The Tome of Bill (Book 7): The Wicked Dead (28 page)

“Not that,” she said, her eyes turning glassy. “Keep going.”

I didn’t like the look she had on her face, as if she suddenly felt sick. “Are you okay?”

“Yes ...
keep talking
.”

“Okie dokie, then. So anyway, after that, we ended up in an alleyway where I might’ve said a few things and...”

“And it was ... deep, wasn’t it?”

“Well, not what I was saying. I pretty much just wanted to kill the dick, but you...”

Sally suddenly doubled over. Tremors racked her body and then turned into a full-on seizure.

“Oh no.” I grabbed hold of her to keep her from tumbling over into the mulch pile, but she was shaking so badly I was certain I’d lose my grip. “Sally! What’s wrong? Talk to me!”

Just as quickly as it began, the spasms stopped. For a moment, she went limp in my arms. Quick as a flash, though, she seemed to recover. One little wobble and then she was standing back up straight. The hell?

She looked me in the eye and, for just a second, I saw what appeared to be recognition. “I told you to hold on to your humanity for a little while longer.”

Holy shit! “Yeah, you did.”

“I told you it was one of your more endearing traits.”

“You remember that?”

“Clear as day. I...” She hesitated.

“What?”

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but I was proud of you. You held on to yourself where I ... err ... a lesser vampire, that is, might have given way to the anger and torn Decker’s throat out.”

“In retrospect, that might not have been a bad idea.”

“I don’t know, don’t remember that much, but you didn’t. That’s the important part. You stayed
you
. That’s when I first suspected that maybe I...”

“You what?”

“It’s ... fuzzy. I’m not sure.”

Fuck it; it didn’t matter. What did was that she’d gotten another little piece of herself back, that once again she’d managed to tap into some emotion that allowed her to knock down another piece of the wall in her brain, the wall put there by the most powerful vampire on the planet.

I couldn’t help myself – I threw my arms around her in a great big hug. It had been a kiss that had ruined part of my life this night, but in some strange sort of cosmic symmetry, it had likewise been a kiss that gave a small piece of my friend back to me. Maybe fate wasn’t so cruel after all.

“Bill?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but get your fucking mitts off of me. You smell like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.”

No, maybe fate wasn’t cruel. People, on the other hand ... they could be assholes.

Our plan had originally been to leave at the same time as the Templar contingent, but since we’d already blown that, I figured a quick shower wouldn’t hurt us too much more. Besides, Sally was right – I did reek.

By the time I came back downstairs, smelling nice and soapy with maybe a spritz of some cologne I’d found in the medicine cabinet, I found everyone in the living room.

Tom, Ed, and Sally were busy pulling guns out of her duffle bag. Adam and Mike stood nearby, hopeful looks on their faces as they stared almost rapturously at the weapons. Oh God, those two packing heat. That was gonna be lots of fun.

Dave was off to the side, a large backpack slung over his shoulder and a notepad in his hands that he was busy scribbling on. I made a mental note to see what he was writing about and, if necessary, burn it.

Christy was checking a large circle that had been drawn on the floor. I stepped forward and felt a slight hum of power coming from it. Our conveyance for the evening, I presumed. Off to the side, just outside the circle, lay Harry Decker’s skull. A dim purple glow continued to emanate from its empty eye sockets. I’d been kind of hoping his spirit had departed back to whatever Hell he was damned to be sodomized in, but that wasn’t the case. So much for this being a pleasant journey.

“Everyone present and accounted for?” I asked, knowing that at least one of our number – perhaps the most powerful among us – had been driven away by our aborted tryst earlier.

“Hey, Bill,” Tom said amicably, “you get all the shit outta your teeth?”

“No, but I see you haven’t gotten all of it out of your brain either, so I guess we’ll both have to deal.”

He chuckled, and I stepped past him.

“How’s it looking?” I asked Christy.

She turned toward me. For a moment, her gaze was hard, a testament to the fact that she was still angry, but then – thankfully – it softened a bit. Guess she’d been one of the folks who’d checked on me and probably put two and two together. The hell with it. I’d take some pity forgiveness. I wasn’t proud. “I’m just about ready.”

