The Tome of Bill Compendium Vol. 1 (Books 1-4) (59 page)

We continued to walk, Sally leading the way through the dripping tunnels. It seemed she had a purpose in mind.

“Where are we headed?” I finally asked.

“The office.”

“As in the office the assassins already know about? The same office where they left you a gift basket full of severed heads?”

“The same,” she answered.

“So you acknowledge you’ve either gone insane, suicidal, or both?”

“Perhaps a little of the first, but none of the second,” she replied. “I set the security alarms before I left last time. These guys may be good, but I’m willing to bet they’re about as technically adept as cavemen. If they’re waiting for us, we’ll have plenty of warning.”

“You did clean up those heads before you left, right?”

“I put them into storage.”

“
Storage
!? What for?”

“Waste not, want not. I’m debating maybe lining the walkway to my office with them. That should keep the complaints down a minimum.”

“And yet,” I mused, “I actually saved your crazy ass back there.”

“Exactly. You need
someone
to live vicariously through.”

* * *

After another half hour of traversing filth-ridden tunnels, things started to look familiar. I didn’t spend too much time in the sewers myself, but I had still thought it prudent to know the emergency exits of all our properties nevertheless. We finally came to a ladder that went up to the basement of our destination. Every few feet, Sally would stop and reach out with her senses. So far, we were alone.

We got up and used a back stairwell to make it to our floor. Thankfully, it was still early enough so the regular businesses that shared the building weren’t open yet.

“So why exactly are we here?” I asked.

“There’s a supply closet and a shower in the back. We can get cleaned up and lay low until sundown.”

“I couldn’t help but notice the words
shower
and
we
in that exchange.”

“Keep dreaming,” she replied. “I’m gonna need to lose a lot more than one hand to go that loopy.”

The alarms hadn’t been tripped, so Sally let us in and locked the doors behind us. To quote an overused phrase, the place was quiet as a tomb. Once we had made a thorough casing of the joint and come to the conclusion that we were the only ones there, Sally walked into her office and sat down to relax. I followed her so that we could have a talk.

“After the sun goes down, I’m dropping you off at the safe house with the rest of the coven. Starlight can look after you,” I said with a tone of finality.

Of course, with Sally I could have added “pretty please with sugar on top” and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. She listened to orders every bit as well as Gan did. Must be a female thing. Thusly, she shook her head. “No way. I said I was sticking with you, and I meant it.”

“You’re done. You’ve had more than enough. Next time, you might not get so lucky. I’ll make sure Gan is okay and then try to end this by myself.”

“No chance.”

“I’m serious,
lefty
,” I said, indicating her stump. “You weren’t a match for them before. You definitely aren’t now.”

“I know,” she said.

“You do? Then why are you being so obstinate?”

“For starters, because I can be.” She began rummaging through the desk with her remaining appendage. “Secondly, because I have a little friend to help equalize things.” She pulled out and placed on her desk the biggest handgun I had ever seen. She smiled at me and said, “Desert Eagle, in case you were wondering.”

“You plan on being attacked by some vampire rhinos?”

“If I am, this puppy’ll have me covered. This thing will blow pieces of your buddies all the way back to China. Even better...,” she pulled a spare clip out of another drawer and tossed it to me. I looked it over. The bullet protruding from the top had a shiny gleam to it.

“Are these...?”

“Silver bullets? You bet your ass. Cost me a pretty penny to have those babies made.”

“You?”

“Okay, it cost the coven,” she admitted.

“Yeah, about that...I thought you said the coven wasn’t supposed to be armed.”

“The coven isn’t;
I
am,” she said with a smile. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured out by now that I have absolutely no issues with double standards.”

We got ourselves cleaned up and presentable for walking the streets. In an odd bit of vanity, Sally found a pair of gloves and went about stuffing one with newspaper and then fitting it over her stump.

“That doesn’t even remotely look real,” I pointed out. “Looks like something you’d stick onto a Halloween dummy.”

