Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five (24 page)

“No. I want him dead. Things that never existed can't feel pain as they're bleeding and dying.”

“Moon,” Owl was using his rational voice, “we haven't the time for revenge. You must assume Broom's work.”

Moon gripped the railing and didn't lash out. “My work is revenge now. He's murdered one of us. Broom is gone. We are now four.”

“What will you do, Moon? Waste time tracking him? He's little more than a vagrant, he could be anywhere.”

Moon lifted her finger and made the sign of an “X” across her face. “I'm releasing the hounds.”

Owl stood fully at her words. “We won't allow that.”

Moon's eyebrow twitched then and her eyes tightened. “Who won't allow it? The only one who votes with you will be Flower.”

“You have to convince Key.”

“I've already spoken to Key. Key votes for blood.”

Moon didn't look back, but she pointed over the rail as her voice rose for the one and only time necessary during the discussion. “I'm certain that Broom votes for blood as well.”

Owl dropped all pretenses then and sank into his chair. Standing and thinking were too painful, and he could feel blood true enough — his own, dripping from the back of his skull.

Owl placed his face into his hands. “The Hounds will destroy what little is left of America before we can re-contain them. You toy now with plagues and atomic fire, Moon.”

Moon let the slick back of her gloved hand caress Owl's face as she walked past to leave.

“Well,” she remarked coldly, “we always knew somewhere was going to get the Hell end of it — why not the colonies?”

It was long after Moon had passed from the room before Owl quietly said to no one, “What horrors have you agreed to, Key?”

~16~

Á
ZOTOS

THERE HAD BEEN TWENTY-ONE BLACK masked and riot helmeted heads. They decorated the pikes of the iron fence that contained the gate allowing entry into the courtyard of the abandoned hotel. The hot desert sun of the forgotten day had dried the blood that had dripped from them onto the rusting white painted uprights. In the night after the battle, Margot snuck a taste with her tongue as the Priest led her inside. “Guess they didn't enjoy their stay.”

The Priest made no comment back to Margot.

“Maybe they should have called down to the front desk for extra towels?”

The Priest didn't say anything about that one either, so Margot gave up.

“Your hair is more blonde,” he said in his raspy voice. Margot was totally unprepared for him to speak. He hadn't said ten words to her since they'd finished lapping up Calvin.

“I like it blonde, and my roots are showing a lot faster.” She teased it as they walked. “Is that a vampire thing?”

“Your hair is rejecting the chemical imbalance caused by that foreign mixture of whatever cheap concoction you think is making it more attractive.”

“Did you just say my hair isn't hot?”

The headless bodies had been stacked in the courtyard and then burned. The Priest studied their arrangement while Margot
suddenly had the urge for some strawberry gum. Did vampires do that? Chew gum?

“I did not say that. I believe the correct human terminology is ‘trailer trash'.”

Margot folded her arms and squeezed tight. She wanted to pop off at him, but was too focused on what a waste it was that all the blood in those bodies had been barbecued. “I liked you a lot better when you weren't talking to me.”

The Priest started for the open arch of the hotel's grand entrance. A door had never been affixed to it, or to any portal within the structure. Someone had sure lost out on a big payday on selling some doors. Margot decided to follow him and they made their way up the steps to the second floor.

“She killed a wild animal,” The Priest said with disdain. “I can remember a time when she was much too proper to resort to something so desperate and uncivilized.”

Margot could smell it, and she didn't like that smell at all. She'd never liked the smell of death, but it was far worse now. If she'd have had a larger vocabulary, she might have even said that it was a tragic odor.

“So, then, Anastasia killed all those guys? No way, we shanked her but good…”

“You did little to put her in the state we last saw her.”

“Oh, sorry your Teacherness — I was too busy taking the brunt impact of all those bullets while you used me as a human shield to get in a good shot at her.”