“Are you going to be ... okay doing this? Apparating us to...” Her glare cut me short. “I mean, sending all of us?”

A small smile crossed her face. “That’s not going to be a problem. My sisters charged up the circle before they left. There isn’t really much for me to do other than to release the power.”

“Sounds like a capacitor.”

“In a sense. At the end of the day, magic is just another form of energy. It can be harnessed and contained.”

“Cool.” I glanced to the side where I had the eerie feeling Decker’s skull was watching me. Holding up my left hand to cover that I was pointing with my right, I asked, “So, is
everyone
coming with us?”

If only your subtlety was as great as your stupidity
, Decker mind-blasted,
you might have a chance of coming out of this endeavor alive.

Gah, what an asshole. “Listen, you skinless shithead, I will gladly skull fuck the magic right out of your gourd.”

Silence descended upon the room for a moment, until Tom added, “You tell him, Bill!”

Try it and I shall show you the true meaning of power, you pathetic excuse for...

“That’s enough, both of you!” Christy snapped. “Yes, Bill, everyone is coming. Harry too. I need his help with that Jahabich binding spell. His knowledge of ancient arcana is superior to mine and...” She hesitated for a moment, as if she found what she was about to say distasteful. “...his time beyond the veil seems to have given him some extra insight.”

That immediately set off Adam and Mike, talking among themselves and wondering which of the myriad D&D pantheons he’d ended up in. Dorks. Besides, it was painfully obvious that someone like Decker would end up in a place where he’d be polishing Demogorgon’s knob for eternity.

“Is that a good thing?” Ed asked, speaking above them.

“It’s ... it’s not natural,” Christy replied, a pained look on her face. “What awaits us is supposed to be an unfathomable mystery. Breaking that wall is wrong.”

But quite useful, my ward
, Decker opined.
I have seen things that would have melted the eyes from my mortal head, conversed with beings forgotten for eons, gained knowledge that could shake the world to its very foundation.

“Prove it,” I said, smelling bullshit from a mile away. “Make good with the vulgar displays of power.”

Brainless dolt! As if I need to answer to you, the one who was my undoing in this...

“It was your own damn fault,” Christy blurted out, her face turning red. “If you hadn’t become obsessed, had considered for even a moment that your damned prophecy might be wrong, then maybe you wouldn’t have been killed.”

Blasphemy!

“It’s a fact. I’ve spent time with the Icon. She no more wants to kill us than anyone else.” She glanced around the room and shrugged. “
Most
people in this room anyway.”

And that will be your undoing, child.

“No, it was your undoing.” She sounded sad for a moment, but then her voice hardened again. “I’ve decided to make my own fate, forge my own path.”

Then you will die.

“If so, I will die as my own person, not a slave to the...”

“This is all truly fascinating,” Sally interrupted, her tone saying otherwise, “but are we going to argue metaphysics all night or go and kick Vehron’s ass before the Templar get there and fuck it all up?”

“Hard to argue with that logic,” Ed said, the look on his face mirroring what I was feeling – she sounded like the Sally we knew.

Christy apologized and went back to her preparations, but not before – much to my amusement – picking up Decker’s skull and stuffing it into a velvet bag. I shared a smug grin with Adam and Mike. It was pretty much the strategy we used when Dave had once burdened us with a wisecracking sword that he used to mercilessly mock us in-game.

Within minutes, she was ready. We all gathered inside the circle, a tight fit for our group, as Christy chanted a few words. When she was done, she started to say, “May the White Mo...” before catching herself. “May fate smile upon us.”

I had just enough time to add, “I sure as hell hope someone will,” and then there was a bright flash of light as reality blinked out around us.

* * *

I’ve said it before, but I am really not a big fan of being poofed from one place to another. It’s kind of like those freefall rides they have at amusement parks, except instead of falling down, it feels like you’re falling in all directions at once. It’s hard to explain otherwise, except to say that I was glad I hadn’t eaten a big meal before doing so.

Although I’m sure it all happened in the space of a second, it felt like hours before the world coalesced around us again. When it did, I was surprised at the view, or lack thereof.

“Holy Dimension Door, Batman!” Adam exclaimed. “That was fucking wild.”

