The Tome of Bill (Book 6): Half A Prayer (52 page)
“I doubt that,” Sally said casually. “Once we get finished with this Vehron asshole...well, dead vamps tell no tales.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? The Icon...she’s coming with us. It’s not just her destiny to face the Freewill. She’s destined to destroy my kind as well.” She put her hands protectively around her stomach.
“Sheila wouldn’t...”
“She doesn’t want to, but she will. She’ll find out and it will turn her against us. She’ll realize that if one of us can do this - can set forth these abominations against the world - then others can too. I don’t know how it will happen, but it will happen. It’s fate. I’m fated to die at her hand and so is...so is my baby.”
She tried to say more, but the rest was lost to her sobs. I wanted to comfort her, but it wasn’t exactly my strong suit. What was there to say? “There, there, I’m sure Sheila won’t chop you to pieces with her flaming white sword”?
“Fuck fate.”
“Huh?” I turned around.
Sally stood up and stepped forward. “You heard me. I don’t remember either of you for shit, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know myself.”
She knelt down on one knee and gently took hold of Christy’s hands. Whoa. It was...almost human of her.
Christy looked up, her eyes shining with tears as Sally spoke. “You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to give up. I’ve faced disappointment, betrayal, violence, all of it. More than once, I’ve resigned myself to fate - to be a failure in my father’s eyes, to be little more than a whore, to be a slave to Night Razor...”
On that last one, her eyes flashed black and her fangs descended. She gritted her teeth and I saw a thin trickle of blood run down the side of her lips. Obviously, the memory of Jeff was a potent one. She opened her mouth, perhaps to say more, but then a violent tremor shook her.
Christy reached out, but I was faster - using my vampire reflexes to reach Sally’s side and steady her. After a moment, the spasm subsided.
She blinked a few times, shook her head, and looked up at me. “You were there, weren’t you?”
“What?”
“At Jeff’s death.”
“You remember?”
“Vaguely...almost.” I was about to say more, but she held up a hand. “Doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“You’re wrong,” she said before turning back to Christy. “What matters is that each and every time, I refused to accept my fate. I told destiny to go fuck itself, that I’d make my own. If I can do it, you can too.”
Christy and Sally stared hard at each other for several seconds. Finally, Christy broke contact to glance up at me, her eyes asking a question.
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I’ve been telling the powers that be to go take a flying leap since I got bitten.”
“So what do you say?” Sally stood up and offered a hand.
Christy looked at it for a moment, then grabbed hold as my partner pulled her up to her feet. “I’ve always been taught to respect destiny - that accepting it was the path to true happiness. But if what I thought I knew about the White Mother is false, then maybe that is too.”
“You never know.”
“But if we’re wrong...”
I held up a hand. “We’re going to be walking into a lion’s den. You won’t be able to throw a rock without hitting an enemy. If we’re wrong, we’re all dead anyway.”
“You’re not doing a very good job of making me feel better.”
“But if we’re right,” I continued, “then who knows what awaits us in the end? I think we need to find out together. What do you say?”
Christy hesitated for a moment, but then she nodded, forcing a smile.
“I’m in. What the hell?” Sally said. “Beats the fuck out of being Alex’s slave or, even worse, Colin’s.”
“You remember that asshole too?”
“Unfortunately.”
I laughed at that and soon both of them joined in.
Fate could indeed go fuck itself.
I had no idea what the near future held, who would live or die, or even who truly held the keys to my heart, but I finally realized that maybe I didn’t need to.
I’d just been witness to a minor miracle - a child amongst our kind shaking off a small part of the compulsion laid down by the most powerful vampire in the world. If she could do that, then couldn’t we all do the same to the strings of fate guiding us? It was worth a shot.
Together, my friends and I would stride forward and make our own destiny.
The future was ours for the taking, and we’d do our damnedest to make it one worth remembering.
THE END
Bill Ryder will
return in:
The Wicked Dead
(The Tome of Bill, part 7)
Can’t wait for more Bill? Follow his ongoing misadventures on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/BilltheVampire
Whoever penned the phrase
no rest for the wicked
was right on the money. I find myself sitting here, mere weeks before the release of this book, wondering where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I’d released book five and was settling down to relax. Fast forward about ten minutes later and I was back at my computer, unable to get Bill Ryder or his friends out of my head. This is one of those stories that just poured out, almost as if I’d cracked open my skull and rammed a spigot into the opening - albeit slightly less painful.
Of course there’s a vast difference between an inspired first draft and the final story you see before you. My first drafts have a roughness akin to chopping down a tree, running a piece of sandpaper across its length, and declaring it fine furniture. The actual art of polishing is what takes time and patience - working closely with my wonderful team of contributors. If you missed them, be sure to go back to the beginning of this book where they’re all listed. Each of them deserves a round of applause for the effort - not to mention their patience in dealing with me. It is my sincerest hope that it was all well worth the wait.
I know it was for me. Though this book delves into dark places for our hero at times, I never once felt it. I had a grand time following Bill on his adventures and an even better time when it became apparent that nearly all of his “friends” would be making an appearance in this one. Some of these characters - I’m looking at you, Gansetseg - are such that I’ll often get yelled at because I’ll be typing away, fully immersed in their character, not realizing I’m cackling with glee like a madman.
I can only hope some of that joy has translated to the pages you have just read and, subsequently, to you, dear reader. If so, then this journey has been well worth the effort.
Until next time...
Rick G.
Rick Gualtieri lives alone in central New Jersey with only his wife, three kids, and countless pets to both keep him company and constantly plot against him. When he’s not busy monkey-clicking words, he can typically be found jealously guarding his collection of vintage Transformers from all who would seek to defile them.