The Priest actually laughed. Margot didn't find it jovial; she found it unnerving. His laugh made her newly undead skin crawl. It made a noise like he had just skinned a puppy alive and was raking its skull across a chalkboard.

They made the landing and the Priest made his way to the balcony. “No, child, Anastasia did not do this. Even if she had fully regained her faculties, she would never be able to take on all those trained men alone. She is good, but she is not
that
good.”

“Was he that good?”

The Priest craned his head to Margot, “Was who that good?”

“You know, that guy that Anastasia gets all mopey and heartsick about that she's in love with but she says…(even The Priest had to admit, her Anastasia impression was pretty spot on) ‘I love no one'.”

Margot clasped her hands over her heart and stared out to the sea and fluttered her eyelashes. It was the eyelash part which broke the spell. Anastasia never fluttered anything.

The Priest pointed down to the charred bones, swords, and body armor, which was all that remained of the squad of killers. The corpses had been arranged into a symbol:

5

“What does
S
stand for?”

The Priest didn't even have the energy to shake his head. “That is the numeral five. The sign of my former masters.” He looked to Margot, who was still wondering about chewing gum getting caught in her fangs. “It presents us with two very deep concerns. First, since we have failed to eliminate Anastasia in payment for her crimes against said former masters, I have no trophy to give them, and no leverage to spare my existence.”

“These guys must be serious badasses, huh?”

The Priest considered that Billy Purgatory was definitely in love with the wrong vampire girl, then continued, “Second, Anastasia had aid in ridding herself of these foes. I only know of one creature whose single blade can best twenty-one against it.”

“Pretty badass too, if you ask me. So you gonna spill a name?”

The Priest took in a deep breath, and then forced out the name nice and slow. Once he let it out into the universe he shuddered a little. “Sword Witch.”

His mind was already ripe with the myriad details of how this development overcomplicated everything he was trying to accomplish, and all the things he was trying to avoid. Things could not be more dire for him and his new charge. Finding Anastasia was not only a priority now, but it might prove to be deadly in consequence if she and the Sword Witch had joined forces.

He turned back to his charge before he began his move to the steps and away from this place. He wished to gauge how she was handling these new developments, and whether or not there would be some fire left in her eyes indicating that she might be up for these sudden challenges.

Margot was staring at a chip she'd gotten in her nail polish and trying to figure out how it had occurred. When she raised her eyes up to meet the deep pitted gaze of her new teacher, she didn't give off any airs of concern for her safety or the integrity of the mission.

“Can vampires chew gum?”

~17~

P
OST
-M
ODERN
S
ALLY
F
IELD

“I FEEL OKAY.” It was all Billy could get out of her when he had asked, as they flew the Hog-Bitch down deserted Nevada farm and market roads. Billy had broached the subject of food with her and she shook her head. He actually hadn't been thinking straight, and was dreaming of a big cheeseburger when he just blurted it out. Then he was gonna backpedal, but he just blurted it out again. “I'm not hungry.” She just stared ahead as back-desert Nevada flew by.

“I told you nobody is going to be looking for this awful truck. Why are we avoiding the highway? Why are you taking us this way?”

“I made a promise and I'm keeping it.”

She didn't look at him, which let Billy know that she was extra-especially annoyed with him. “When have you ever kept a promise?”

“The highway runs right through Vegas. I said I wasn't ever going there again, and I'm not.”

“Some girl looking for you there?”

Billy shook his head. “No. That's the problem. Can I just drive without you navigating?”

Anastasia looked out the window on her side. “I'm not stopping you. Drive.”

“Thank you.”

“Where are we going?”

“We're getting out of Pahrump, then out of the rest of this damn desert. I thought you were in a big hurry to get out of Nevada?”

“No, where are we going
ultimately
?”

“I don't know. You said you wanted to get out of California and I got you out of there. Now I want to get out of Nevada, and I'm gonna get us there too.”

