The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (121 page)

Once the sun came up, our vampire guests decided to grab some sleep. The witches kept at their chanting, but some of them started to nod off. It had apparently been a long series of days and nights for them, what with searching for the Icon and blowing up my coven. That was good. Once their numbers were whittled down, I stood and stretched. I took a deep breath and turned to Sally. This needed to look convincing.

“I need a shower to relax,” I said to her, making sure to keep my tone as haughty as possible. “Let’s go.” I phrased it as a command, something that a coven master would say...hopefully. I hadn’t ordered too many women into the shower with me. The few times I’d tried, it came out sounding more like wishful pleading.

Sally, unsurprisingly, raised an eyebrow at that. All right, time for the coup de
grâce
.

“
NOW!!
” I compelled at her.

For a moment, she didn’t move. That wasn’t too surprising. Sally’s older than me, so compelling her would be next to impossible. There was also the fact that I sucked at it.

Still, the others didn’t know that. For all they were aware, I was the all-powerful Freewill for whom the normal rules of being a vampire did not apply. A second passed, and I feared that she was going to tell me to go fuck myself. Without warning, though, she stood up, a blank look on her face. I turned toward the back and began walking, listening as her footsteps followed.

As I passed a few of the still conscious vamps, a shadow of a smirk appeared on their faces. This was the kind of thing that most vampires loved to see, the strong forcing their will upon the weak. Bunch of dicks.

We reached the showers, and I locked the door behind us. Taking my cue, Sally immediately began turning on all the faucets.

Once the room was nice and noisy, she walked over and whispered, “I assume you’re going to give me a reason to not kick your ass.”

I nodded. “Thanks for playing along.”

“Just don’t make it a habit.” She threw back her head and screeched, “OH GOD, YES!”

“Um...”

“Do you want this to be convincing or not?” she asked, her voice low again.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then spill. Even I’m not that good of an actress.”

* * *

I filled her in on my plan, telling her to be ready to go come sundown - in betwixt her continued cries of stuff like “MORE!” and “HARDER, MASTER, HARDER!” Fake or not, she made it damn difficult to concentrate. I found myself wishing I hadn’t lost my cell phone the night before. This shit would have made a nice ringtone.

We both ran our heads under the water before shutting things down. I may be new at the deception game, but even I knew enough to be leery of someone who takes a shower and walks out as dry as they went in. Before we left, Sally made a show of rumpling her clothes a bit, to give them that hastily dressed look. It was probably wrong of me to think it, but regardless of how this whole mess turned out, I had little doubt this interlude would be filling my fantasies for weeks to come. Sue me for being shallow.

By the time we got out, Ed had returned, computers in hand. He gave us a quizzical look as we emerged. Sally, being the bitch that she is, turned to me as we approached him and breathily gasped, “Thank you, master,” before changing direction. I was used to daylight hours, but they weren’t her specialty. She had mentioned in the shower grabbing a few hours of sleep. At least one of us would be fresh for the night to come. It might save us from doing something stupid.

“Do I want to ask?”

“What?” I said innocently enough. “Just taking advantage of my lofty station in life.” I took some amusement from torturing him, especially considering he had an eye for Sally. What good are friends if they can’t fuck with one another in even the direst of situations?

Taking my laptop, I set myself up at one of the desks - making sure that no unfriendly eyes were in a position to look over my shoulder.

I then proceeded to get to work...seriously. What I had planned would need to wait until it started to get dark. It wouldn’t be realistic otherwise. Additionally, I actually did have a project due. On top of everything else, I really didn’t need my boss, Jim, crawling up my ass right at that moment. He’s just the type to freak out over deadlines while everyone else is busy trying to stave off the apocalypse. Some people just have no sense of perspective.

At around three PM, I figured it was time to get the ball rolling. I logged into an encrypted proxy I occasionally used to...err...
borrow
movies online. Despite my confidence that Remington wasn’t exactly a master hacker, there was no point in taking chances. At the very least, it made sense to cover my tracks a bit. It would be just my luck to have someone run an IP trace and notice that the source of what I was sending was right there on the same network.

