The Tome of Bill (Book 6): Half A Prayer (16 page)

I was tempted to continue with that line of thought. After all, if ever there was a time to lapse into dungeon-speak, now was it. Hell, it might’ve made the whole trip seem a bit less intimidating if I treated it as another D20 waiting to be rolled. Just then, though, I happened to look ahead. Dim light seemed to be visible - very faint, but in the darkness, it stood out like a beacon. It was uneven, however - broken up as if by...and that’s when I saw the debris.

“Come on, guys.” I raced forward, all pretense of role-playing forgotten. Pity for that, because I forgot one of the main rules of dungeoneering - always check for traps.

Well, okay, traps might have been a bit overdramatic. I tripped over a stone I’d missed and went sprawling, landing amongst multiple sharp little rocks that led up to the destruction in front of us.

“I meant to do that,” I said, clambering to my feet.

“Sure you did.” I didn’t need to turn to know Sally was smirking.

“What the hell happened here?” Miranda asked. It was a worthwhile question. Beyond, where the light was dimly glowing, the tunnel ended and opened up into a much larger cavern. In front of us, though, a field of jagged rocks and shattered stone stretched out over thirty feet.

“Cave-in, maybe?” Brock offered.

“No,” Sally said. “Look at the rest of it. The tunnel is still relatively smooth up at top, just some minor scarring. If this had been a cave-in, it would be pitted to all hell.”

“If not that, then what?” I asked.

“I think I know.” She walked to my side and turned to face me. “When I first got here - to Vegas, that is - the tunnel from the subbasement, the one we gated, was sealed up. The previous coven master had ordered it closed up tight with a concrete plug.”

“What happened to it?”

“We blew the shit out of it, that’s what.”

“We?”

She ignored my question and continued. “When the smoke cleared, what was left looked a bit like this, only a lot smaller in scale. I think the same thing might have happened here.”

“Something was trying to get out?”

“No, something
did
get out.” She took a deep breath and began to pick her way forward, but not before turning back to the group. “I think this is it - where those things call home. The problem is it might also be a former prison, and I have a feeling the inmates won’t be too happy to see us.”

I took another swallow of blood and tossed the now empty canteen to the side, the hollow container bouncing loudly off the ground.

“Why not just ring the bell, Bill?” Sally asked in a hushed voice.

“Sorry.”

My powers bolstered once again, I took the lead, easily climbing over the large rocks that lay in our path. Despite the danger we were no doubt heading into, a small part of me smiled inwardly. I realized this had been the longest I’d ever been juiced up on vampire blood. The power almost began to feel familiar. I’d definitely miss it once this was over and done with - assuming there was still a
me
left to miss anything. Never let it be said I didn’t have an upbeat attitude.

I turned back to see how the others were fairing. Brock and Vlad shuffled their own ape-like forms past the debris, but I was happy to see that Sally had hung back to give Miranda a hand. It was almost like a part of her had rediscovered some small sliver of humanity - not much, mind you, and most of it was in a Hannibal Lector sort of way, but there was some. Maybe being around me and my roommates was rubbing off on her after all.

Or maybe it was just her ensuring our major source of firepower didn’t fall and crack her skull right before we entered the mouth of madness. That kinda made sense too.

Finally, we were all past the rocks. I shared a quick glance with Sally. The look on her face matched mine and I had a feeling we were thinking the same thought: if things turned sour - which they were almost guaranteed to - that pile of debris was going to majorly slow us down.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve got this one covered.”

She gestured Vlad over, and the two of them walked back toward the debris field. I was about to question what they were up to when I heard the other members of our party gasp in surprise.

I turned back toward them, afraid that maybe our luck had finally run out, but what I saw instead took my breath away. I’d been too busy clambering over rocks to really take in our new surroundings, but now that I was really looking at it for the first time, I had to admit that if this was a prison, it was a pretty fucking wild one.

