. Secondly, I knew you would go and check it out. But most importantly, because I fucking think these things through before I go off half-cocked.”

  That stopped both of us in our tracks. We shared a glance, then Ed said, “Explain.”

  “It’s simple,” she said, pausing to switch feet. While she did, I began tapping the table with my fingers. “Don’t be impatient. If I rush, I’ll get streaks.” I was just starting to grit my teeth, when she started again. “As I was saying, it’s simple logic. Did you see any other vampires rushing headlong into the woods?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because they’re assholes?”

  “Well yes, that’s probably true. No offense, Ed, but coming to the rescue of a human isn’t going to be at the top of their priority list.”

  “None taken,” he replied evenly.

  She threw him a quick grin. “But that’s only part of it. Remember, we’re the enemy here. Don’t think that we’re not being watched every second of the day. We go rushing off en masse and the apes are going to notice and respond accordingly.”

  “But Ed was in...”

  “Was he really?” She glanced up to address him. “Were you actually attacked?”

  He thought about it for a second. “Threatened, yes – hence why I fired – but actually attacked, no.”

  “That thing took a swing at me,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she replied, still giving her toes more attention than us. “You’re a vampire. Worse, you’re the semi-official vampire leader here – God help us all – their sworn enemy. Ed, however, is a human. The Feet aren’t particularly big on humanity, but they don’t put them on the same pedestal of hatred as they do us. Whatever he did out there, the fact that they didn’t kill him outright tells me they were only sending a warning.”

  “And when I showed up...”

  “You made it worse. Congratulations, Bill. As usual, the road to Hell is paved with your good intentions.”

  “Oh shit,” I said, sitting down.

  “An apt word, considering the circumstances,” Ed commented.

  “So what do you think will happen?” I asked.

  Just then, as if on cue, Tom came walking in, hand-in-hand with Christy. “What the hell have you been doing, Bill?”

  “You mean besides sitting here listening to Sally’s rapier wit?”

  “He’s not joking,” Christy said. “Word just reached my coven that the Forest Folk are up in arms.”

  “Let me guess,” I replied, rubbing my temples. “The word Freewill was mentioned.”

  “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “What did you do?” Tom asked, a little more gleefully than I would have preferred.

  “Don’t look at me. Ed’s the one who dropped a deuce on their forefathers.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “So what does the rumor mill have to say about things?”

  Tom couldn’t help himself. He grinned widely before saying, “Turd is having a shit-fit.”

  Lord help me, but even in the middle of all this, it was still funny.

  “If I were you,” Christy said, ignoring her boyfriend’s idiocy, “I’d be prepared tomorrow. They’re going to call you out on whatever it is you did, and I’m not sure they’re going to accept an apology, being that they hate your kind and all.”

  “What if I apologize and explain things?” Ed asked. “Technically it was my fault, I guess.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You guess?”

  “It won’t help,” Christy said to him. “You’re here as Bill’s advisor, so they could claim that any insult you caused is automatically...”

  “My fault,” I finished.

  “Something like that.”

  “Just wonderful. Guess the vacation’s over.” I stood, then turned to face Christy. “So where do you stand in all of this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I appreciate the warning, but all the same, if Turd shit-stomps me into paste, doesn’t that give you and Decker exactly what you want?”

  “Speaking of which,” Sally interrupted. “Where is that asshole? I didn’t see him in the crowd.”

  “He couldn’t make it. There’s an executive retreat this week,” Christy replied offhandedly before addressing me once again. “A full blown war won’t benefit any of us. Besides which ... oh, never mind.”

  “A retreat?” I asked, “They never invite me to any ... wait a second. Never mind what?”

  Christy didn’t immediately answer. However, that didn’t stop Tom from doing so.

  “You’re starting to grow on her,” he said brightly. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

  She just gave a shrug and averted her eyes. Trying to change the subject, she said to Sally. “That’s a pretty color.”

  “Crimson sunrise,” Sally replied, pleased. “One of my favorites.”

  “Great, you two can go to a spa together when this is all over,” I snapped. “I appreciate the heads-up, Christy, really I do. I’m just not sure what to do with the rest of what Tom said. I mean, is it still safe to assume that if the Turd hits the fan (sorry, couldn’t help myself), you’re not exactly going to jump to my defense?”

  She answered uncomfortably, “There is the prophecy...”

  I kind of figured that would be the case. That stupid prophecy of Harry Decker’s: the Freewill’s return will give new life to the Icons, who will then proceed to kick the shit out of wizards worldwide blah blah blah. “Fine then...”

  “But I won’t act against you,” she finished, catching me by surprise.