“Wild is one word for it,” Ed remarked, no doubt due to the fact that we had seemingly reappeared in the middle of a forest. It was a small miracle none of us had rematerialized inside a tree trunk.

I was about to ask Christy if maybe she hadn’t gotten her directions mixed up when I spied something through the trees. It was overgrown and in heavy shadow, but enough remained of the billboard to clearly make out “Visit the Salem Witch Museum, 2 miles on the right.”

“Oh shit.”

“This is not natural,” Christy warned, no worse for the wear from our teleportation.

Ed and I shared a glance. We’d seen this before. Sally had too, but we had the benefit of remembering it. “It’s worse than that. It means we are potentially double-fucked.”

“What’s the big deal?” Dave asked, finally looking up from his precious notes. “So we’re in someone’s backyard.”

“Except we’re not.” I pointed down at the broken asphalt peeking up through the dirt at our feet. “We’re standing in the middle of a fucking road.”

* * *

Ed and I filled them in on things. An unnatural growth of trees, no sign of life otherwise. It all pointed to Sasquatch magic. Hadn’t Alex mentioned something about there being a potentially large Bigfoot invasion force nipping at our heels from the North? Guess he hadn’t been shitting me.

Great! In addition to everything else, now we needed to worry about how many of the ugly fuckers were standing between us and Boston.

I took a deep breath through my nose to try to gauge that. Ugh! Son of a bitch! I really needed to remember not to do that where the Feet were concerned.

“We need to get off the street,” I choked out, a pinprick of sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

“Maybe not,” Christy said. “The Forest Folk have no quarrel with the Magi. If we run into any, I can...”

“You can explain to them why you’re hanging out with a group of their archenemies,” I pointed out. “I have a feeling they’d love to hear the story, maybe even before they tore all of our arms off.”

“Bill’s right,” Ed said. “Let’s find somewhere defensible and hash out a way to get through this.”

“So you’re saying we’re trying to avoid Bigfoot?” Mike asked. “I can’t imagine it’ll be hard to avoid a pack of giant screaming apes.”

I turned toward him, keeping my voice low. “Imagine those giant screaming apes with a stealth modifier of fifty. Trust me, they make for much better thieves than you ever did.”

We definitely didn’t need the delay, especially considering that seemed to be all we were doing lately – perhaps subconsciously avoiding the inevitable – but the Feet had a nasty habit of stepping out from behind trees and pummeling the shit out of their enemies before they even knew what was happening. Sure, we were armed, but that wouldn’t help us much if we ran into an entire army of them.

Thankfully, it didn’t take much effort to find something. Despite the thick foliage, it soon became obvious we were in a residential area. Bigfoot magic seemed to affect organic life, but it left buildings intact. Kind of like a neutron bomb, except filled with triffid chlorophyll. Once you knew what to look for, it was pretty easy to spot buildings through the brush, even ones that had been overgrown at an alarming rate.

Even better, the neighborhood we chanced upon was a nice one. Before long, we found ourselves standing on the torn-up driveway leading to a big-ass McMansion.

Fuck it, if we were going to plan some strategy, it might as well be in style.

* * *

We didn’t waste any time breaking in. Locked doors aren’t much of a deterrent to vamps. Most of them aren’t designed with beings of supernatural strength in mind. It was child’s play to turn the knob until the tumbler snapped. Even better, it seemed the power was out. No power meant no loud security system blaring out to every Squatch within half a mile.

I pushed open the door and took a quick sniff of the air. No stench of rotten forest ass assaulted me. I did catch the smell of humans, but it was stale. Nobody had been through here in perhaps a day or more.

Even so, just to be safe, I called out, “Anyone home?”

“Yeah,
we are
.” Sally pushed her way past me. “Enough with the welcome wagon bullshit. If anyone is here, they really don’t have much choice in their new roomies.”

Thankfully, no angry residents met us with shotguns blazing. The place, as my nose attested, seemed to be abandoned.

Well, maybe not entirely. A few trees appeared to have grown straight up through the floorboards. I had a feeling it wasn’t a random act. If what I knew about Sasquatch magic was correct, they were what remained of the original residents.