I wouldn’t have called this place well lit by any stretch of the imagination; more like standing outside on a clear night with a full moon. Even so, had a festering pit of evil monsters not lay somewhere before us, it would have made a surreally awesome make-out spot. The cave was huge, several hundred feet across at least, with the ceiling rising up a good fifty feet above us. The walls glittered in the massive cavern. I wasn’t sure of the source, but from the faint glow, I wouldn’t have ruled out bioluminescence - maybe moss or rock worms or some such.

Hopefully, Sally still had some spray paint left. Otherwise, we would have a hell of a time finding our way out. Multiple caves led away from this grand chamber. None of them seemed as perfectly symmetrical as the one we’d entered from, though. They were either naturally formed or the result of some cruder method of digging them out. Even so, assuming I could trace Ed’s scent to the correct one, there was the problem of getting out again. In a pinch, running for our lives, I could see how easy it would be to head down the wrong one and find ourselves thoroughly ass-fucked. It would be a real...

“What’s that?”

I turned to find Miranda staring up at a section of wall, her headlamp illuminating it.

Holy shit. I’d been too busy marveling at the size of the place to notice it, but now that she pointed it out, the massive pictograph seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.

Even wilder, now that I could see the images and odd scratchings up on the wall, I noticed that some of that bioluminescence was woven into the pictures. Certain parts sparkled, seeming to highlight passages of whatever message or story it was trying to convey.

A low whistle of surprise sounded behind me and I turned to find Sally and Vlad had returned from their meanderings and had joined us in staring up at the wall.

“I agree,” I said. “My ass
is
quite spectacular. Although I’d ask you to refrain from the wolf whistles. I’m not just a piece of meat, you know.”

Sally chose to ignore me and instead dug into her pack for something. She produced a high-powered LED flashlight and used it to augment Miranda’s lamp, showing us more of the pictograph above.

“What the hell?”

The very left-most image showed a figure standing with its arms outstretched. The shimmering crystals, or whatever, had been ingrained into the being’s form - white flowing robes, it seemed - making it sparkle as if with power.

Waves of energy were drawn flowing out from it, over what were either rocks or a crudely drawn pile of shit. I assumed the former as the next series of pictures showed those rocks gradually taking on humanoid form.

“Is this what I think it is?” Miranda asked.

“What? Just a bunch of stick figures,” Vlad offered.

“Go be useful and scout out the room,” Sally ordered him and Brock. Once they had walked off, she shook her head disgustedly. “Morons. Anyway, yeah, I’d say so. If I were a betting woman...” She turned to me and held up a hand. “No comments from the peanut gallery. Anyway, if I had to bet, I’d say we’re looking at the creation of those things.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, but who is that?” I pointed to the glimmering figure who seemed to be giving them life. “If I didn’t know better, with the white glow and all, I’d say that was...” I trailed off, not wanting to say it out loud.

Fortunately, Sally was there to give voice to all of my unpleasant thoughts. “An Icon?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

“I agree, but that’s as close as I can come to making sense out of that picture. Miranda?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Could be a metaphor.”

“Those fuckers sure as hell aren’t metaphors.”

“I know.” There was frustration evident in her voice, as if she thought she should be of more help to us.

“There’s more,” I pointed out, nudging the hand Sally used to hold the flashlight further along the path of the pictograph.

Rather than slug me, which was the norm for her, she focused the beam on what appeared to be the next part of the story - unsurprisingly, a bloody battle. “Okay, now this really makes no fucking sense.”

I couldn’t disagree. Here, the crude rock monster drawings were dog-piling on a variety of other figures. Some of them were larger than the others,
much
larger. They stood on two legs and were colored a dull brown. “Are those Bigfeet?”

“Could be,” Sally replied. “But if so, then why aren’t we signing these assholes up to fight on our side?”

“Because I think the others being attacked are you,” Miranda said. “See those scratches on their heads? Those could be fangs...and look.” She focused her beam a bit higher where a moon clearly shone, hanging above the combatants.

“That’s the best they could do?” Sally scoffed.

“I’m pretty sure the batwing motif is more of a modern conceit,” I commented.

“Fuck that. I’ve never been much into impressionist art.” She played the beam of the flashlight further on where the scene concluded. “Now
this
is where things get interesting.”