Anastasia traced her fingernail in a lazy circle on the window glass. “Then where will we be when we get out of Nevada?”

“Whatever state comes next.”

“Where are we going to eventually stop this road trip? You know what I'm asking, you do that on purpose.”

Billy gripped the wheel tighter. He wanted to shift gears for even more emphasis, but he was already running wide open in fifth. “I'm not doing anything on purpose but driving. I don't have any idea where I'm going.”

Anastasia looked back to him. “You always knew where you were going before.”

“That was before.”

Silence.

“Where have you been?”

Billy was the one getting annoyed now. Wherever he'd been, he did not want to answer her. This, of course, made Anastasia push the question even harder.

Silence.

“I was out in the desert looking for them. I found out about a place where they used to meet.”

“Where who used to meet?”

“The Satanic Five. It was an old mission off a dark…”

“…desert highway? That's a song, nimrod.”

“It's kind of a true song.”

Anastasia had forgotten how hopeless it could be to hold a conversation with him. Especially when he was in full on scared little boy mode, like he was now; that was even worse than trying to decipher the grunts intermixed with mildly gooey affectionate and heavy sexual innuendo he usually cast out as language.

“When we get out of Nevada, you can just drop me off on the side of the road. Wherever will be more than fine.”

Billy went for the gear shifter and then back to the wheel. He was getting a headache trying to talk to her. He'd forgotten how hopeless she was to hold a conversation with. Her high, snooty language,
intermixed with mild sweetness, laced with girl-trickery and heavy sexual innuendo she pretended was English.

“I'll drop you off wherever you want, fang tits.”

Anastasia folded her arms to cover up her breasts. “Unlike you, I
do
have a plan. You will do nothing more than slow me down. The world has changed, Billy. Our time is done.”

“You got that right. I don't need you slowing me down either. I gotta figure out what my next move is going to be.”

“Let's hope it's as ill-thought as the last one of your moves.”

“I didn't notice you complaining.”

“I was not talking about that.” She no longer considered trying to keep her blood pressure from rising or not raising her voice. “I was talking about you deciding it was a good idea to go back in time and try to change the past because you had a dysfunctional childhood. Who
does
that?” Anastasia went for the exaggerated hand gestures. “Oh, I know how I'll make myself all happy and complete, I'll just go give the space-time continuum a tune-up.'”

“It didn't work.”

Billy's voice was sad, filled with remorse and lament.

“So, you did go back?”
Damn you, Anastasia, why did you just speak those words with any level of compassion in your tone?

“I don't know. I went somewhere. Twice.”

“Twice what?”

Billy considered not even going into it with her. He was thinking that the best first step in his new plan would be dropping her off at the Welcome to Whatever-State-Comes-Next pavilion when they crossed that imaginary line, leaving her in a cloud of Hog-Bitch smoke.

Her eyes were wide and soothing, and she seemed like she cared.
Damn you, Billy Purgatory, why are you falling for this again?

“You remember when we were kids and the Time Zombie zapped me off the baseball field?”

She nodded. “We were talking on the train.”

“Right. You kept asking me where the thing took me, and I couldn't remember.”

“You
said
that you couldn't remember.”

“No, I really couldn't remember.”

“So…”

“So, I remembered. I went someplace — well, Africa — but that'll just confuse you…”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Anyhow, I was still just a little kid and I went home. But it wasn't my home, it was where some other me lived.”

“You were in an alternate reality.”

“Right. Yeah. Hell, I don't know. Sure.”

“What does any of this babbling you're doing have to do with anything important and non-babbly?”

“Well, the last time you saw me, when ‘grownup' me went back in time with the Time Zombie, I went to that same place.”

“You were there with your ten-year-old self?”

“Yeah.”

Anastasia quietly considered. Billy was just about to forget it all and turn up the radio when she started speaking again. “So, what was this place like?”

“Perfect. Wrong, but perfect.”

“So why did you ever come back here, then?”