* * *

Right on cue, about fifteen minutes after the sun went down, Remington stalked out of Sally’s office. He walked over to where she stirred and rudely nudged her with his boot.

“Wake up. You’re with me.”

“Huh?” she asked sleepily.

“Let’s go. I need you to confirm the authenticity of something.”

He didn’t bother waiting for her reply. Reaching down, he grasped her by the arm and dragged her to her feet, steering her toward her office and shutting the door behind them.

I immediately fired off an email to Ed. It comprised just three words:
Wait for it
.

“We have a lead!” Remington barked. “I want to be on the road in five.”

“The Icon?” a witch asked.

“Quite possibly.”

“We need to inform the master.”

Remington gave her a curt nod. “Tell him to meet us there.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, as if I didn’t have a clue.

“
We
are not going anywhere, Freewill,” he stated. “My team and the Magi have a possible Icon sighting in Hoboken.”

“You do? How?”

“Amazingly enough, via members of your coven. I intercepted some instant messaging chatter between them.”

Heh, intercepted...yeah right. I made sure that shit popped up front and center on Sally’s PC.

“If they’re from my people, I need to...”

“No,” he said, his tone implying he wasn’t to be argued with. “You, the woman, and your human will remain here.”

“But...”

“It is for your own safety,” he said. He didn’t even try to mask that fact that his concern was complete bullshit.

“We’re a part of this,” I protested, laying it on thick.

“It’s Starlight, Bill,” Sally said, drawing a glare from Remington. “She could be in trouble.” Heh, she almost sounded concerned.

“The safety of your coven-mates will be our top priority,” Remington told her in such an offhanded manner you could almost hear the scorn between the lines.

“This is unacceptable,” I replied, going for the Academy Award. “Boston will hear about these improprieties.” I wasn’t even sure of what I had just said, but it sure as shit sounded snippy.

“Feel free,” he said, knowing that my protests would go in one of Colin’s ears and out the other.

Despite our best
efforts
, Remington wouldn’t budge. It was going perfectly. These dipshits and Decker’s minions would be heading west, while we’d be going northeast. That would give us plenty of time to...

“Harris!” Remington shouted.

One of his trench-coated minions stepped forward. “Yes, sir.”

“I want you to stay here.” What?! “The Freewill needs to be protected.”

“Of course, sir.”

“At
all
times,” he added.

Motherfucker! The asshole was leaving a babysitter to keep an eye on us. I doubted they really suspected anything. Well, okay, Decker most likely did. Colin, on the other hand, probably just wanted to keep me from fucking things up for him. Either way, though, it was something I hadn’t planned for. We needed to find a way to lose this guy.

* * *

“Settle down, we’re going to be here for a while,” Harris smugly said.

I racked my brain, trying to think of a way to distract him long enough for us to disappear. I considered asking Sally to turn on the charm, but I had a feeling her commitment to our cause wasn’t quite
that
solid.

Heck, even overpowering him was problematic. Harris was most likely older than Sally and thus stronger than both of us. I could always try to bite him, absorbing his strength as my own. The problem was, even if we managed to knock him out, there wasn’t anything to keep him from ratting us out once the others got back.

I was still considering my options when Sally walked out of her office wearing a jacket.

“Let’s go,” she casually said to Ed and me.

“How?” I asked as Harris rose to his feet.

“Like this.”

In one swift motion, Sally reached into her jacket and produced a massive handgun - one that dwarfed the weapon she had used at Sheila’s office - her Desert Eagle. A thunderous *
BOOM!
* sounded and Harris’s head disappeared in a spray of blood and brains. A moment later, his body disintegrated into dust.

While I waited for my hearing to return, Ed mouthed, “Holy shit!” That was the understatement of the day.

“What the fuck did you do, Sally?!” I yelled.

“I cleared the road. Look, no more obstacles. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Seemed like the path of least resistance to me.”

“Um, not that we’re ungrateful or anything,” Ed said, “but didn’t you just commit the equivalent of vampire high treason?”

