The Tome of Bill (Book 7): The Wicked Dead (48 page)

“Enjoy the view. As for the rest ... honestly, I have no fucking idea.”

“He’s a golem,” Christy said. She’d been silent ever since we entered the tunnel. I was afraid she might’ve finally snapped, but her voice was surprisingly steady.

I considered that for a moment. “Aren’t those usually big honking monsters?”

“That’s just a modern conceit. Legend has it that golems could be made of anything, large or small, so long as they were a representation of the original soul.”

“Hey, I don’t have a porno-stache!”

I ignored Tom’s outburst and asked, “Legend?”

She took a deep breath. I realized she was trying to stay strong, analyze the situation, but it was taking a toll on her. “It’s ... it’s because that’s all it is – legend. Artificial life; it goes against our beliefs.” She paused for a moment. “Most of our beliefs anyway. No Magi, true to our ways, has dabbled in such things in recorded history. As far as I was aware, the concept of golems was little more than a fairy tale – at least up until recently.”

“Seems to be a lot of that going on in my life,” I muttered, before raising my voice again. “But what about Decker? Isn’t that what he is?”

“That’s different. His remains were still tethered to his spirit, even if only by a thread. All we did was strengthen that thread and use it as a sort of fishing line to bring the rest of his soul back.”

“But isn’t that the same idea?”

“No! It’s temporary, only because we thought it was a necessary evil. When the spell ends, he’ll return back to where he belongs. The tether will be broken. He’ll be at peace.”

I sincerely doubted an asshole like Decker would ever be at peace, but I kept that opinion to myself. “So, you didn’t try to do the same thing with Tom?”

She turned at once to glare at me, her eyes momentarily glowing red. Yeah, not a great color for her – or me, for that matter. “I was using healing magic on him at first. When that didn’t work...” She faltered for a moment, the words she was trying to say obviously distasteful to her. “...I switched to stronger stuff – meant to reshape a broken body, fill it with vitality from another source ... nature, the plants around us in this case. Besides, what we did with Harry, it wouldn’t have worked. Tom isn’t a Magi. Our life force isn’t the same as a normal human’s. The magic that infuses us goes much deeper than just our bodies.”

“So then how did
that
happen?” I hooked a thumb back toward the Jahabich who held Tom.

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What else did Decker say?” Sally asked suddenly.

“He’s been pretty much yammering about all sorts of shit,” I replied offhandedly.

“No, in that crackpot prophecy of his. When I had him on my desk in Vegas, he used to spout them all the time. They were cryptic, but concise – not a lot of wasted words. Once things came to pass, it was usually pretty easy to figure out everything in hindsight.”

“He spoke of being drowned in the flow of false life,” Gan said, nearly causing me to jump into the arms of the Jahabich marching silently on my other side. She’d somehow sidled up next to me without me noticing.

“The only thing I was drowned in was rock monster jizz,” Tom said. “And, no, you are never to quote me on that.”

“Like hell,” I replied. “When we get home, I’m updating your Twitter profile with that. I’m...” I trailed off as realization hit. Holy crap. Was that it? “I am a fucking idiot!”

“It’s about time you accepted yourself for who you are.”

“Not that, moron.” I turned to Sally. “When we were underground, in the Jahabich’s lair.”

As I said that, I couldn’t help but notice our silent guards all turned their pumpkin-sized heads in my direction. A few in the front pulled a complete one-eighty with their necks to do so. Apparently, I was finally saying something of interest to them. Shit! If so, I’d already spilled the beans. If they really wanted me to continue, it’s not like they couldn’t just beat the truth out of me.

Ignoring their creepy gaze, I turned back to Sally. “Yeah, I know, you don’t remember, but I do. The pool, that glowing orange pool of gunk. These fuckers submerged the remains of their enemies in it. That’s how they made new baby Jahabich, sorta.”

That caught Christy’s attention. “The power the White Mother used to trap captured souls in these false bodies. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“
Mother
,” all of the Jahabich present repeated, the sound echoing in the tunnel. Yeah, definitely a bunch of creeps. After a couple more seconds of their dead-eyed staring, they all turned away, apparently having concluded we’d finished the interesting part of the story.