“You would know all about dummies, I guess. Besides, it doesn’t need to pass Army inspection. However, there are people around here who see us coming and going all the time. One or two of the nosier ones might notice I had a hand yesterday, don’t have one today - but voila, magically have one again soon enough.”

I consider myself pretty smart, but Sally, ex-stripper or not, sometimes made me feel a teensy bit inadequate by how she always seemed to be thinking on her feet. Should our relationship ever turn sour, I’d be wise not to underestimate her. Oh, who was I kidding? If our relationship ever even looked like it was heading south, I’d be smart to stake her, leave her ashes in the sunlight, and then burn them when I was finished. Some enemies you just needed to take a
nuke it from orbit
attitude...it was the only way to be sure.

Still, Sally and I had all of eternity to plot against each other. For now, I was eager to get back to my apartment. Once I was sure she was fine and that the immediate danger was over, the fate of my roommates began to weigh heavily on my thoughts. I just hoped that Decker didn’t have any plans as to taking his revenge out on them. There was also Gan to consider. If she got hungry enough, she wouldn’t hesitate to notice the two walking refreshment stands sauntering around my apartment.

Once the sun was just barely down low enough for us to venture out safely, we made our move. There was no point in sitting around waiting to be picked off. We had taken plenty of time to lick our wounds (
sadly, Sally wasn’t too keen on me licking anything of hers, though
), and that meant the assassins had probably done so as well. A new night meant the combatants would all be ready for action again.

We stuck to the underground as much as we could, but this time we used the subways themselves so as to stay with the crowds. Rush hour turned out to be a blessing for once; even had we been tracked, there were simply too many people milling about to make a move against us.

Once we were back in Brooklyn, I had Sally keep an eye out for Nergui and Bang. Her senses weren’t nearly as acute as Gan’s, but they were still better than mine. I wanted as much warning as possible in case we found ourselves walking into a situation. It turns out we did, just not one that I had expected.

* * *

We made it to my building, and I let us in. After climbing the stairs, we stopped outside of my door. I could hear voices coming from inside. I turned to Sally. “Smell any vamps?” She shook her head. “Smell any wizards?”

“I didn’t the first time,” she shrugged.

Oh well. I guess there are less manly ways to be dispatched than via a twentieth level chain lightning spell
, I thought as I unlocked and opened the door.

“I’m telling you,
Glamdring
has the better feats,” carried a voice from the living room, Ed’s. What the?

“Dude,
Narsil
is the sword of legend. It fucked up
Sauron’s
shit,” responded Tom’s voice.

“Yeah, and the piece of crap broke apart doing so,” Ed said as we entered.

The living room was a bit out of place, as if a mess had been made and then hastily cleaned up; however, otherwise it looked fairly normal. Tom was sitting on the couch, and Ed was lounging in a chair. Neither seemed particularly...dead.

“What’s up, Bill?” Tom asked, turning to us. “Sally, always a pleasure,” he said with a wink. She couldn’t help herself and eye-rolled him back - must be instinctive for her. “Maybe you can settle a debate. Ed and I are discussing which sword from
Lord of the Rings
was the most badass. I’m siding with the correct answer: Narsil.”

“And you’re a fucking retard for doing so,” replied Ed. “Glamdring was
Gandalf’s
sword...you know, the guy that even the Balrog couldn’t snuff. Besides, think of what its name means...Foe Hammer. Tell me that’s not the most badass thing in the world. Shit, if I ever start a death metal band, that’s what I’m gonna call it: Foe Hammer.”

“I will admit that could be a pretty good band name, despite your poor judgment of blades. Any thoughts on this, Bill?”

I was pretty much still stunned by the normalcy (
relatively speaking
) of it all, but I managed to squeak out, “I always kind of liked
Sting
.”

“You are such a fag,” Tom replied in a dry voice before turning back toward Ed.

“What do you think?” I whispered to Sally.