“Probably,” she replied, putting the still smoking gun back into her jacket. I don’t know how I missed it when she first walked out. It left quite a visible hump under the material.

“And isn’t that bad?” he asked. “Bill, didn’t you say these Draculas don’t fuck around with shit like this?”

Sally actually cracked a smile. “I’m touched by your concern, and just for the record, you’re right. Under normal circumstances, I might as well have just blown my own head off right there.”

“But?” I prodded.

“But, it’s not like he’s going to tell anyone now. Is it really a crime if there aren’t any witnesses?”

“I guess you have a point.”

“Of course I do. Now let’s vacuum him up and get moving. We need to find a car, and it’s not like one is going to steal itself.”

* * *

We got caught in rush hour traffic heading toward Westchester. It greatly slowed us down, but hopefully the others would be busy for hours to come on a snipe hunt over in Hoboken. If not, we’d still have a huge head start. It wasn’t like they knew where we were going. Even if they suspected us, we would still be the veritable needle in a haystack.

The upside was the delay gave us time to fill in some gaping holes with our plan. There was always the possibility that the Templar moved Sheila someplace else and we’d come slinking back to the city empty-handed. In that case, we’d have some explaining to do. After a bit of back and forth, we decided to fall back on some tried and true Freewill-related bullshit - I went nuts, snacked on Harris, then led Sally and Ed on a merry chase through the city for the entire night. It was pretty weak, but still better than
so sorry, but we killed your man so we could attend an all-night Star Trek marathon
.

* * *

Thankfully, the car that Sally jacked had a built-in GPS. Once we got past traffic, we were able to find the church with no problem. It was a good sized place situated right next to a Catholic middle school. Just great. It wasn’t bad enough that we were going to desecrate a church, but a school too. Oh well - if you’re going to do something morally reprehensible, you might as well go all the way.

At first glance, it all looked to be abandoned. Construction tape blocked off the parking lots of both structures, warning of renovations. No doubt it was a smoke screen set up by the Templar.

We instructed Ed to park a few blocks away. No point in being obvious about our commando raid.

“Okay,” I said once we had parked, “we know these guys are hostile to us. It’s probably too much to hope that we can talk our way through them.”

“I wasn’t planning on trying,” Sally remarked, pulling out the massive handgun again and slamming in a fresh clip.

“No,” I said, putting my hand over the gun.

She swatted it away. “Never touch a girl’s piece without asking first, Bill.”

“No killing unless absolutely necessary.”

“Oh pl...”

“We don’t know what’s going on in there. If you run in acting like it’s the fucking O.K. Corral, you could accidentally hit her.”

“Or worse,” Ed said.

“Worse?”

“Yeah,” he continued. “Didn’t you say she seemed pretty freaked when you vamped out on her?”

“Yep, but can you really blame her?”

“No, but I likewise couldn’t blame her if she freaked out seeing two vampires, one of whom was blowing people away with a hand cannon.”

“Your point?” Sally asked.

“If she gets frightened, she may try to bolt...”

“If that...”

“Or she may try to fight,” he said. “Let’s not forget that she’s the Icon. Even a handshake from her can fuck up both of your days.”

Sally seemed to consider this. “Fine. No shooting...unless I have to.”

“Fair enough.”

“That’s all we can ask for,” I added.

“Just between the three of us, though,” she said, opening the car door, “I hope I have to.”

* * *

“Which one?” Ed asked from our vantage point, hidden behind some bushes just out of sight of the church.

Despite the construction notices, dim light shone from both buildings. Not overly subtle of the Templar, but they must not have been aware we had forced one of their men to squeal.

“Church first,” I replied, my tone more confident than I felt. “That’s what the Templar said. Should be easier to check. If we don’t find her there, then it’s time to go to school.”

“How do you want to do this?” Sally asked.

“How? I figured maybe we’d just sneak around to the rectory and try our luck.”

“And yet somehow you’re supposed to lead our armies against the Feet,” she sighed.