“Uh yeah,” I replied. “The stuff the white ... chick did, I guess. Anyway, my point is that goo is basically the Jahabich’s blood. Tom got absolutely drenched with the shit.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said.

Christy held up a hand to her mouth. “Oh God!”

I turned to her and nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. Maybe that blood somehow acted as a catalyst.”

“But we all got it on us during the battle,” Sally said.

“Yeah, we did. Same thing back in NORAD, but the main difference is none of us died.”

“That is not entirely true, beloved,” Gan replied. “Following your trial, many died covered in the remains of these creatures. None, so far that I am aware, rose again.”

“It was me,” Christy said, her voice low. “The power I poured into him, the dark magic. The blood
was
the catalyst, but it needed a power source to activate it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sally replied. “These things are walking, talking monstrosities. The meatsack is just an immobile piece of cheap plastic.”

“You do know I can hear you, right?”

“They’re golems too,” Christy said, certainty filling her voice. She turned to me, her eyes gleaming, but thankfully this time, it wasn’t with anger. “This pit you mentioned; it’s full of this stuff, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “An Olympic-sized swimming pool of it at least. No idea how deep, but it’s pretty much in a pit of rock...” I trailed off, realizing the rock surrounding it wasn’t all too different-looking from the things marching us forward to our doom right now.

“To infuse life where there is none would require a lot of power to sustain, far more than I could generate myself,” Christy continued. “All I did was make a spark by comparison.”

“But it was enough,” I concluded.

Indeed it was
, Decker said, breaking his silence with a chuckle.
Congratulations, my dear. No one can say how this power was first found. That is lost to the mists of time. Even I cannot peer through them. But I can hazard a guess that perhaps it was an accident – maybe not much different than today. They say those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. It would seem ignorance of those lessons leads to the same result.

“Shut up,” Christy hissed.

In turning your back upon our ways, spitting upon the glory of the White Mother, you have become her. All hail the new White Mother.

Unsurprisingly, the Jahabich were right there to once more add their voices to the chorus. “
Mother
.”

I could only echo their sentiment, but added my own twist for our current predicament.

“Motherfucker.”

* * *

We marched in silence for a while. There wasn’t much else that needed to be said.

Okay, maybe not total silence. Tom kept up with his bitching. Oddly enough, though, I found his voice comforting. Despite all that had happened, at least he was still with us – in a manner of speaking.

At one point, maybe an hour after we’d started our trek, the tunnel ahead forked. As we neared the split, we found a few more Jahabich waiting for us. They weren’t alone.

“You guys okay?” I asked Dave and Adam after reining in the whoop of joy I wanted to let out. Now was not the time to celebrate. Also, it would have probably just gotten us pummeled.

“Aside from getting the fuck beaten out of us, sure,” Dave replied bitterly.

“What happened to you two?”

“What the fuck do you think? We ran.”

“Our heroes,” Sally commented as they were integrated into our group.

“Nothing wrong with a tactical retreat,” Adam said.

“Exactly,” Dave replied. “Remember those beholders you guys pussed out on a few years back?”

“Who the fuck throws beholders at a first level party?” I snapped.

“The whole concept of a random monster encounter is that it neither need be fair nor level appropriate.” Dave glanced around, taking in our group. “Your roommates get away?”

“Nope, I’m still here,” Tom replied.

“Vehron captured Ed,” I added.

Dave spun around, no doubt looking for Tom, until his eyes settled on Max Adventure. One of our Jahabich captors, not particularly appreciative of having their forced march interrupted, clubbed him in the chest and shoved him forward.

“Whoa, hold on for a second there,” Dave sputtered once he had caught his footing again. “What the fuck is going on? You didn’t tell me you lived with Doll Man.”

“Maybe it would be best if you stopped talking now,” Christy said.

“No, seriously. What the hell happened? Did his mom fuck a voodoo doll or something, because that is some fucked-up shit right there.”

All at once, Christy turned toward him, a bright red glow enveloping her. “I said it would be best if you stopped talking.”

