The Tome of Bill (Book 5): Goddamned Freaky Monsters

by Rick Gualtieri

  Fuck it, fortune favors the bold...sometimes. I caught up to him and stepped through the doorway, eager to learn exactly where the hell I was.

  * * *

  Wherever we were, it was big. A cut stone hallway ran in either direction from outside my door, leading off farther into the darkness than my vampire-enhanced eyes could see. The ceiling was about fifteen feet high, tall enough to accommodate guests Druaga’s size or larger. I found myself wishing for a magic sword, or maybe some plus-five plate mail - for surely this was the real-life equivalent to the dungeons me and my friends had explored every week in our imaginations. Much like in those adventures, I was also forced to wonder what else lurked here, waiting to spring upon us.

  Alex began walking and I followed.

  “Right hand rule,” I muttered, noting our direction.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, gaming terminology. We use it for dungeon crawls.”

  “We?”

  “I guess you had to be there. So, where exactly is this place?”

  “You are in the stronghold of the vampire nation. It is from here that all of our actions worldwide and beyond are planned and carried out.” His voice echoed off the solid walls around us. The faint rhythm of dripping water sounded somewhere off in the distance.

  “This is a lot different than Boston.”

  “You are far from that city, Freewill.”

  “How far?” A sinking feeling hit my gut. I had the disturbing notion that whatever he said next, it wouldn’t be good. I seriously doubted it was only a quick train ride from home.

  “You are deep under Lake Geneva in one of the many secret catacombs we keep...”

  I racked my brain...Lake Geneva? Was that one of the Great Lakes? Fuck, geography had always been one of my weak subjects. I mean, I knew where Geneva itself was located, but there was no way...”

  “...deep beneath Château de Chillon.”

  “Just chillin in Chillon,” I quipped rather unhelpfully, still with no clue as to where I was.

  “Pardon?”

  “Um, I meant where...”

  “Western Switzerland.”

  “Western...” Oh, fuck me.

  I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

  The Accidental Tourist

  “I’m in Switzerland?”

  “Yes, Freewill.” Alex turned left down another corridor, this one leading toward a stone staircase.

  “As in Europe?”

  “There are many locales that share in that name, but since I assume you are referring to the country, then once more, the answer is in the affirmative.”

  I followed him up the stairs, my mind racing to process things. What the fuck had happened? Had I stowed away in a cargo ship or something? How in hell had I ended up here? “So, I’m actually in Switzerland?”

  “We have already established that.”

  “In this...err...castle?”

  “Deep beneath the crypt, to be exact.”

  “And this place is the vampire headquarters?”

  “In a word, yes.”

  “The whole castle?”

  “The entire country.”

  I stopped mid-step, letting that one sink in. Nah, I couldn’t have heard him correctly. That was just insane. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “Exactly as I said, Freewill.” He looked over his shoulder at me, bemusedly raising the brow over one of his mismatched eyes. “Did you expect less of our kind?”

  “Well...not to sound insulting, but yeah. I mean, the whole country? That sounds pretty damn farfetched.”

  “It only seems as such because we wish it to be so. We have been entrenched here since the very beginning. Our influence extends to all aspects of life, from the mundane to the profound.”

  “Why this place?”

  “Because it is perfect for us.”

  Unhelpful answer or not, my mind reeled at the concept. I’d heard that our seat of power was in Europe, but much like anyone raised on a diet of Hollywood tripe, my imagination automatically turned toward crumbling castles in Romania surrounded by ignorant peasants who locked their shutters at night to ward off evil.

  I thought back to what I knew of Switzerland, which wasn’t much. I mean, there were busty blondes...that was kind of cool, but probably not entirely relevant to my predicament. I remembered from history class this place was historically neutral in wars, partially because the entire nation was a natural fortress backed by a heavily armed populace.

  Holy crap. In short...as Alex had said...perfect.

  Then there was the rest: Swiss watches, banks, um...cheese. No wonder it always seemed like vamps were flush with cash. It was because they were. Hell, even my own coven always seemed to have plenty of scratch to go around. I mean, sure, I’d never gotten my hands on any of it, but that was thanks to Sally keeping the bankcards all to herself and...

  Sally!

  Fuck, I hadn’t even considered her since waking. Did she know where I was? Hell, was she even aware I was still alive? Could she have had anything to do with my being here? She’d done it before, shipping my ass off to China. But that had been a goof on her part, her way of fucking with me. Somehow, I didn’t believe she’d just hand me over to Alex - or perhaps I didn’t want to believe it.

  No. She and I were cool...at least when we weren’t busy pissing each other off. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt until such time as I learned different. She couldn’t have had anything to do with my being here.

  Which then still left the question: how exactly did I get here?

  * * *

  We reached the top of the stairs where another heavily fortified door awaited - this one ajar. We stepped through, at which point two vamps on either side snapped to attention - guards, obviously. It wasn’t a stretch to guess they stood straighter due to Alex’s presence rather than mine.

  This next level was much less dank. The finely worked stone gave the appearance of royalty. Electricity was also apparently one of the perks for those who moved upstairs. It was actually fairly well lit by vampire standards.