“I think I would be less embarrassed for them if we had found them skinned alive.” It was a loaded question, and I should have expected a response like that.

“Um, guys,” I said, trying to get their attention. Normally, I’d be more than up for a little weapon porn debate, but there was more than one game afoot, and I didn’t want to get caught with my pants down again. “So...what’s going on?”

“It’s called a conversation,” Ed replied.

“No, stupid,” I said. “I mean, last night, this morning. You know,
what
happened today?”

They both looked at each other with a bit of a confused glance and then back toward me. Tom finally broke the silence. “Did we have a party or something last night?”

“A party?”

“Yeah, because I woke up on the floor, feeling like shit. The place was pretty trashed, too.”

“Same here,” Ed added. “It must have been a good one because I don’t remember anything much past yesterday afternoon.”

“Alright, enough of this beating around the bush,” Sally said, stepping in front of me. “Is Gan here?”

“What’s a Gan?” asked Tom.

“She better not be,” Ed growled. “Bill, I thought you were gonna drop Frankenstein’s daughter off with the coven.”

“Well...” I started, but Sally cut me off.

“What about the wizard?”

“Now I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ed replied.

“Oh yeah,” Tom suddenly said. “Thanks for reminding me, Sally. Bill, there’s something I wanted to tell you about Christy.”

A look of murder appeared in Sally’s eyes. She walked up to Tom and grabbed him by the shirt collar with her good hand. She pulled him to his feet and then some. I noticed his toes were just barely touching the floor as she spat at him, “Let me take a wild guess. She’s a witch...and, oh yeah, you also just happened to spill the beans on Bill while you were getting your rocks off. Am I right?”

Tom’s face was a mask of both surprise and a little terror, but he still managed to answer, “Wow. Good guess.”

She dropped him onto the couch like a sack of potatoes.

There was silence in the room for a moment, and then Ed asked, “Having a bit of a day, are we?”

Sally turned toward him. She lifted her right arm and pulled off the glove. “You could say that.”

* * *

“Holy shit! What happened!?” Ed cried, bolting to his feet.

Sally sarcastically spat in response, “A friend needed a hand, so I loaned them mine. What do you
think
happened?”

“Seriously. Sit down. Does it hurt? Can I get you anything?” Ed continued, showing some genuine concern. I had almost forgotten that just a few days ago, he had been out on a date with her.

“I’m fine,” she replied, blowing off his entreaties. “Don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”

“It will?”

“You can do that?” Tom asked me.

“If you even think about trying to snip something off me, I will do the same to you,” I warned. I tolerated a lot from them as it were. No way was I planning on letting them lop off a finger just to see what would happen. “Besides, that isn’t important right now.” I caught a glare from Sally. “Of course it’s important! I just meant we have other stuff to discuss right now.”

“This seems pretty big to me, Bill,” Ed said. “What else do we need to know about?”

“How does a vampire vs. wizard grudge match sound? The funny thing is, you guys had ringside seats and don’t even know it.”

Sally and I filled them in, starting with our adventure the previous night. Ed seemed both amazed by the story and a little pissed that he couldn’t remember it. He seemed more upset by that little detail than by the fact that Tom’s girlfriend had screwed with his head. It was a bit twisted, but I guess I could understand that. When
Godzilla
throws down with
Rodan
, you want to remember that shit.

Tom, on the other hand, seemed more concerned with the fact that his girlfriend had actually saved them in the end. Who knows, maybe there was actually something there. I had to temper his questions, though, by continually reminding him that she had put the whammy on us under the pretense of luring me to my death. I wasn’t exactly an expert in these things, but even I knew something like that wasn’t exactly a building block for a healthy relationship.

“Maybe it was a misunderstanding,” he offered.

“When someone says, ‘And now you must die, Freewill’, it doesn’t leave it open for much interpretation.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he finally admitted. “I’m thinking she and I need to sit down and have a long talk about things.”