Oh crap.

I stepped between the angry, grief-stricken witch and my tactless DM. That was a mistake, as it brought me into contact with the boiling hot power flowing off of Christy’s body.

“Fuck!” It was like putting my hand onto a hot stove. I jumped back instinctively, only to feel my backside bump into razor-sharp stone.

I turned, just in time to learn that the Jahabich’s first warning against Dave had been their last.

A club-like arm of solid stone smashed against my skull a split-second later, and I was mercifully carried away into darkness.

“C’mon, Bill, wake up.”

“Let me sleep a little longer, Mom. It’s Saturday.”

A hand grabbed my shoulder and gave it a shake. It was gentle at first, but then gradually got stronger – far stronger than my mother had ever been, even when I’d been a child. Hell, if she’d used half the strength being used on me right then, she’d have dislocated my arm.

I’m sure I’d done things as a kid to deserve it, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. My eyes popped open to find a beautiful face smiling down at me – light brown skin and dark eyes surrounded by a cascade of dark brown hair.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

“Hey, Star,” I said, giving my head a shake. It was a good thing vampires healed so quickly, because otherwise, I’d need a CAT scan to go along with all the times I’d been knocked out as of ... wait a second. “Starlight?”

“It’s nice to see you too, Bill.”

My brain immediately went from fuzzy to “what the fuck?” I sat up and instinctively scooted back a bit until my hands felt nothing but air and I tumbled backward, landing clumsily on the floor. I glanced around and saw I was in a room. It was Spartan in appearance, and first I thought it might be a holding cell, but then I saw the whiteboard hanging on the wall above me. I looked up at the table I’d been lying on. It appeared I was in a conference room.

Had I died? After all, spending eternity as a cog in corporate America sure as shit fit my definition of Hell. Starlight’s presence didn’t help to quell that fear either. Don’t get me wrong. As far as ghosts went, her shapely form was a metric shit-ton more welcoming than some old dude wearing chains and moaning about Christmas past.

Then I noticed the sub-standard lighting. Where normally overly-bright fluorescents would be shining from the ceiling – their artificial glow burning away all semblance of motivation for most – the lighting instead had a soft flickering quality as if little more than a nightlight illuminated the place.

I was in the Boston complex.

“What happened?”

“They carried you in a little while ago. I thought it might be easier if you had a chance to wake up in a quiet place. The halls can be a bit chaotic.”

The pounding in my head was still noticeable, but starting to subside. My healing was taking care of any blunt head trauma. After a couple of seconds, I pulled myself up and regained my footing.

All the while, Star stood close by, concern on her face. She’d always been an odd duck amongst vamps; a gentle soul within the wolf pack. The problem there was the past tense part of it. When last I’d seen her, she’d just been newly promoted to master of Village Coven – the position having been vacated by Sally when she moved to Vegas. Unfortunately, our reunion had been short-lived as I’d brought baggage with me in the form of a two-thousand-year-old killing machine.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Star, but if you’re fucking with me, I’m going to be mighty pissed.”

“You didn’t know I was still here?”

“That’s one way of putting it. They told us you were dead.” She smiled at that, to which I added, “For real, as in dusted.”

“They?”

“Firebird.”

“Oh,
her
.” Star’s tone implied she didn’t find that all too surprising. “She definitely didn’t waste any time falling in line. Guess she was still angry that Sally chose me to take over. No offense, but I wouldn’t expect her to say anything other than whatever she thought would make her look better.”

“Or piss off Sally?”

“Or that. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but they have history.”

“I gathered that,” I replied. “Just not sure how much of that history she remembers.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. So you’re saying that Firebird lied?”

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

That she was, in all her hotness. Even so, I wasn’t quite ready to concede the tearful reunion yet. “Speaking of Sally, where is she?”

“With the others.”

“My friends?”

She nodded. That was a good sign, but I thought it best to play it coy before demanding to be brought to them.

“Any other survivors beside you?”

“The rest of Village Coven are here. The new recruits, anyway. Although we’re not called that anymore.”