  “You should feel honored, Freewill. You enter the heart of the First Coven.”

  An interesting use of words, considering that vampires traditionally didn’t get along well with things that were unexpectedly introduced into their hearts.

  I considered that analogy as we walked. Alex had been the one responsible for manipulating us - me - into starting this war in the first place. He was hell-bent on finishing what he’d started over two thousand years ago - conquering the planet. Unfortunately, he wasn’t overly concerned if most of it burned to the ground while he was accomplishing his goals.

  In an interesting twist, many were under the impression that it had been me who’d started things. Our allies used my name as a rallying cry, while our enemies were no doubt putting me at the top of their to-kill lists.

  Alex either didn’t know, or care, that I was opposed to the entire thing - and I wasn’t the only one. My friends were behind me in our plans to thwart...

  The image of Gan, the crazed Mongolian pre-teen who’d become a constant pain in the ass, unexpectedly flashed in my head. I remembered how she’d told me of her plans to overthrow Alex. Her desires weren’t entirely altruistic, though. She wanted him dead for no other reason than she desired the crown herself - with me by her side. What a fucking nutcase.

  Well, you don’t have to worry about her anymore. She’s dead.

  The thought...no, the memory...slammed into me like a freight train. Dead? When? Sure, I would’ve been more than happy to keep half a world between us for the rest of eternity, but I never wanted to see her killed. That was...

  The movie I’d been watching in my brain apartment! Had that really happened?

  “Are you unwell, Freewill?” Alex asked from beside me. He’d stopped walking and was now staring at me quizzically, no doubt due to my silence. Unfortunately, I’d tuned out his voice during my moment of introspection - stupid of me, since what he’d be
en yammering about was potentially useful information. “Did you, perhaps, need more time to recover?”

  Asshole. Like he really needed to rub it in. “I’m fine...this is just a lot to take in.”

  That answer seemed to mollify him. Brilliant as a strategist as he was, he was still susceptible to a little ego stroking. “As I can imagine. Most are introduced to our inner circle gradually. For one so young, I would think it would be overwhelming.”

  Overwhelming? Seriously? I hadn’t expected to learn that we basically owned one of the most prosperous nations on the planet, but it wasn’t quite pants-pissing news either.

  * * *

  Alex continued his tour, blathering on as he took me through more passages and tunnels. Sometimes we went up, sometimes down. I really should have paid better attention, at the very least for when it was time to bug the fuck out of here, but after a while, all I could hear were my own thoughts screaming shut the fuck up already over and over again. Goddamn! Apparently, two thousand years of life hadn’t taught this narcissistic clown the value of brevity.

  Finally, we entered a passage where, once more, there were no light sources - a non-issue for vamps. At first, I only noticed an odd scent in the air - like someone was burning dirty dog fur - but as we continued on, it became thicker. Eventually, we were walking through a smoky haze that continued to grow heavier.

  I coughed, interrupting whatever historical factoid Alex had been droning on about. “Someone needs to cut down on the hookah.”

  “It is a special incense, first cultivated by pre-Aztec mystics,” he explained, apparently unbothered by the stench. “It is said to expand the mind.”

  “I know a few mind-expanding herbs. None of them smell like this.” My eyes began to tear up. “What is this place, anyway?”

  “As I was saying,” he continued, a slight hint of annoyance in his voice, “we are paying a visit to our elder seers. I have sent word ahead that I wished for them to...consider your current condition.”

  Oh, fuck, that didn’t sound good. I hoped that didn’t mean I’d now have a lot of vampires testing out new and interesting ways to kick the shit out of me in a futile attempt to get Dr. Death out of his metaphysical bed.

  Voices came from up ahead. I couldn’t see the owners through the haze, but they sounded irritated. Unfortunately, I had no idea what they were annoyed about. Whatever they were speaking, it definitely wasn’t English. Was it the native language of the land? Beat the shit out of me. I had no idea what they spoke in Switzerland. Oh well, a U.N. translator I was not.

  If the argument up ahead perturbed Alex, he gave no indication of it. That figured. When one was the high muckety-muck, one didn’t need to concern oneself with the fretting of the peons - asshole.

  The hallway abruptly ended in an arched doorway, which Alex stepped through. I followed him and stopped to take a look around.

  Despite everything, I couldn’t help but smile. “It’s about fucking time.”

  * * *

  My short tenure as a vampire had been filled with many disappointing revelations. For example, the regional headquarters that my coven reported to was little more than an underground corporate park. Talk about mundane. Where I stood now, though, was more like what I’d originally envisioned. Finally some epically dark shit that was worthy of the vampire name.

  The chamber I entered was circular in shape with a domed ceiling about twenty feet above our heads. It was still smoky, but the space was large enough so that the haze thinned out and gave me a better view than in the hall. About forty feet in diameter, the walls were some sort of smooth stone, maybe marble, polished to the point where they were almost mirror-like. They reflected the lone source of light in the room, casting bizarre shadows that the owners of any haunted house in America would have sacrificed their children to reproduce.