Defilers beware!
Rick Gualtieri is the author of:
Bill the Vampire
(The Tome of Bill, Part 1)
Scary Dead Things
(The Tome of Bill, Part 2)
The Mourning Woods
(The Tome of Bill, Part 3)
Holier Than Thou
(The Tome of Bill, part 4)
Sunset Strip
: A Tale From The Tome Of Bill
Goddamned Freaky Monsters
(The Tome of Bill, part 5)
Half A Prayer
(The Tome of Bill, part 6)
The Tome of Bill Compendium: Volume One
To contact Rick (with
either undying praise or rude comments) please visit:
Rick’s Website
:
Facebook Page
:
www.facebook.com/RickGualtieriAuthor
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The Wicked Dead
“Anything?”
“Yeah,” Sally replied, holding up her glass. “This needs more vodka.”
“I’m not talking about the drink.”
“Sorry. The only thing I can concentrate on right now is what a shitty bartender you make.”
Grumbling numerous unkind words, I grabbed the glass out of her hand and stormed out of the room - feeling her smirk following me all the while. As much as her memories might still be scrambled, deep down she was still Sally. That meant she’d quickly made a game out of her sessions with Christy, settling into a routine that was all about her. Christy would do the magical equivalent of entering my partner’s head and rearranging the furniture, often exhausting herself in the process. Afterward, Sally would be the one demanding to be pampered for her
suffering
- refusing to cooperate until she was suitably mollified.
And yet for some reason I actually wanted her memories back. Hell, I was willing to do whatever it took to restore her.
I must have rocks in my head.
Slamming the door shut behind me, I let out a weary sigh. No, it wasn’t rocks. There was something a lot heavier weighing me down. Some days I almost envied the older vampires. To them power and station were everything. Pesky crap like emotions were too petty a thing for them to worry about. I dare say a callous Vulcan-like attitude sure as shit sounded tempting lately. It would have made things a whole lot easier as I fumbled through the days - trying desperately to sort out my feelings for the women in my life.
I walked over to the kitchen nook, internally amazed at how life could sometimes hand you everything you ever wanted while still managing to flip you the finger.
Seriously, if you had told me even a few months ago that I was going to live in the same building as Sheila, the girl I’d been pining after for years, I’d have done cartwheels up and down the halls. That was shit straight out of my best fantasies. Sure, it was out of necessity as we prepped for battle - one that we had no guarantee of walking away from alive, but those were just the pesky details.
Allowing myself to have feelings for Sally had muddied those waters, though. A small part of me kept screaming that the whole thing made no fucking sense. Sure, physically, Sally was a dream girl for most heterosexual males, but her attitude was enough to drive any sane person to drink. She was an alpha dog to the extreme. In many ways the concept of just working with her was intimidating - much less doing anything of a more intimate nature.
In short, she was a threat to the manhood of any red-meat eating, tough-guy male - much less me - smart enough to give her biting wit razor sharp teeth and tough enough to let her fists do the talking if she needed to. Hell, she was out of my league on so many levels that I shouldn’t have even been allowed to watch her play. All in all, there should have been enough red flags there to make me run off screaming. Yet, all of it had the opposite effect on me. I greatly respected her. She was strong even when she didn’t have any reason to be and she’d stuck by my side during moments when I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for running for the hills.
My thoughts trailed off as I looked through the cabinets in the little kitchen nook. Where was that bottle of vodka? More importantly, why was I putting even a modicum of effort into finding it? All so I could top off a concoction of orange juice and blood in the hopes that Sally would claim remembrance of something -
anything
that would give me hope?
Of course I was.
For the sake of our friendship alone I’d have done that and far more if it meant she remembered even a second of our past.
“Getting awfully dry in here!” her voice carried from the room.
Bitch! Yeah, I definitely had rocks in my head.
Speaking of crazy concepts, though, I really had more pressing ones to focus on. The truth was, worrying about any potential relationship with either Sheila or Sally was a luxury I didn’t really have.
The end of the world was nigh, but there was a good chance we wouldn’t even live long enough to see it. We’d been busy planning an assault on the Boston Prefecture - the heavily fortified former nerve center of vampire activity in the Northeastern United States. That in of itself was going to be tough enough, but it was just the tip of the fucking iceberg. Assuming we got in, we’d have to battle our way through an unknown number of vampires, zombies, and god-knows what else to reach our true target: Vehron the Destroyer - a nickname not earned due to his fondness for naval vessels.
Well okay, that wasn’t entirely true, I considered as I found the bottle of Smirnoff Red in a cabinet above the sink. The whole part about him being a badass was, don’t get me wrong. The untruth was that my friends had actually been the ones planning things. I’d made myself scarce the past few days. Worry over Sally had been a part of it, but there had also been some planning of my own - considering a desperate course of action that I knew to be borderline insane.
The others weren’t pleased at me, thinking I was blowing them off. I couldn’t blame them for that. After all, under any other circumstances that’s exactly what I would’ve been doing. Instead, I’d been deep in thought, mulling the possibility of...
“I remember it all!”
Sally’s cry brought me out of my reverie. Hope instantly filled me and I found myself actually taking a step toward the bedroom before stopping myself short. As much as I wanted to race to her side and confirm it to be true, deep down I knew I had to take care of one small bit of business first.
* * *
“What the fuck took you so long?” Sally asked, her tone betraying her irritation. “Were you out there playing with yourself? On second thought, don’t answer that.”
“Sorry,” I replied, stepping into her room and closing the door behind me.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Of course I did.” I smiled and crossed over to the side of the bed where she was sitting. “Tell me everything.”