“I didn’t realize you were bored.”

Sally glanced sidelong at me. “I’m a high maintenance kind of girl.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

Our banter done for the moment, we all took in the final part of the story before us. Another figure stood before the creatures. This one was also highlighted with the luminescent thingies, but colored differently. Also, this time, the sparkles were around the figure’s outstretched hands. The Jahabich appeared as if they were being forced back toward a deep hole in the earth.

“I’m no archeologist, but I’d bet my left testicle that this shows these things being defeated with magic.”

“You can’t bet what you don’t have and the house isn’t giving credit today,” Sally countered, “but I agree. Look at the way that guy is depicted - like he’s wearing a skull mask or maybe a headdress. Some kind of shaman maybe. Miranda?”

“Some of this looks vaguely familiar.”

“The pictures?”

“No,” she explained, trailing her headlamp lower on the wall below the retreating figures of the rock monsters. “See that stuff?” She pointed to several lines of symbols.

“Yeah. Are those hieroglyphics?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure, but look how it’s spaced out.”

Sally and I both stared at it for a moment. I turned to her and she shrugged, having no clue either. “Um, it’s a haiku?”

“No, the cadence is...it’s hard to tell, but I think it might be a spell. Kinda resembles some scrolls my master showed me years ago.”

“Guess you should have studied harder,” Sally commented.

“It’s not even that. I was only in a coven for maybe two months.”

“Really?” I asked, curious.

“Yeah. None of the mages in Vegas are covened, although a few are in unions.”

“And nobody has a problem with this?”

“The Magi aren’t like vampires. Covens aren’t mandatory. They’re more of a way to protect ourselves, to learn, to pass down the lessons of the past.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Believe me, it’s not all wine and roses. You have some wizards who insist on making their covens more like harems than anything else. There’re all sorts of abuses of power. Some even go crazy. Hell, I heard of this one witch from a coven out on the East coast that betrayed her brothers and sisters and got them all wiped out by...”

“By what?”

“Vampires,” she spat.

Sally and I shared a sidelong glance at that, but wisely kept our mouths shut.

“And nobody has an issue with it if you leave?” I asked, steering away from the potential minefield that was Harry Decker’s bunch.

“Well, my master wasn’t happy about it, but that was it. I met my husband when I joined. Five weeks later, we made plans to elope. After that, we decided to make our own way.”

“That’s fascinating,” Sally said, “but unfortunately, it doesn’t help us much.”

“Sorry. I was a lot more interested in being in love and using my powers to make a buck than I was in ancient history.”

“Maybe we can still make some use of this.” I pulled out my cell phone and checked the battery; still over half a charge. Thankfully, there wasn’t much cause to check email while a mile underground. I turned on the camera app and hoped the flash was enough to get the job done as I started snapping pictures of the scene before us.

“Aren’t camera flashes supposed to be bad for cave paintings?” Sally idly asked.

“During times like this, I have to ask myself whether Indiana Jones would give a shit. I’m thinking the answer is no, unless there was money to be had.”

“Or Marion.”

“I always favored Willie Scott myself,” I said. “Bet she was a real screamer.”

“Pig.”

“You know it.” I pocketed the camera and turned to Sally. “Another canteen, if you don’t mind.”

“Do I look like your serving wench?”

“Are you going to threaten to shoot me if I say yes?”

“Almost definitely.”

“Then no, of
course
not.”

She handed one over. I unscrewed the cap and took a quick swallow, keeping my motor humming along nicely on high-octane. As I capped it back up, she said, “Well, this has been fun, but I think the sightseeing is over.” She inclined her head and I saw that Brock was approaching us from the far end of the cave. She waved him over.

“Anything?”

“All’s quiet,” he said, leaning his weapon over his shoulder.

“I’m beginning to wonder if that’s a good thing.”

“Me, too.” Sally turned and scanned the cave. “Where’s Vlad?”

Brock’s face went blank. “We split up further down. He said he wanted to scout a few of the side caves.”