  A fire pit, about five feet across, dominated the center. Low flames and the noxious smoke I was trying not to breathe emanated from it.

  And it just kept getting better from there.

  Robed figures sat in a circle facing the center, spaced evenly apart. Before each was an iron rod, one end of which hung in the fire pit.

  What caught my eye most, however, was their lack of that very thing. Having heard my little utterance upon entering, they were all turned toward me. Various faces, some bearded, others clean shaven, stared back...sorta. Empty sockets, blackened and scarred, stared sightlessly back from where their eyes should have been. Whoa, kinda creepy.

  At the far end of their circle, three more beings stood. One was dressed like the other weirdos. A long, white beard fell from his chin, nearly to the floor. The rest of his face bore the same wounds as his fellows. The other two, a man and a woman, were dressed in more contemporary garb. The woman wore a black gown - accentuating her milky white skin - that flowed around her shapely form...oh yeah. I could dig that. The dude had darker skin; Middle-Eastern in complexion would be my guess. He had longish hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and wore khaki-colored clothes in stark contrast to his hottie of an acquaintance. Their differences were further punctuated from the rest by the fact that they had eyes in their heads with which to stare at me.

  “Welcome to the chamber of seers, Freewill,” Alex said from beside me. “Here our elder prophets gaze out across the planes so as to divine the mysteries they hold.”

  “Doesn’t look like they see much of anything to me.”

  “In that, you are quite mistaken.”

  The couple across the way each flashed a set of fangs at us. Whoever they were, they didn’t seem all that pleased at our entrance.

  They took a step toward us when a deep bass rumbled in the chamber as if someone had struck a massive gong somewhere.

  The bearded seer immediately disengaged from the two he’d been huddled with and walked over to an empty spot within the circle.

  As the old guy sat down, Alex’s hand fell upon my shoulder and he gently guided me back a step. The two others across from us likewise backed up, seemingly respectful in how they did so.

  “What...”

  “Shhh,” Alex quietly shushed me. From his tone, I gathered it would probably be unwise to interrupt, especially since I was well within pummeling reach.

  Silence returned to the room as the seated figures placed their hands upon the iron rods in front of them. Smoke rose from their skin where the hot metal touched. Ouch.

  But that was nothing compared to what came next.

  The bearded one muttered something unintelligible, at which point the rest answered in kind. They lifted the rods, ends glowing red hot, and proceeded to jam the near molten metal into their already ruined eye-sockets.

  “Holy shit!”

  All eyes - and lack thereof - in the room immediately trained upon me. Uh oh.

  The leader of the gouging cult pointed a finger in my direction and screeched something that I couldn’t make out. Call me cynical, but I had a feeling it wasn’t “Hello.”

  A moment later, he followed up with a compulsion to his buddies. His words were still indecipherable, but the meaning translated in my brain. “KILL THE BLASPHEMER!!”

  That didn’t exactly sound promising.

  The Eyes Have It

  Almost as one, the weirdos sitting around the pit plucked the burning rods from their skulls and stood, brandishing them as weapons. Great. Not only was I about to get my ass killed, but it was going to be with red-hot pokers coated in burnt eye-juice.

  The couple that had been conversing with the elder whack-job stepped back, smirks on their faces. They’d come for the conversation, but were apparently staying for the floorshow. How wonderful.

  Oh well, I might’ve been outnumbered, but they were just a bunch of blind nutjobs. I was debating how best to handle things when Alex stepped in front of me.

  “Desino!” he commanded, whatever the fuck that meant. For all I knew, he was encouraging them.

  I stepped to the side to get a better view of what they’d do, only to find their heads all
turning to track me - definitely creepy. Just what I needed - a fight against a group of Daredevil wannabes.

  Alex turned his head and directed his words at the couple, who still stood there smirking like douche-nozzles. The woman threw a dirty look back his way in response, but nothing more.

  The nearest of the eyeless monks was almost within reach to clonk me with his crowbar of doom when Alex said something else to the couple, a distinctly angry tone in his voice.

  The woman let out a disgusted sigh, then she and her companion joined in shouting foreign phrases at the blind lynch mob. More words followed until, finally, the angry snarl left the old guy’s face and he held up a hand. His fellows immediately stopped in their tracks. Neat trick.

  A moment later, the eyeless minions shuffled back to their spots around the circle. Phew! Before joining them, though, their leader turned toward me and bared his teeth - showing his gnarled fangs. He hissed in my direction, then spat on the floor.

  I kept my mouth shut at the implied insult, not wanting to agitate the old fuck any further. I’d seen enough kung-fu movies to know that never turned out well.

  I did, however, flip him the finger.

  Alex stepped once more to stand at my side. “That is really not helping your situation, Freewill.”

  “They’re the ones who overreacted.”

  “Overreacted?” The woman's tone was one of outrage, but at least she spoke English. “You were the one fool enough to interrupt.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize that there were rules to an eye-gouging circle jer...urk!”

  She was across the room before I could finish the sentence, lifting me from the floor by the throat. Okay, perhaps I needed to rethink my attitude.